Blackhawks sign Stauber
Puck Pedia: The Chicago Blackhawks have signed undrafted goaltender Jaxson Stauber to a two-year entry-level contract with an $884,000 cap hit and a $925,000 AAV.
Chris Peters:
Capitals sign Stevenson
Elliotte Friedman: The Washington Capitals have signed college free agent and Dartmouth goalie Clay Steveson to an entry-level contract.
Rick Dhaliwal: Stevenson had visits with the Capitals and New York Rangers. The Vancouver Canucks and Seattle Kraken were also interested.
Hathaway fined
NHL Public Relations: The NHL has fined Washington Capitals forward Garnet Hathaway $2,000 for Diving/Embellishment. It is Hathaway’s 2nd citation.
GMs to discuss the “Kucherov Rule”
TSN: At the NHL general managers meeting next week, sources say they will discuss with NHL commissioner Bill Daly if they should expand the salary cap into the playoffs.
“There is no cap in the playoffs. There never has been since it came into effect in 2005 and it’s been controversial. Patrick Kane came off long-term injured reserve in the 2015 playoffs and Tampa did it with Kucherov last year. The team was able to use that cap space and then add a player come playoff time, essentially, when he came off of LTIR.
This is going to be an interesting discussion. I’m told there is going to be a group of GMs that have been talking about this for a month and that they went to the league and said “Could we talk about this?” So, we’ll see where it goes.”
Gord Miller: “Since it’s on the agenda for the NHL GMs meeting, I’ll propose this again: During the regular season, a team’s NHL roster (23 players max) must be under the cap. That wouldn’t work in the playoffs with expanded rosters. My proposal? The game roster (20) has to be under the cap.”
- Gord Miller: “This allows teams to keep as many extra players around as they want during the playoffs, but their game roster must be cap compliant.”
- Pierre LeBrun: “I believe this is in fact one of the ideas the some of the GMs have. That the on -ice, game day playoff lineup is cap-compliant. So you dress a max $81.5 M lineup even though you may be carrying $90 M in players. So a hybrid solution as Gord explains here “
Salary Cup still projected to go up $1 million
TSN: Chris Johnston said that the Canadian attendance restrictions from December to February didn’t do enough damage to the HRR to keep the salary cap from not going up next season.
“And there will be some good news for the GMs when they are in Florida because they will be told that the league is continuing to project a $1 million increase to the salary cap next season, up to $82.5 million. This is welcome because it’s been three years with a flat cap.”
