[Russo] #mnwild dispose d’environ 16 millions de dollars d’espace de plafond pour la prochaine intersaison avec 8 attaquants, 5 défenseurs et un gardien de but signés.
#mnwild have roughly $16 million in cap space next offseason with 8 forwards, 5 defensemen and one goalie signed.
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) September 29, 2023
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3pirates3
3 Comments
Context is important for those skaters though. If Rossi sticks in the top 9 and Faber sticks in the top 4 then they have to sign or replace Hartman, 3 4th line forwards, 1 3rd pair defender, a backup goalie, and a few extra skaters. Besides Hartman those 7 skaters all average probably about 900k leaving you with 9.7m to sign/replace Hartman.
I know we have a lot of young guns to slot in, but this is still really poor cap management. We had no reason to overpay these vets and we stacked on NTCs. We could have used the space to improve and instead we wasted it on contracts very unlikely to age well.
Assuming a $4M cap increase, I have us at $15.618M in cap space with:
Kaprizov, Boldy, Zuccarello, Eriksson-Ek, Foligno, Gaudreau, Johansson, Rossi
Spurgeon, Brodin, Middleton, Merrill, Faber,
Gustavsson
Russo is making it sound like Hartman’s deal is imminent. Assume Hartman gets say $5M AAV, now there’s a little under $11M in cap space to fill 4 forwards, 2 defenders (assuming Merrill is still around), and 1 goalie. I’ll be optimistic about our prospect/young player development and just fill these spots with internally and wish good luck to Maroon and Goligoski. This will all start to come together once we have the Hartman number, but I’ll take a crack at it now anyway.
**Forwards**
Duhaime, as a UFA, is hard to put a finger on. If he has a down year, we probably say goodbye. If he has a great year, he probably prices us out. Let’s say for the sake of argument that he has a good year and gets a $1M raise, bringing his cap hit to **$2.1M**
Dewar has a QO of $840k with arbitration rights. Let’s give him what Duhaime got this summer (**$1.1M**)
Beckman and Walker have QOs of **$939k** and **$898k** respectively. Unless the injuries go crazy this season, neither will have much negotiating leverage (no arb rights) as they won’t have played much at the NHL level, so we’ll leave them at the QO for now.
**Defense**
If Addison does the thing they want (and we want) him to his QO will be $866k. Let’s double that and give him **$1.733M**. This could be higher, but I don’t think it will be lower. If a PPQB isn’t worth a little under two mil after his second year in the league, then he’s not good enough defensively to make the team
Candidates for the pressbox spot or to compete with Merrill (assuming Merrill is still here) include Daemon Hunt, Ryan O’Rourke, and Carson Lambos. These three are signed for **$828k**, $856k, and $863k. I think that Hunt is better than O’Rourke, and Lambos will stay in Iowa (and probably be called up for injury) to marinate as the team sees a top pair future for him.
**Goalie**
Wallstedt is already signed for **$925k**
Using the bolded numbers above, that leaves us with about $2M in cap room left. Tight, but not as bad as this year. We could even keep Shaw at the league minimum!