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In the last few days it has been reported by multiple outlets that the NHL salary cap will be jumping from the current figure of 64.3M all the way to 71.1M for the 2014-2015 season. This is obviously good news for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they are a team that can afford to spend to the salary cap ceiling.
With this news I thought I would take a look at the Penguins cap situation for the 2014-2015 season and what kind of cap space Ray Shero will have to work with.
Some of the positives for the Penguins are that they have their entire top 6 forward group signed. This is a spot in the lineup that usually eats up a lot of capital, but the Penguins have already taken care of those needs. Here are those players and their 2014-2015 cap hits (courtesy of capgeek):
The Penguins are also in good shape as it pertains to their defense corp as they have the following NHL caliber players locked in for the 2014-2015 season:
At the goaltender position the Penguins have Marc Andre Fleury locked in at 5.0M.
The issue for the Penguins moving forward will be to fill out their bottom 6 forward group. Currently Craig Adams is the only player who is signed for next year that plays a bottom 6 role. His cap hit is 700k.
When you include all the players listed above against the salary cap the total comes to $54,519,167. That leaves Ray Shero $16,580,833 to work with in order to fill the roster.
Notable UFA’s that Shero will need to make decisions on include Brooks Orpik, Matt Niskanen, Deryk Engelland, Jussi Jokinen, Tanner Glass, Joe Vitale, Chuck Kobasew and Tomas Vokoun.
Chances are high that Matt Niskanen and Deryk Engelland are not part of the defense corp moving forward.
Brooks Orpik remains the Penguins biggest UFA wild card. You could make a solid argument to keep Orpik around, but you could also make a quality argument for letting him walk given the young defense depth the Penguins have. With the Penguins signing Rob Scuderi it could potentially leave Orpik on the outside looking in.
Guys like Joe Vitale won’t be expensive and it will be a decision based on personal preference, not finances, for Shero.
Tanner Glass will probably find work elsewhere with players like Megna and Sill ready to step up to the NHL level.
Jussi Jokinen is the most interesting UFA for the the Penguins at the forward position. Jokinen is versatile and can be slotted in many different roles/positions. That is a very valuable thing to have on a roster like the Penguins. What is unique about Jokinen’s current situation is that the Penguins aren’t paying the true market value for his services right now. Part of the trade to acquire Jokinen has the Hurricanes eating some of his salary. Are the Penguins willing to pay full market value for Jokinen without the support of another team? Time will tell.
Notable RFA’s for the Penguins include the aforementioned Jayson Megna and Zach Sill, if Shero wants to keep them around he will most certainly have the cap space to do so.
The big name RFA’s include Brandon Sutter and Simon Despres. I believe both players will be re-signed and neither player will be able to break the bank as RFA players. If Sutter’s offensive numbers were a bit higher he would have more leverage. He is currently on pace for 28 points in 2013-2014. Sutter currently makes 2.066M and it is very unlikely that he would be able to double that sum.
Despres should be part of the solution moving forward for the Penguins defense corp and is a must sign in my book. He has done an extremely good job since being called up from WB/S.
To fill out the roster Shero needs to sign 5 forwards, 1 defenseman, and 1 backup goaltender. If you split the $16,580,833 of cap space up by 7 that leaves 2.37M per open spot. The nice thing about that is players like Vitale, Megna and Sill would be playing for much less than that, which leaves more money to fill out the 3rd line.
The chances are very high that the Penguins are able to enter the 2014-2015 season with better forward depth without having to sacrifice heavily in other areas of the roster.
The cap will be 71.1M for the 2014-2015 season, but it will continue to rise each passing year.
The extensions to Letang and Malkin that some thought would hamper the Penguins ability to fill out their roster will not have a huge negative impact on Shero at the present time.
There are many moving parts to building a roster for the future and many variables will change between now and next season, but that is the vanilla breakdown of what the future holds for the Penguins cap structure.
All in all, the Penguins are in pretty good shape moving forward. Lots of options, none of them all that bad.
Thanks for reading!
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