Oh, NHL. What a league.
While most of the talk at the 2019 NHL Draft up in Vancouver hovered around which prospects were heading where, higher-ups from all 31 NHL clubs had another pressing matter to settle with the league: what exactly was the salary cap going to be for the 2019-20 season?
Yup, going into the draft — and with negotiations with unrestricted free agents opening up on Sunday — the league had not yet announced what the cap ceiling was going to be.
Sheesh.
Well, the Bruins and every other team finally got their answer Saturday — and it’s not great.
While the league’s salary cap will be raised from $79.5 million in 2018-19 to $81.5 million in 2019-20, it’s less than what many clubs were expecting going into the offseason, with league commissioner Gary Bettman predicting back in December at the Board of Governors Meetings that the final number would hover around $83 million.
Saturday’s announcement may only be $1.5-2 million off of the projected sum earlier this year, but for a team like the Bruins already bracing itself for a cap crunch this summer, that extra cash really could have gone a long way.
In terms of NHL-level talent, the Bruins have three RFAs and three UFAs set to cash in this offseason, either with Boston or another team:
Charlie McAvoy (RFA)
Danton Heinen (RFA)
Brandon Carlo (RFA)
Marcus Johansson (UFA)
Noel Acciari (UFA)
Steven Kampfer (UFA)
Those are quite a few big names set for some pay raises, while a Bruins club that came up just short of a Stanley Cup title would likely want to put its name in the free-agent ring if the right target was out there as well.
However, in wake of Saturday’s cap announcement, the Bruins have just $12.8 million in cap space available (per CapFriendly), as constituted, to both lock up their free agents and look for outside help. Something’s gotta give.
Even if we wanted to shorten Boston’s offseason priorities to simply retaining its young RFAs in McAvoy, Carlo and Heinen, things get pretty dicey.
We took a look last week at what kind of projected contracts Boston could hand both Carlo and Heinen, who would be in line for pretty fair-market deals of:
Heinen (two years, $5.6 million - 2.8 million AAV)
Carlo (six years, $25.8 million - 4.3 million AAV)
Boston wouldn’t complain with either of those contracts, especially for a player like Carlo, who made major strides in his first Stanley Cup Playoff run and should only get better at just 22 years old.
However, with those projected deals, Boston’s cap space would then be lowered to just $5.7 million — with the B’s big fish in McAvoy still unsigned.
@EvolvingWild’s projected contracts for next season tabbed McAvoy pretty high at $7.2 million AAV over a six to seven-year contract (a deal that could very well be a bargain in the coming years), while a short-term bridge deal could also be on the table if McAvoy wants to bet on himself in search of franchise D-man money ($9+ million AAV) on a deal in the coming years.
Whatever course McAvoy and the Bruins set this summer, it certainly doesn’t seem like $5.7 million will be enough.
And this is before the UFAs come into play, where the safe bet would be that Kampfer will head elsewhere, especially if a starting role as a third-pairing option presents itself.
(UPDATE: Siiiiiiiiiike re. Kampfer.)
Boston would love to retain Acciari, but with fourth liners like Chris Wagner, Joakim Nordstrom, Sean Kuraly and (potentially) Karson Kuhlman set to return, his role could be made expendable, especially if he gets a deal similar to the one that Tim Schaller netted from the Canucks last July (2 years, $3.8 million).
Johansson might have priced himself out of Boston’s range regardless after a fantastic postseason run, with the B’s likely needing at least $5 million in cap space to keep the speedy winger in Boston.
Add it all up, and with this new cap limit, Boston very well could be:
- On the outside looking at the UFA market
- Unable to retain any of their own UFAs
- Forced to clear some cash just to ink their RFAs to new deals