Pierre LeBrun of ESPN twatted (I spelled it right as far as I’m concerned), that Gary Bettman stated today the NHL salary cap could up by $2 million for the 2010-2011 season.
Apparently Bettman announced this on one of the NHL satellite radio shows of which I am not privy to listening.
That would bring the cap to 58.8 million if it went up by exactly 2 million. Based on this notion, allow me to share with you what very well could be a momentary lapse in sanity and/or judgment.
The Kings sit at just under ~$45 million next year, accounting for 8 forwards (Kopitar, Brown, Smyth, Williams, Stoll, Handzus, Simmonds, Parse), 6 defenseman (Doughty, Scuderi, Greene, Johnson, Drewiske and Harrold), and Quick and Ersberg.
So that would leave ~14 million to play with to fill 5-6 roster spots.
Well, we can probably safely remove Ersberg and sub in Bernier. That adds only about 100k to the total. Negligible for my purposes.
Then lets say, for the sake of the argument, Voynov makes the team. That adds another 850k. So we’re bumping close to 46 million.
Two young forwards probably make it out of camp. For fun, let’s say those are Loktionov and Clifford. That’s another 1.7ish million on the books. Pushin’ 48 million now.
Wait wait wait, Westgarth. Need a Westgarth in there. He makes pocket change (doesn’t it kind of make you gag that ‘pocket change’ appropriately applies, in context, to a sum of $525,000 a year?).
OK. So what we’ve got now?
We’ve got
11 forwards
7 defenseman
2 goalies
For about $48.5 million. That’s ten to play with to fill two roster spots.
First of all, the defense needs something. Let’s pretend Sean O’Donnell resigns. 1 year @ 1 million sound right? It does to me.
What’s the team look like?
Smyth-Kopitar-Williams
Loktionov-Stoll-Brown
Parse-Handzus-Simmonds
Clifford-Richardson-Westgarth
Doughty-Scuderi
Johnson-Voynov
O’Donnell-Greene
Well that kind of sucks, doesn’t it?
OK so lets dump one of the two defensemen sitting on the bench. Harrold, sorry buddy, see ya later.
That only saved us less than 600k. We have ~10 million to play with.
Well, I can think of $8 million of something.
Kovalchuk-Kopitar-Williams
Smyth-Stoll-Brown
Parse/Clifford-Handzus-Simmonds
Clifford/Loktionov-Richardson-Westgarth/Parse
Doughty-Scuderi
Johnson-Voynov
O’Donnell-Greene
Wait a minute… no that can’t be right. Does that look like a bona fide contending team to you?
Eh, well, the forwards are good, but the D could be a problem.
Darn. Foiled again.
Or not. Rookie bonus account for about $3 million of that!
So screw OD. Thanks for all you’ve done good sir, but get a cybernetic knee replacement and then we’ll talk about another year with the world’s best skaters. Chelios is probably getting lonely. Go give the guy a boost, he’s so damn close.
Oh man, now we have 4 million to go get ourselves… lets say… erm… uhh… damn. I really want to say Hamhuis. No, no. We just spent 8 frickin’ million bucks on that 50 goal scorer. You know who I want? Seidenberg. He played well, let’s give the guy 2.75 million for two years. Really though, this spot can be filled by so many defensemen out there that will cost between 2 and 3 million on short term (Eaton, Ward, Ference, Pothier, Morris, Wallin, Exelby, Krajicek – to name a few), that you can pick your poison.
So…
Kovalchuk-Kopitar-Simmonds
Smyth-Stoll-Brown
Parse/Clifford-Handzus-Williams
Clifford/Loktionov-Richardson-Westgarth/Parse
Doughty-Scuderi
Johnson-Seidenberg (or your flavor of the year)
Greene-Voynov
Quick
Bernier
Now there’s your team. And if you don’t believe the numbers (assuming the cap does rise), here are the numbers using Cap Geek.
2010-11 Salary Cap Calculator
| 2010-11 Los Angeles Kings | ||
| PLAYER | BONUS | CAP HIT |
|---|---|---|
| FORWARDS | ||
| * Ilya Kovalchuk | — | $8,000,000 |
| Anze Kopitar | — | $6,800,000 |
| Ryan Smyth | — | $6,250,000 |
| Michal Handzus | — | $4,000,000 |
| Jarret Stoll | — | $3,600,000 |
| Justin Williams | — | $3,500,000 |
| Dustin Brown | — | $3,175,000 |
| Kyle Clifford | ($135,000) | $900,000 |
| Scott Parse | — | $900,000 |
| Andrei Loktionov | ($212,500) | $845,833 |
| Wayne Simmonds | ($240,000) | $821,667 |
| Kevin Westgarth | — | $525,000 |
| DEFENSEMEN | ||
| Drew Doughty | ($2,600,000) | $3,475,000 |
| Rob Scuderi | — | $3,400,000 |
| Matt Greene | — | $2,950,000 |
| * Dennis Seidenberg | — | $2,750,000 |
| Jack Johnson | — | $1,425,000 |
| Vyacheslav Voinov | — | $845,833 |
| Davis Drewiske | — | $616,667 |
| GOALTENDERS | ||
| Jonathan Quick | — | $1,800,000 |
| Jonathan Bernier | — | $843,333 |
| BUYOUTS | ||
| Alyn McCauley | — | $666,667 |
| LOST VIA REENTRY WAIVERS | ||
| NONE | ||
| CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS | ||
| ROSTER SIZE | 21 | |
| SALARY CAP | $56,800,000 | |
| PAYROLL | $58,090,000 | |
| BONUSES | $3,187,500 | |
| CAP SPACE | $1,897,500 | |
As much as I would love Kovi in a Kings’ uniform, I’m starting to lean toward hoping Dean brings in Volchenkov instead.
When you look at the Vancouver series, I think the Kings lost that series because their depth on defense was seriously lacking. If you upgrade Jones with Volchenkov, and then bring up Bernier to spell Quick more, it will improve both the overall goaltending and defense. The combination of Volchenkov along with reducing Quick’s workload would make the Kings an elite defensive team.
They’re not that far away from contending for a cup when you consider how well this team played before the Olympic break. A smaller salary like this will also allow the Kings plenty of flexibility to extend Simmonds’, Bernier’s, Johnson’s, and Handzus’ contracts while also providing the opportunity to give Doughty a lifetime contract before next season.
I would certainly be excited if they signed Kovalchuk, but I think their potential for greatness and keeping the core together would be better realized by going for an additional intimidating defenseman that we can plug into the top four. In addition, they would still have the cap flexibility to add someone at the next trading deadline to help out with any 5 v. 5 scoring issues.
This is a lot to think about. Seems well researched and hopefully DL did all of this work a long time ago.
The complexion of this site has changed a lot. How come?
Experimentation. No good?
I like the new look.
The black backround takes some getting used to. Not sure I like it as much as the usual format.
Maybe you should post a poll?
Maybe. But we are not quite done with it yet. Stay tuned.