With the National Hockey League's 2012-13 salary cap temporarily being set at $70.3 million -- roughly $1 million more than the original estimate -- big-budget clubs like the Flyers will have slightly more wiggle room to make moves this summer. It should be noted that teams at the upper end of the summer cap will NOT be penalized if the cap ceiling is adjusted downward whenever the NHL and NHLPA eventually agree to a new collective bargaining agreement.
As such teams can progress with business as usual. While it is never desirable to exceed the cap, even during the summer, teams are allowed to exceed the cap by 10 percent -- in other words, a maximum $77.3 million of cap spending -- until opening night rosters have to be set in early October (assuming next season starts on time).
Keep in mind that a team's summer cap figure includes ALL players under contract, including those who are likely to spend the next season on long-term injured reserve and veterans who are likely to be waived and assigned to the AHL. For the Flyers, that means Chris Pronger's $4.92 million and Matt Walker's $1.7 million will count against their cap until they set their opening-night roster in October.
Next year's in-season cap will also be affected by whether or not there is a bonus-cushion implemented. Basically, without a bonus cushion -- there was not one this past season -- a player's base salary and all potential bonuses count against the cap until such a time where the player is no longer eligible to collect a particular bonus.
For the Flyers, this most dramatically affects the cap hit of Brayden Schenn. Without a bonus cushion, he will carry a $3.1 million cap hit into opening night. However, the cap hit will drop -- without a bonus cushion in the CBA -- to $1.75 million early in the 2012-13 season. Under the
unusual structure of Schenn's entry-level contract, originally signed with the Los Angeles Kings, the player must start in all 82 games and play a minimum of 25 minutes in every game; the latter of which will be impossible for him to accomplish.
The "down" side of a bonus cushion in the CBA is that a team must finish the season with enough cap space to pay out all bonuses that players are eligible to collect. Otherwise, the overages count against the cap the following season -- that happened to the Flyers this past season due to bonus overages from 2010-11.
At any rate, as of right now, the Flyers have $9,081,627 to spend toward signing free agents, including potentially re-signing their own unrestricted (Matt Carle, Jaromir Jagr) and restricted (Jakub Voracek, Marc-Andre Bourdon, Tom Sestito, Harry Zolnierczyk) free agents.
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