2018-2019 Salary Cap Number Announced

It's the day before the entry draft and the NHL has been covering a lot of ground for the upcoming 2019 season, most importantly, ahead of the silly season, the salary cap numbers have finally been released and we're in for a big jump.

The NHL and the NHLPA have agreed upon a $79.5 million salary cap ceiling for the upcoming season, which also brings up the salary cap floor to $58.8 million.  That's a $4.5 million jump at the top and $4.4 million at the bottom.

Thanks to the addition of the Vegas Golden Knights last season, salary cap strapped teams were able to get some more wiggle room, making some deals with the expansion team, not to forget teams like the Arizona Coyotes taking on some heavy loads as well.  This means that there are far less teams in dire straits, when it comes to the salary cap ceiling, but don't get me wrong, there are some teams already projected to be close already.

Even with the added cap space, I currently have five projected rosters for the 2019 season already with less than $10 million in room to move: Pittsburgh, Florida, Los Angeles, Edmonton and Nashville.  At the other end of the spectrum, I have nine teams with rosters below the salary cap floor, so they will be active players, once the frenzy begins.  Those teams are Vegas, Colorado, Long Island, Arizona, Carolina, Toronto, New York, Vancouver and New Jersey.

This boost to the salary cap ceiling will likely ramp up the negotiation processes for the top unrestricted free agents, which there aren't as many as we've seen in previous years.  If John Tavares goes to market though, that could be an all-out bidding war.

Well, now that we know the number, I'm fully expecting to see some fireworks at tomorrow's entry draft!

2017-2018 Salary Cap Number Announced

The whirlwind of activity in this NHL off-season has already started to swirl and we're probably going to hit tornado speeds here soon. It will just need to add this low pressure system of the salary cap ceiling number to throw it into high gear and then everyone will be up in the air, especially the Vegas Golden Knights.

As we headed into the Stanley Cup Finals, there were rumblings that the league was good to go on standing pat on the salary cap number and it would then be up to the players union, whether or not they would invoke their own inflator, which they have up to 5%.  The morning of Game 6 of the finals, the reports were coming out that the players would opt not to add anything to the salary cap ceiling and that the number would be around the $73 million mark again for the 2018 season.

Of course, that was far from the end of the road, as the NHLPA voted on roughly a 2.5% increase over the weekend, raising the salary cap ceiling to $75 million, which also increases the cap floor to $55.4 million for the 2018 season.  The announcement came on Sunday afternoon, which now gives NHL general managers the target to get above or more likely, below, for the current season.

There is still a bit of math yet to be done to close off the books to the 2017 NHL regular season, which will certainly impact a number of teams in the 2018 season, like bonuses from entry-level and 35+ contracts, to which a team like the Blackhawks will certainly suffer from.

Today, you could dress a 23-man roster for Chicago for under the $75 million cap ceiling, but their ceiling will come down by a few million bucks, according to CapFriendly, thanks to bonuses to a guy like Artemi Panarin, who finished his entry-level deal.  The final numbers will likely drop in the next week or so, but it doesn't look good for the Blackhawks.

Teams like the Red Wings and the Islanders are already planning on how to use their Long Term Injured Reserve help, as they have players like Johan Franzen and Mikhail Grabovski, respectively, who have been injured for some time and were also exempt from the expansion draft, because of their injury.  Both teams have projected rosters, with their injuries included, nicely nestled up to the cap ceiling, but they should get that added relief with the right paperwork filed.

And then we have the cap floor, which will require some work from the Coyotes and the Hurricanes to reach, even with a 23-man projected roster under their belts.  The Coyotes, if they are not planning on being competitive again this year, can take on a number of bad contracts for assets, as their glacial build continues, while the Hurricanes will have some work to do of their own, but they are making strides in the right direction.

Now that we've seen the numbers, we can speculate all we like about how it will all go down, but only time will tell.  Let the games begin!

