Washington's 2008 Tale of the Cap

So what does it mean to be under the salary cap? We’ll take a look at this issue and its effect on the current roster of the Washington Capitals. As you probably know the upper limit of the salary cap for this year is $56.7 million. If you didn’t, well now you do. Currently, the Caps have 48 players under contract but not all of them count towards the cap. So who does and how much?

The Collective Bargaining Agreement says that the “Averaged Club Salary” is calculated daily and includes salaries and bonuses of all active roster, injured reserve, injured non roster, and non roster players, buy outs, and a couple of other situations that sometimes apply (you can read the CBA at NHLPA.com, exciting stuff let me tell you). The league has a 5:00 pm daily deadline for calculating Averaged Club Salary. For a player to paid and be eligible to participate they need to have an approved and registered contract prior to the daily deadline. The Averaged Club Salary must be above the salary cap floor and below the ceiling.

So what does this mean? To put it simply, every day the Capitals add up the cap numbers of all the players on the roster, injured reserve, and the Ben Clymer buyout amount and that total must be lower than $56.7 million. That’s it. The only exception is for a player that goes on long term injured reserve. In that case the injured player’s salary still counts against the cap but the team may replace that player with another player and exceed the cap by the amount of the injured player’s contract. Once the injured player is healed and ready to play, the team can no longer exceed the cap. To debunk a common myth teams cannot accrue cap space by being under and use it later. They must be under the cap every day.

Now we come to the big question. Where do the Caps stand? Well, that depends on who is on the roster. The team has 23 roster spots and will most likely have 14 forwards, 7 defensemen and 2 goalies. Here’s what I think the lines will look like along with their salary:

• 1^st Forward Line: Alex Ovechkin ($9,538,462), Nicklas Backstrom ($2,400,000), Victor Kozlov ($2,500,000)
• 2^nd Forward Line: Alexander Semin ($4,600,000), Michael Nylander ($4,875,000), Chris Clark ($2,633,333)
• 3^rd Forward Line: Tomas Fleischmann ($725,000), Sergei Fedorov ($4,000,000), Eric Fehr ($735,000)
• 4^th Forward Line: Donald Brashear ($1,200,000), Brooks Laich, ($2,066,667), Matt Bradley ($1,000,000)
• Reserve Forwards: Boyd Gordon ($725,000), David Steckel ($512,500)
• 1^st Defensive Pair: Mike Green ($5,250,000), Shaone Morrisonn ($1,975,000)
• 2^nd Defensive Pair: Tom Poti ($3,500,000), Jeff Schultz ($763,889)
• 3^rd Defensive Pair: Milan Jurcina ($881,250), John Erskine ($537,500)
• Reserve Defensemen: Sami Lepesto ($700,000)
• Goalies: Jose Theodore ($4,500,000), Brent Johnson ($812,500)
• Buyout: Ben Clymer ($250,000)

For these 23 players plus the buyout is a total cap hit of $56,681,101. It’s close to the upper limit but still under the cap. In addition, Brian Pothier’s salary of $2,500,000 will count against the cap but since he will most likely be on long term injured reserve the team can exceed the cap by his salary. So the Capitals will have an Averaged Club Salary of $59,181,101 with an upper limit of $59,200,000.

Now for the what ifs. What if Chris Clark’s groin does not heal? Clark may also be assigned to the LTIR list and the Caps can replace his salary. What if rookie defender Karl Alzner has a great camp and makes the big club? The Caps will have to make room for his $1,675,000 salary. This can be done by sending a player to the minors, trading a player, or waiving a player. However, if a player is waived and is picked by another team the Capitals would still be responsible for 50% of that player’s contract. What if the Capitals suffer more than three injuries at one time that are not considered long term? That would put the team in a real tough spot. According to the CBA, they have to make salary room before they can bring in replacements.

So there is the gist of the Capitals salary cap situation. Being late July, we’ll have to wait at least until training camp before any of these questions will begin to be answered. Having so many NHL quality players is a luxury the Capitals have not have in the past couple of seasons and it will be interesting to see how they handle it. All the while it will be fun to debate.

