Earlier this week I posed the question: How do the Ducks go from best in the west to Stanley Cup Champions?
As part of answering that large question, there are a few sub-questions that need attention, especially what to do with the team's current group of free agents. Monday's column broke down the Unrestricted Free Agents (UFA), today its time to assess the Restricted Free Agents (RFA).
To recap, the Ducks have $49.335M in payroll commitments to 19 players next season. The projected cap will fall somewhere between $69.5M to $71.5M. That will leave the team with approximately $20.1M on the low end to $22.1M on the high end to fill out the roster.
Current RFAs of note include: Mathieu Perrault, Jakob Silfverberg, Devante Smith-Pelly, Sami Vatanen, Igor Bobkov, and Louis Leblanc.
Last Season, the RFAs on the main roster Perrault ($1.05M), Silfverberg ($0.9M), Smith-Pelly ($0.87M) and Vatanen ($1.33M) made a combined $4.15 Million. Not many people would object if these four made a combined eight to ten million dollars next season. Sure there would be grumblings over who got how much, but an aggregate of $10M to four guys that are big parts of the future is more than fair. Especially with annual increases in the cap.
To break it down further, Perrault played in 69 games with 18 goals, 23 assists, +13, and 9 power play points; Silfverberg (52gp, 10g, 13a, +2); Smith-Pelly (19gp, 2g, 8a, +5, and 50 shots); and Vatanen (48gp, 6g, 15a, +9, 7ppp). Those are good numbers for young players. I have to believe GM Bob Murray wants to lock these four players in for the long term.
Worst case scenario, one of the four gets signed to a good offer sheet and the total price goes to $12M for all four. That would still yield the Ducks 23 players signed and $8-10M in open cap space. However, it gets better. Looking at the current roster, there is a good chance through either buyouts or trades, the Ducks may be able to open up to an additional $7M in cap space (I'll cover that in another column). The point I want to make is that even if the Ducks have to overpay to keep these guys in the short term, there is still a good amount of money available to add a significant player or two to the roster.
Two other RFAs I wanted to mention were Igor Bobkov and Louis Leblanc. I don't expect either one of them to have a long stay with the big club this season, but they might. Bobkov has value and could be a solid backup in the league. Unfortunately for him, there are plenty of other goalies available with more experience. For that reason it is unlikely he gets an offer sheet in the NHL. I'm not sure he is worth big money in the KHL either, so its back to Norfolk for him.
Leblanc is an interesting situation as well. Monday I said David Steckel was the number five center. Shortly after I posted that, the Ducks traded a conditional fifth round draft pick to Montreal for center Louis Leblanc. The kid has game. I believe he signs with Anaheim which means saying goodbye to “Faceoff Dave….
This weekend I'll be posting my thoughts on potential buyouts and trade-bait.
-Ed
Additional Notes: I forgot to give the appropriate Kudos to the Kings on their cup win. Honestly, they were the better team and deserved to win the series.
I also wanted to give thanks to Ranger's blogger Jan Levine, who let me fill in for him several time this past season. The OTJ training and his support is a big reason why I'm here.