2016-2017 Salary Cap Number Announced

On Tuesday night, the NHL announced one of the biggest pieces to the overall puzzle for next season, the salary cap payroll range! Huzzah!

Well, thanks to the clause owned by the Players Association, we'll see a slight lift in the cap ceiling this season, as it will go from $71.4 million to $73 million, which will also lift the floor up to $54 million.

Some reports were suggesting that if the players didn't use their growth factor clause, the cap would have dropped, likely below $70 million for the coming season and that would have put a serious dent in free agency for the coming season.

There are still a good number of teams that have their projected rosters below the salary cap floor, but the Summer has only gotten started.  Once July 1st hits, we'll see plenty of deals for players that will take those teams back into the budget window and there shouldn't be much for complaints.

Teams that are going to be hurt still, after this announcement, will be those with active bonus overages and potential overages for the coming season.  The increase wasn't very much and those bonuses will be tough to swallow in this tough time we're living in.

Nevertheless, we move forward!  Onward and upward...

2015-2016 Salary Cap Numbers Announced

Some of the early projections were not too far off, as the final salary cap ceiling number has been announced, as the NHL and NHLPA have agreed on a $71.4 million ceiling and a $50.2 million floor for the coming 2016 season.

The ceiling numbers, are of course, the biggest point of interest, as teams try to snuggle up as close as possible to the ceiling to be most effective.  Teams like Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston are now under the microscope, as they are listed as the three teams closest to the ceiling with risk of going over next season, unless there are moves made.

After the first few years with a salary cap floor, teams that have been close to the bottom have always made moves to get to where they need to be, so it has become so much less of a talking point in recent years.  The Nashville Predators, however, have a lot of work to do, just to make the salary cap floor, but most of that work has a lot to do with the number of roster spots they have open, which is about 13, by my count.

If you're looking for a great resource for salary cap information, now that CapGeek is no more, check out War On Ice and their cap resource.  I'm not really into the analytics nonsense, but they have the most comprehensive salary cap website that I've seen of the new bunch of contenders.  This will be where I source most of my numbers from.

Now, let the off-season truly begin!

Official 2011-2012 Salary Cap Number Announced

As tweeted on Thursday afternoon, the NHL has finally confirmed what the salary cap number are going to look like for the upcoming 2011-'12 season. The cap will go up significantly, even more so than the unofficial number suggested, moving up by 8.2% to $64.3 million, while the cap floor has gone up by 11.3% to $48.3 million.

With a flurry of activity this afternoon, the Flames are now the highest team against the cap with $56.1 million for 17 players and a buyout projected for 2012, leaving $8.3 million for four to six players.  The Panthers are still the lowest today, having only 11 players signed on at $17.3 million, leaving $31 million still to be spent this year.

2011-2012 Salary Cap Numbers Unofficially Announced

As 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.

2010-2011 Salary Cap Number Announced

Thanks to everyone's favourite TSN hockey analyst, Bob McKenzie (via Twitter), we have ourselves the official numbers from the NHL for the Salary Cap Ceiling and Floor for the upcoming 2011 season. The ceiling has been set at $59.4 million, up from $56.8 million for the 2010 season, while the floor has been raised up from $40.8 million to $43.4 million.  This should make a few teams happy, as they have now been given a fair bit of space to stuff some more spending underneath.

With the new salary cap number, there is a new league max, which is 20% of the league max, which will now stand at roughly $11.9 million.  I think that's only relative to Ilya Kovalchuk and his desires for a new contract this year, but that's another story for another time.

I do have a quick mock up of what I have at the moment, in regards to the numbers for each team as of the announcement.  I have only included the players that I think are signed and are locks for the upcoming season, as there are plenty of bubble players with contracts, that probably don't have a place on the roster... yet.

