Monday, June 20, 2011

2011-2012 Salary Cap Numbers Unofficially Announced

Salary CapAs per a tweet from TSN's Bob McKenzie on Sunday night, he has heard that the salary cap ceiling will go up to $64 million for the 2012 season, an increase of 7.7% over the 2011 cap ceiling.  This also means that the salary cap floor has also increased, to which budget teams will have to spend $48 million against the cap, in order to be compliant.  That is an increase of 10.6% over 2011.

After completing all of my Pool Outlooks for the 2012 season, I have the Philadelphia Flyers currently sitting with a projected cap hit of $58.4 million for 17 players, the highest current projection in the league.  The new cap ceiling number would mean they have $5.6 million to spend on six players, for a full 23-man roster.  Of course, teams only need to be spending cap space on 20 healthy players on a given night, so there is some leniency there.

At the low end of the scale, the Florida Panthers are finding themselves in the middle of a flexible rebuild with only 11 players at $17.3 million signed on for the 2012 season.  That would leave the team $30.7 million for 12 players, just to hit the salary cap floor.  That is a lot of money that needs to be spent, they will have to work extra hard and probably overpay a number of players, just to get there.

Of course, if there is any change to this number, a post will be put up saying so.  For now, let's concentrate on $64 million for the time being.

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