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It took 12 minutes and 8 shots for Detroit to get buried by the Panthers on Tuesday. There’s only 19 more games this season, so the pain will end.
The trade activity is stalled. Teams are signing college free agents (Yzerman hasn’t yet) and counting their pennies as the days pass trying to maximize cap space. Below is a breakdown, by team, of how much cap space they will have on April 12th.
Deadline cap space by team:
L.A. Kings - 41+ million Ott Senators - 37+ million New Jersey Devils - 36+ million Detroit Red Wings - 33+ million San Jose Sharks - 13.3 million Fla Panthers - 13 million NY Rangers - 12.5 million Nashville Preds - 10.8 million Car Hurricanes - 10.2 million Phi Flyers - 6.3 million Bos Bruins - 6 million Columbus - 5 million AZ Coyotes - 4.5 million COL Avalanche - 4.4 million MN Wild - 3.392 million CGY Flames - 2.1 million BUF Sabres - 1.8 million Pitt Penguins - 1.1 million TOR Maple Leafs - 1.09 million MTL Canadianes - 447k Vegas Golden Knights - 141 K Winnipeg, Dallas, Chicago, Anaheim, Edmonton, Washington, Vancouver, NYI, St Louis, and Tampa Bay - 0
So you can see the holdup. None of the teams with a lot of space are contenders. This also doesn’t include teams with players on IR, and it doesn’t include Taxi Squad players. Tampa Bay dodged a huge bullet with Kucherov being on IR all year. Also keep in mind that, as this is pro rated, there are many teams who won’t have near this much cap space as soon as the season ends. That means they can’t afford to take on term, or have to jettison a player quickly after.
Without Jim Rutherford to pull the early deals, it’s hard to get the party going. He was to trades what Patrick Roy was to pulling the goalie. He did it early and often and got the rest of the league to follow. Just 12 days left, and it will be interesting to see if things pick up.