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The Floor is Easy to Reach and Anze is Going Nowhere

August 1, 2008, 2:20 AM ET [ Comments]

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So I’m back from vacation and have a lot to write about over the next little while. For tonight I’ll keep it short though..

One thing that really annoys me is when writers write about topics that they don’t know much or anything about but try to pretend that they know a lot about that subject matter. It happens all the time and I can’t understand why. If you don’t know enough about something to write a column about it, either do your research or write about something else. It’s perfectly understandable that an individual can’t know everything about every team and every player. So what’s the point in faking it?

A team that many writers seem to be uninformed about is Los Angeles. And I can’t blame them at all because let’s face it there haven’t been a lot of reasons to watch the Kings in recent years.

So I wanted to clear up a couple misconceptions once and for all...

1. The Kings are not at all in tough to hit the cap floor to start the year. They could even ice a team over $40.7 mil without adding a player via trade or the UFA scraps.

2. The Kings are not trading Anze Kopitar. Not going to happen and especially not for Martin Gerber or for Nik Khabibulin.

I can’t return after all this time off and not come with numbers so here you go..

******

HOW TO TOUCH THE FLOOR: (numbers rounded off for simplicity)


Forwards, Signed: $19 mil


Handzus (4.0), Brown(3.175), Frolov (2.9), Calder (2.7), Armstrong (1.5), Purcell (1.35 inc bon), Kopitar (0.956), Boyle (0.835), Ivanans (0.6), Zeiler (0.544), Ellis (0.475)

Forwards, Unsigned (estimates): $6 mil


Stoll (2.5), O’Sullivan (2.5), Richardson (1.0)

For the sake of the exercise I used very conservative estimates for Stoll and O’Sullivan. The longer the deals are that they end up signing, the higher their cap hit will be for this upcoming season.

Defencemen, Signed: $8.9 mil


Preissing (2.75), Johnson (2.15 inc bon), Gauthier (2.1), Greene (1.15), Harrold (0.75 – estimate deal TBA)

Defencemen, Unsigned: $4.4 mil


Doughty ($3.5 mil – inc bon), Other d-man (0.9 – est)

I’ve penciled Doughty in at $3.5 including bonuses. For his rookie contract his agent can negotiate up to $875k in salary, plus $850k in Individual “A” Bonuses and $2 mil in Individual “B” Bonuses for a total package of $3.725 mil which is what Stamkos received. LA’s other d-man could be Hickey (1.345) or Alec Martinez (0.875) or if they may well decide to add a veteran presence as many are expecting.

Goalies, Signed: $1.525 mil


Any two of Bernier (0.843), Labarbera (0.825) or Ersberg (0.7) would cost at least $1.525 mil against the cap.

Buyouts: $1.7 mil


Cloutier (1.033 – pending arbitration), McCauley (0.667)

TOTAL:
$19.0 + $6.0 + $8.9 + $4.4 + 1.525 + $1.7 = $41.5 mil

$41.5 mil > SALARY CAP FLOOR



A little simple math goes a long way...

Heck if a team was that desperate to reach the floor, how would the league feel about a team giving out a bunch of unlikely to be earned bonuses to rookies that would count against the cap?

It could be considered circumventing the CBA rules but then again so could adding a couple low salary years to a long-term deal to bring down the cap hit, even though the player is unlikely to play in those seasons.

******

STOP THE MADNESS:


While I was away I was e-mailed a Kopitar rumour that made me laugh out loud. Then on Thursday a respected writer mentioned Kopitar as possible compensation in a deal for Khabibulin to allow the Kings to reach the cap floor.

The problem here of course is that most people truly don’t know how good Kopitar is. And as mentioned above it’s because he’s been playing for a team out West that has been rebuilding (yet again).

In his rookie season at age 19, Kopitar put up 20 goals and 61 points in 72 games.

In his second season he took his game to another level, becoming a force in both ends and posting 32 goals and 77 points in 82 games.

How impressive are those numbers? Well..

In the last ten years, only five players have put up more points over their first two seasons than Kopitar – Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin, Heatley and Stastny.

Go back twenty years and Kopitar still cracks the top twenty list:

1. Crosby (222)
2. Ovechkin (198)
3. Malkin (191)
4. Selanne (186)
5. Lindros (172)
6. Bure (170)
7. Forsberg (166)
8. Fedorov (165)
9. Makarov (165)
10. Sakic (164)
11. Heatley (156)
12. Stastny (149)
13. Kariya (147)
14. Amonte (145)
15. Zhamnov (143)
16. Cullen (141)
17. Modano (139)
18. Renberg (139)
19. Kopitar (138)
20. Sundin (135)

If you go back to 1917, Kopitar lands at #57 All-time.

Filter out guys who were over 23 and he climbs to #45.

Then if you only look at players who were aged 18-20 in their first two years, Kopitar comes in at #18 behind Gretzky, Lemieux, Crosby, Hawerchuk, Savard, Carson, Larouche, Yzerman, Lindros, Trottier, Sakic, Brown, Francis, Bellows, Housley, Murphy and Modano.

Pretty select company, I’d say.

(I also should say that I love the ‘powerplay’ section of hockeyreference.com)

It’s time that people around the league recognize that Anze Kopitar is a special young player and he’s going to be a huge part of the Kings’ short and long-term future.

And if he’s traded for Martin Gerber or Nik Khabibulin, I’ll move to Slovenia.

Danny – [email protected]

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