Washington's Tail of the Cap

At this point in time the Caps have about 80% of their team signed up for next season. They have 4 restricted free agents to sign and have made it clear they would also like to bring Sergei Fedorov back for next season. So let us take a look at the current salary cap situation and see what the team is looking at.

Current Salary Commitment:

Name	Position	Cap Salary
OVECHKIN, ALEXANDER	L	$ 9,538,461.54
GREEN, MIKE	D	$ 5,250,000.00
NYLANDER, MICHAEL	C	$ 4,875,000.00
SEMIN, ALEXANDER	L	$ 4,600,000.00
THEODORE, JOSE	G	$ 4,500,000.00
POTI, TOM	D	$ 3,500,000.00
CLARK, CHRIS	R	$ 2,633,333.33
KOZLOV, VIKTOR	C	$ 2,500,000.00
POTHIER, BRIAN	D	$ 2,500,000.00
BACKSTROM, NICKLAS	C	$ 2,400,000.00
ALZNER, KARL	D	$ 1,675,000.00
BRASHEAR, DONALD	L	$ 1,200,000.00
BRADLEY, MATT	R	$ 1,000,000.00
JURCINA, MILAN	D	$ 881,250.00
JOHNSON, BRENT	G	$ 812,500.00
SCHULTZ, JEFF	D	$ 763,888.89
FLEISCHMANN, TOMAS	C	$ 725,000.00
ERSKINE, JOHN	D	$ 537,500.00
STECKEL, DAVID	L	$ 512,500.00
Contract Buy Out		$ 250,000.00

As it stands now the Caps have $50,654,433.76 in committed salary. With the cap ceiling set at $56,700,000 the Caps have $6,045,566.24 left. In an unfortunate circumstance Brian Pothier will most likely be given long term injury status. This will allow the Caps to exceed the cap by the amount of his salary. That would give the Caps $8,545,566.24 in remaining salary that they would be allowed to spend.

The first area to address is the restricted free agents. The Cap’s restricted free agents are centers Boyd Gordon and Brooks Laich, right wing Eric Fehr, and defensemen Shaone Morrisonn. Gordon, Laich, and Morrisonn are eligible for salary arbitration. I believe they have until July 5^th to file for an arbitration hearing. From the reports I have seen (and cannot remember where to give you a link) Fehr is expected to accept his qualifying offer of $735,000. This number comes from NHLSCap.com. Brooks Laich is the most talked about contract of the four. Apparently, the team and Laich’s camp are not close in their negotiations. Last year Laich went to arbitration and won his case and a $725,000 contract for the 2007-08 season. Reports vary but his agent is looking for more than two times that amount. Boyd Gordon made $650,000 last season and his qualifying offer was $715,000. Shaone Morrisonn made $900,000 in 2007-08 and is looking for a bit of a raise after being the defensive end of the Cap’s #1 defense pairing. I have not seen anything on how much he’s looking for but defensemen have been getting a lot money this free agent season.

So let’s make some predictions. These are purely hypothetical and I have no real basis for them but why not. We’ll assume the reports on Fehr are correct and he will make $735,000. I would think Gordon will be in the $800,000 range. Morrisonn signs at $1,200,000 and Brooks Laich signs a $2,000,000 contract. That gives a total for the four of $4,735,000. This would leave the Caps with $3,810,566.24 of salary cap room.

Well, you can sign Fedorov that amount can’t you? Of course you can and your entire cap is spent. The team would have 24 players with 1 on injured reserve. The maximum roster allowance is 23 players so that is fine. However, say two of our right wings go down, the Caps would have no ability to recall a player from Hershey to replace them. Players on injured reserve don’t count against the roster limit but they do count against the salary cap. This would severely limit the team’s ability to deal with injuries. They would also be unable to promote any of their prospects who are doing well in the minors and give them some experience playing in the NHL. That is why you see the $2,000,000 amount associated with Fedorov. This is about as much the Caps can afford and not put themselves in a serious bind with personnel.With $1.8 million of cap room they can promote 2 of there top prospects without going over the cap.

So it becomes a question of risk. How much can you afford to pay Fedorov and not expose the team to undo risk. Sure we all want Sergei to comeback to the Caps but for how much. We'll have to wait and see how things pan out but it makes for great conversation. What do you think?