TSN: Gino Reda notes that almost a third of the league is over the salary cap and they need to be under the cap by opening day. Are we going to start seeing teams make moves to get under the salary cap ceiling soon?
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Frank Servalli:
“Yeah, there’s no question about that Gino. Look, we’ve been talking all offseason about the Tampa Bay Lightning and the $10 or $11 million that they need to move. People look at Kucherov’s injury and say ‘That’s convienent. They can take that $9.5 million and get some extra flexibility with it,’ but I can guarantee you that the Lightning would rather have one of the top 10 or 15 players in the league in their lineup. And even so, if you were to move Kucherov to the long-term injury list, how do you know who long he is going to be out? So it would only be temporary flexibility. They are probably still going to have to move a player like Tyler Johnson. There seems to be lots of smoke with the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Detroit Red Wings as a potential escape valve for the Lightning’s cap problems.
But, then you’ve got other teams talking about a push and pull that have some flexibility now. Like the Oilers now that they know that Klefbom won’t be back. The St. Louis Blues with Alex Steen and his injury. He won’t be back.
So you’ve got teams that have a little money to spend, and oh by the way, you’ve got a ton of free agents, 32 Gino of our top 100 from the free agency frenzy in the offseason that have still not signed. It wasn’t so much of frenzy then, but we may see one here over the next two weeks before training camp begin.”
Dave Poulin:
“It’s been remarkable to me Frank with all the talk of change in everything else, that we’re not seeing more leniency from the league on the salary cap. And, find a way to be creative and I’m not sure what that is. It might be a luxury tax and it’s a one-year only luxury tax. It might be a designated franchise tag of some sort, but you have to let them know exactly what you’re dealing with. Some sort of flexibility.
So, you do have wealthy teams that are over the cap right now. We have a number of teams that are over the cap. Charge them a tax and let them move forward and they’re going to be over the cap.
It’s hard for me to phatham that we’re goint to stay with a hard cap right now. Maybe an amnesty buyout that you could trade with the player. And I think that just being creative, and if teams are the cap in a year in which everything is going on is as crazy as it is, then I think it’s the year to do it.”