This is great stuff. Sens have committed 52% of the cap this year to pay their top 7 skaters (Tkachuk, Chabot, Norris, Giroux, DeBrincat, Batherson and Stutzle. If we look two years out, the cap will have increased to $96m. When you add in Stutzle and DeBrincat at $8.350m each, the percentage cost on the cap for the top 7 only goes up 2.3% to 54.3% (assume cap of $96m).
By way of comparison the Leafs are already paying 69.4% of current cap to their top 7. They will get the same increase in cap to $96m but they need to negotiate new deals with Matthews, Marner and Nylander.
Spectacular summer for Dorion!
- spatso
Can you tell me where you get this 96 million dollar figure from?
During the NHL Draft, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman spoke with the NHL’s Sirius/XM Radio Network and confirmed it would be two or three more years until the cap could resume climbing at a more aggressive pace.
The NHL salary cap won't increase significantly until an estimated $1 billion in debt held by the players is repaid to the owners. Bettman said the league is projecting that debt to be paid off in "two, maybe three years." Many have speculated the cap will jump in the 2025-26 season.
When Seravalli first projected out the cap numbers for the next few years, that jump was just under $6MM, to a total of $91.4MM. Remember though, that was for the 2026-27 season, meaning if the escrow is paid off a year earlier, it will come in a little under that number.
