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The Tampa Bay Lightning made a significant splash on Monday by signing goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy to an eight-year, $76 Million contract extension. The 25-year-old Vezina Trophy winner becomes the third highest-paid netminder in the league behind Montreal’s Carey Price and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky and the deal locks up another key piece of the Lightning core group.
It also does not interfere with Tampa’s available cap space and their ability to re-sign center Brayden Point this summer (since Vasilevskiy’s new deal does not kick in until the 2020-21 season), but will likely necessitate some tough choices for GM Julien Brisebois next summer.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have come under some heat for their handling of the salary cap over the last 12 months, with the free-agent signing of center John Tavares and the extensions of Auston Matthews and William Nylander, but the reality of cap management going forward is that the small core group will occupy a large percentage of team budgets and the job of the GM will be focused just as much on getting the most economical deals possible for team stars as making decisions on players that have to be moved out to keep the club competitive.
The cap amount for 2020-21 is unknown, but based on reports that the NHLPA will not use the escalator to increase the cap number and escrow artificially (as they refused to do this summer) and with hockey related revenue expected to take a jump with a new US television deal in two years, the increase could be as little as $2 Million.
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The cap went up from $79.5 Million to $81.5 Million this summer, so it is logical that it would go up $2 Million next summer to $83.5 Million.
If you take the salaries of Steven Stamkos ($8.5M), Nikita Kucherov ($9.5M), Victor Hedman ($7.875M), Vasilevskiy ($9.5M) and an estimate of what Point could make on a new deal (for the purposes of this, we will use $9M), the Lightning would be paying the five core players $44.375 Million next season, which is 53.1% of their budget on an $83.5 Million cap.
This likely means that someone in the “middle class…, such as Ondrej Palat ($5.3M), Yanni Gourde ($5.166M), Tyler Johnson ($5M) or Alex Killorn ($4.45M) will have to be moved to accommodate the $6 Million increase in Vasilevskiy’s salary and to make room for extensions on Anthony Cirelli and Mikhail Sergachev.
The Leafs situation will be similar after this season. With the salaries of Tavares ($11M), Matthews ($11.634M), Morgan Rielly ($5M), Frederik Andersen ($5M) and an estimate of what Mitch Marner will make on his next contract (let’s say $10M), the Leafs would be paying their core group $42.634 Million next season, which is 51% of their budget.
GM Kyle Dubas will face the same tough choices that his counterpart Julien Brisebois will have to make in Tampa. Toronto will have the advantage of young defensemen Timothy Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin moving up to the NHL on their entry-level deals next season, but to re-sign pending UFA’s Tyson Barrie, Jake Muzzin (one or both) and extend RFA Travis Dermott, it may necessitate the Leafs moving out a significant salary to make that possible.
That would probably be William Nylander.
If the talented winger has a bounce back season playing the right side with Matthews as many expect, it will increase his value to the point where moving him in a deal and getting young, less expensive talent in return would be plausible…..and necessary.
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