Should be interesting to see what Holland does if he wants to open up spots.
Lets consider:
-If you leave out UFA's (Filppula, Cleary, White, Howard, Brunner, Huskins and Miller)
-It's a good bet that all RFA's minus Mursak have a pretty much 100% chance of being re-signed (Andersson, Kindl and Smith)
-Factor in that Tatar, Andersson and Lashoff can no longer go to GR without hitting waivers
You end up with 20 players on the roster (12 Forwards, 7 Dmen, and 1 Goalie). That leaves 3 spots open. Obviously, the Wings priority at this time is to re-sign Howard, Brunner and Filppula. Which takes up the 3 open spots.
The Red Wings will have to make some moves if they want to make upgrades. However, I doubt they will go the buyout route.
Exactly.
BUT if you don't re-sign Filpulla (because he asks for 5M or something) then you have one roster spot open.
If Kenny uses two amnesty buyouts (let's say Franzen [sick of his floating]and Cola [Mr Glass]) then that opens two more spots.
Something like this? Not saying that this is a preffered line-up, but it could be done (although Clarkson and Clowe will probably either re-sign with their respective clubs or get over-paid on the open market)
FORWARDS
Ryane Clowe ($5.000m) - Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) - Damien Brunner ($4.000m)
Tomas Tatar ($0.840m) - Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) - David Clarkson ($4.000m)
Todd Bertuzzi ($2.075m) - Darren Helm ($2.125m) - Mikael Samuelsson ($3.000m)
Justin Abdelkader ($1.800m) - Joakim Andersson ($0.900m) - Jordin Tootoo ($1.900m)
Patrick Eaves ($1.200m)
Cory Emmerton ($0.533m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Niklas Kronwall ($4.750m) - Ron Hainsey ($3.500m)
Jonathan Ericsson ($3.250m) - Brendan Smith ($1.200m)
Brian Lashoff ($0.725m) - Kyle Quincey ($3.775m)
Jakub Kindl ($1.050m) /
GOALTENDERS
Jimmy Howard ($4.000m)
Jonas Gustavsson ($1.500m)
OTHER
Buyout: Carlo Colaiacovo ($0.000m)
Buyout: Johan Franzen ($0.000m)
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CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled with the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $63,746,667; BONUSES: $160,000
CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $713,333