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Meltzer's Musings: Cap Update

June 25, 2012, 9:22 AM ET [1082 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Saturday's trade with Toronto created a little extra cap space for the Flyers. Luke Schenn carries a $3.6 million cap hit through 2015-16 while James van Riemsdyk's deal carried a $4.25 million cap hit. Per capgeek.com, the Flyers currently have $11,481,627 worth of cap space beneath the $70.3 million temporary cap for 2012-13.

Ideally, the team would like to stay beneath the cap if possible. However, they are allowed to go over the cap by 10 percent in the summer time.

The capgeek figure does not include a potential LTIR allowance for Chris Pronger come October. Under current rules, once the season starts, the Flyers could exceed the salary cap by a maximum of Pronger's cap hit ($4.921 M) minus their available space under the cap.

The capgeek figure also does not include players such as Matt Walker ($1.7 million) and Oskars Bartulis ($600,000) whom the Flyers must carry against the $77.3 million summer cap but who are likely to be waived and assigned to the AHL as they were last season.

Assuming the Flyers re-sign pending UFA Matt Carle, come to terms with their restricted free agents (Jakub Voracek, Marc-Andre Bourdon, Tom Sestito, Harry Zolnierczyk) and add a backup goaltender, they will be left a bit less than $3 million of cap space.

The remaining space plus some of the eventual Pronger LTIR allowance could be used to re-sign Jaromir Jagr for one more year. Alternatively, they could pursue a similarly priced free agent forward. But they will need to add a forward who can get them at least about 55 to 60 points.

Of course, a trade this week for Bobby Ryan would change the outlook. It does not appear that any among impending UFAs Zach Parise, Ryan Suter or rookie free agent Justin Schultz will be coming to Philadelphia even if the Flyers had the cap space to do so.

It would not be not the end of the world if the Flyers end up being fairly quiet this summer. They still shape up as a potential 100-point team next season. Come next summer, Kimmo Timonen's $6.3 million cap hit contract expires, as does Scott Hartnell's $4.2 million.


COMING TOMORROW (barring any major news today): An in-depth look at the Flyers' 2nd to 7th round draft picks.

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