Faceoff Factor

Back To the Future?

Andrew Chiappazzi | National Hockey League

Jul 3, 05:22 PM | Hype this story!

Three days of free agency have prompted a wide range of responses from fans, players, owners, and the media about the state of the NHL. Sabres fans and ownership, after losing Chris Drury and Daniel Briere, are saying that the NHL appears to be back at the state it was prior the lockout. Rangers fans are thrilled with getting Drury and Scott Gomez. Flyers fans love the site of Briere and Scott Hartnell coming to Philly.

More than likely, the Flyers and Rangers went too high. They’re old enough roster-wise that they’ll have to shed some salary in a few years.

So how does a team survive in the salary cap era but still pay for some high profile talent? We’ll call it the Pittsburgh Penguin method. Now, keep in mind that the Penguins had some phenomenal drafts in getting Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury, Jordan Staal, and Evgeni Malkin. But, by the time these youngsters reach free agency, they’ll be earning contracts similar to the ones seen so far in 2007.

Thus, we fast forward to 2009-2010. The Penguins will have to have dealt with all four of these players and restricted free agency by this point, and they’ll be moving (hopefully) into a new arena. For the sake of argument, we’ll assume that the salary cap growth slows a bit, arriving at $55 million for 2009. In all likelihood, the cap will go above that, since it’s skyrocketed already in two years. But we’ll play with $55 million.

We’ll run with Sid signing this year and the max salary being $10 million. Sid’s already said he’ll take less and many others have said the same about him. He’s also supposed to be getting other players to take less. So, running on that theory, let’s say Sid takes an even 70 percent of the max, or $7 million a year. That high of a salary likely decreases the possibility of incentives, since those would count as cap hits as well. The goal here is to limit the cap hit. So, with a nice bank account, Sid and the other big guns decide to eschew incentives – very possible – and go with even numbered salaries.

So, you sign your big guns:
Ryan Whitney just signed in 2007 for $4 million cap hit annually.
Crosby signs for $7 per year.
Malkin and Staal take $5/year to avoid hitting their RFA year in 2009/2010. They likely won’t top 100+ points a year so they won’t hit the max.
Fleury, if his trend continues, will be eligible for close to the max. He’s an RFA next year. He gets $5/year.

At this point, you have five of your players signed out of 23.

Out of a $55 million cap, you have $26 million devoted. That’s a lot, but thankfully you have some young talent at the bottom, because in 09/10 you still have Sergei Gonchar signed to a $5.5 million contract.

$31.5 million to six players. How do you fill in the rest? Well, let’s start from the net out. David Brown likely is your backup by this point. After starting at an entry level contract ($450,000) that doesn’t get bumped because of a high draft pick (like Staal did this year), he’s probably up to about $750,000 in 2009. With security in net, you have a couple AHL netminders – rookies/draft picks – signed to the minimum should they come up.

Your goalies:
Fleury – $5 million
Brown – $750,000

You need defense now to go along with Whitney and Gonchar. Mark Eaton’s only 30 this year, 32 down the road, so we bring him back for a $400,000 raise to $2 million a year. You may not have Orpik, but let’s say you have someone with the equivalent to what his contract would be and call him Orpik – $1.4 million. You’ll also have Letang, who is an RFA in 09/10. So, let’s go with just under a Whitney contract, and hit $3.5 million a year average. By this point, let’s say two of your young studs (Bortuzzo, Goligoski, Sneep, etc) are ready to make the back end of the roster. Two guys there – lets say Sneep and Bortuzzo – at an average of $600,000 per year. Again, the names might be different depending on how players develop, but the salaries should be close.

Whitney – $4 million
Gonchar – $5.5 million
Eaton – $2 million
Orpik – $1.4 million
Letang – $3.5 million
Sneep – $600,000
Bortuzzo – $600,000

You’re seven deep on defense, so let’s focus on the 14 skaters, including 2 to sit in the press box. You’ve got three locked up, so you need 11.

Crosby – $7 million
Malkin – $5 million
Staal – $5 million

At this point, you have 11 players that you still need. Total cap space used? $40.1 million. If you go to the cap, you have $14.9 million to spend. That’s cutting it close, so to give us wiggle room, let’s find 11 players for $12 million.

11 players for roughly a million a year? That’s cutting it close. Maybe an Orpik style player is too much to pay on defense…we’ll see.

Well, two players we need to have are Colby Armstrong and Max Talbot. By this stage, they’re at a cap hit of about $1 million a year. Jonathan Fillewich is with the team at this point and at about $800,000 a year. That’s six forwards. Angelo Esposito is up to $750,000/year and Casey Pierro-Zabotel should be at $600,000. Let’s say a Tim Brent style player is with the team as the fourth line center. He’d be at about $750,000.

That’s nine players. We have three lines.

Crosby – $7 million
Malkin – $5 million
Staal – $5 million
Armstrong – $1 million
Talbot – $1 million
Fillewich – $800,000
Esposito – $750,000
Pierro-Zabotel – $600,000
Brent – $750,000

Total damage with 5 spots to go? An additional $4.9 has been added, bringing us to an even $45 million out of the self-imposed $52 million cap.

We need some veteran help.

We need a Gary Roberts and Jaarko Ruutu style player to strengthen our back-end forwards. We have the offensive talent in house, so no need to go shopping for that. We need grit and energy. Roberts style player is about $2 million and Ruutu about $1 million. We have $4 million left to spend on three spots.

One more Petrovicky style player – bit of a fighter, hard-nosed checker – comes in a t $500,000. Finally, let’s bring in Ryan Stone and Tyler Kennedy. At most, those two are at about $700,000/year each. That fills our roster.

The $1.7 million more brings us to $49.7 million in a $55 million dollar cap. But how does it shake out on the ice?

Well, here’s how the lineup might shake out on any given night. Again, remember that some of these names are just placeholders for similar talent. Again, not all of the “prospects” will pan out, but they’ll be replaced by players with similar abilities and service time.

So with our $49.7 million salaried roster, here’s how things look:

Esposito – Crosby – Armstrong
Staal – Malkin – Fillewich
Zabotel – Talbot – “Roberts”
“Ruutu” – Brent – Kennedy

Press box: Stone and “Petrovicky”

Whitney – Sneep
Gonchar – Eaton
Letang – “Orpik”

Press box: Bortuzzo

Fleury
Brown

23 players on what should be a competitive team and over $5 million left over to play with.

Here’s the kicker to all of this…in order to be a highly competitive team, you have to play this like the NFL: you have core players signed long-term and you shuffle your roster constantly to fill in around them. If the cap hits the $60 million mark or higher, you have even more room to play with. With a new arena, finances won’t be an issue. It’s why I started at 2009, since most of the players are easily controlled up to that point.

This is just a writer coming up with this on a whim. A pro like Ray Shero no doubt will be able to swing things in other ways, perhaps get less money out of his higher profile guys and sign some more convincing wingers and defensemen. But guarantee that a team will consistently stay young and relatively inexpensive in order to win, relying on high quality drafts and lower tier free agent signings to augment a core that will be around for a decade.