Row Labels	Players	Avg. Age	Goals	Avg. Points	PPG	Cap Hit
CHI	14	27.3	205	45.2	0.65	57.4
CAL	17	29.4	186	33.1	0.47	53.7
DET	16	32.2	168	36.6	0.59	52.7
BOS	14	28.7	133	35.2	0.58	49.8
CBJ	19	27.3	174	29.9	0.46	49.3
MTL	13	29.5	135	29.6	0.51	48.4
PHI	14	29.7	175	35.3	0.50	47.2
OTT	15	30.1	168	36.0	0.58	47.1
PIT	16	27.7	188	36.6	0.57	46.9
TOR	15	26.9	98	24.2	0.44	46.2
VAN	15	28.9	198	44.3	0.61	45.7
NJD	16	31.1	168	35.7	0.51	45.6
BUF	15	27.8	177	39.2	0.59	45.5
MIN	16	28.0	138	30.3	0.42	45.3
FLA	15	29.1	150	31.9	0.51	44.1
WAS	13	27.7	232	45.9	0.64	43.6
LOS	15	26.8	180	39.0	0.58	43.4
NYR	12	28.0	131	34.3	0.47	43.4
EDM	14	28.3	112	23.9	0.43	41.4
CAR	12	28.8	158	35.6	0.55	39.7
DAL	15	28.2	174	31.9	0.50	39.5
NAS	15	29.1	138	31.5	0.46	37.4
TAM	10	28.4	140	39.7	0.55	37.4
ANA	15	28.4	129	28.3	0.50	36.0
SAN	10	27.9	109	38.7	0.60	34.6
PHO	15	29.1	133	30.1	0.48	34.4
COL	16	27.3	126	30.1	0.53	32.9
STL	13	26.8	121	27.2	0.44	29.1
ATL	12	27.4	110	28.0	0.38	28.7
NYI	13	28.2	102	26.7	0.48	26.0
Grand Total	430	28.5	4556	33.7	0.52	1272.5

These numbers are just current salary cap totals for the players signed, so this is not a 100% accurate reflection of what each team's salary cap number will be in the coming year. There are some buyouts remaining, the Chicago Blackhawks bonus penalties for Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews and possibly some other bonuses that have yet to be determined.

For a more up-to-date list of numbers with bonuses, penalties and buy-outs, look to CapGeek.com for all those needs. That's the site I use, it's pretty damn good.

2009-2010 Salary Cap Number Announced

TSN.ca is reporting that the salary cap number for the 2010 season has only gone up by $100,000 to $56.8 million, while the cap floor is now at $40.8 million. It's rather fortunate for the league that they don't have to drop any of their own figures and teams won't have to scramble to drop a lot of talent because of cap constraints.

Much like last season, the maximum salary amount for a player should change too drastically from last year's max of $11.34 million.

Here is where each team stands before the draft commenced this afternoon, in regards to how many regulars each team has signed, as per their team update. You can click on the label, "team update" to see what your team has signed on for next season to make up this number.

Row Labels	Count of Name	Sum of Sal 09/10	Average of Sal 09/10
DET	19	53.364	2.809
PHI	16	49.706	3.107
OTT	19	49.154	2.587
BOS	15	49.125	3.275
CAL	16	47.693	2.981
PIT	15	47.668	3.178
SAN	13	46.762	3.597
BUF	14	46.688	3.335
WAS	15	46.412	3.094
STL	17	46.348	2.726
EDM	17	46.254	2.721
COL	14	44.608	3.186
CAR	15	42.500	2.833
CBJ	18	41.990	2.333
MIN	15	41.623	2.775
DAL	17	40.460	2.380
FLA	16	40.154	2.510
LOS	17	39.100	2.300
TOR	16	38.770	2.423
NJD	11	38.596	3.509
NYR	9	38.096	4.233
TAM	12	36.173	3.014
ANA	13	36.172	2.782
VAN	13	35.833	2.756
CHI	11	35.671	3.243
NAS	12	32.338	2.695
PHO	14	31.200	2.229
ATL	13	30.417	2.340
NYI	17	29.288	1.723
MTL	11	23.522	2.138
Grand Total	440	1225.684	2.786