Outside of the ideas surrounding the expanded playoffs (which will not happen anytime soon) and the potential 84-game regular season, the most significant item coming out of last week’s Board of Governors meeting was the NHL salary cap.
Owners and general managers were hoping for an increase of more than $1 million dollars. Unfortunately, for those executives, they may have to wait another year as Commissioner Gary Bettman figures the salary cap will only get up another $1 million this offseason.
Earlier in the season, Commissioner Bettman was hopeful the cap could up as high as $4 million, but with the Players still owing escrow to the owners, despite revenue in the Billions for the NHL, the salary cap system that the owners wanted is hampering their teams abilities to make any trades.
The biggest need this NHL season is more cap space. Teams just do not have it. Hence why teams are utilizing the loophole of long-term injury reserve (LTIR) in the CBA. It was done in the past most famously with Lou Lamoriello when he was general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In order to free up money, Lamoriello made players disappear telling them their injury was much worse than it was to keep them out the entire year in order to free up cap space. Defenceman Stephane Robidas was the first to go away thus “Robidas Island” was born.
More players were sent to that island and it has been taken a step further. Just look at what the Tampa Bay Lightning did during their second of back-to-back Stanley Cup Championships. Nikita Kucherov missed the whole season with hip surgery and was ready to go by the playoffs because the salary cap goes away.
However, the teams that complained about what the Lightning did in 2021 are the same teams complaining they have no cap space and are doing the same thing.
As Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet wrote in his last week’s 32 Thought column when speaking to one general manager in the league, “What kind of calculator are you using?” he asked. “None of this stuff is mathematically possible. We’d all like to make a trade there is no room to do it.”
Thus instead of making trades, teams are playing salary-cap gymnastics. However, it is not for the lack of trying. There is activity out there, but teams can not get anything done.
Throw the holiday freeze out the window, because things will likely pick up as we get closer to the March 3rd trade deadline, but if you look around the league at teams you think could make deals, most are up against the NHL salary cap. That is why nothing is getting done.
As David Pagnotta of the Fourth Period stated on TSN Radio, “Until the salary cap space is remedied, it is going to be a little difficult to make things happen.”
“It is not for the lack of trying. There are certainly conversations going on out there and teams that would like to make moves have to figure out the cap somehow first.”
As trade activity picks up over the next couple of months the price for salary cap space will be a premium. Depending on what teams need, the cost will vary especially if they have to take on a contract to broker a deal for a contending team.
With the trade deadline on March 3rd, teams should have more cap flexibility, but it will not be much. It will be interesting to see how they get through these rocky waters. But do not be surprised to see a lot of three-team deals at the NHL Trade Deadline.