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The Goal? $56 Million

April 17, 2014, 2:00 PM ET [150 Comments]
Travis Yost
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch put together an end-of-year piece after the front office finished their round of local radio interviews.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Garrioch's story was next year's internal budget number. If you believe Garrioch here, the number is right around what they spent in 2013-2014 -- $56MM to $57MM in player salaries.

The Senators will not be a cap team next year and the club will continue with an internal budget with $56-to-$57 million range. The club will continue to put money into drafting an developing to have success.

“It’s very, very easy to increase payroll,” said Melnyk. “Any idiot can do it. Lots of idiots do.”


Though most teams are probably going to spend closer to the estimated $68MM-70MM cap ceiling next season (the final number will become available upon conclusion of the Stanley Cup Playoffs), Ottawa's going to have to likely squeeze their group of talent under a much smaller number.

The thing is, I don't think it will be too difficult to accomplish this off-season's goal of meeting that mark.

Jason Spezza and his $7MM cap hit / $4MM salary are likely coming off of the books via trade, and even if at least one NHL player on a non-ELC is a part of the return, it's quite possible that their net is favorable on the bottom-line for next year. Additionally, Milan Michalek and Ales Hemsky's sizable deals have reached expiry, and it's very likely both could head to other organizations when free agency opens up. Even if Ottawa spends to replace two lost top-six forwards, it's again quite possible that their net is favorable here -- especially if they lose both, and one's replaced by an internal prospect.

Also helping matters? Ottawa will likely only retain two of the big three RFAs this season -- Eric Gryba, Robin Lehner, and Mike Hoffman are a part of this group -- and their next deals shouldn't be too lucrative. If you think Gryba's the odd man out, you just need to find a few bucks to sign 61-career-game Lehner and 29-career-game Hoffman this summer. Both are very good young players, but I can't imagine either has much leverage.

I do expect the team to make a massive effort to try and extend Bobby Ryan this summer, but with one more year left on his current deal, his new numbers -- assuming he re-ups -- won't kick in until 2015-2016.

So, financially speaking, I think Ottawa can again clock in with $10MM-$12MM (or more!) in excess cap space to start the year. To the other extreme, I think that gap could be as high as $15MM, depending on how Bryan Murray is allowed to operate this off-season.

Back with more tomorrow.

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