Remember how it was just the other day that Allan Muir was putting the screws to Senators management for their unwillingness to spend $1.5 million per season on Matt Carkner?
Assuming that there would be a salary cap floor in the next CBA and that Ottawa would have to spend money to get above that floor, his logic entailed that it would have been prudent to for the Senators not to lose Matt Carkner’s face caving fighting abilities.
As hilariously short-sighted as that take was, Puck Daddy‘s Greg Wyshynski touched upon the NHL’s most recent proposal that possibly gives some insight into Ottawa’s offseason strategy.
The National Hockey League’s counterproposal to its players on Tuesday included a reduction of the salary cap from its expected $70.2 million for 2012-13 down to $58 million for next season. It would slowly creep up over the six-year term to $71.1 million in the final season.
This was expected.
That there wouldn’t be a rollback on existing contracts, as the NHL stated in its proposal, was a shocker.
The possibility of no rollback is an intriguing bit of news for a fiscally responsible organization like the Senators. According to Capgeek, the Senators currently have a cap payroll of $51,952,000 while actually spending 46,120,000 in actual dollars on their roster. Now with sixteen other NHL teams currently exceeding the magical $58 million threshold that the league put out there in yesterday’s proposal, the Senators are well positioned in the sense that should this proposal come to fruition, they can poach some of these 16 teams for what essentially amounts to salary dumps.
So how do you like that Carkner non-signing now?
Quick Hits:
– From a blog written by Le Droit’s Sylvain St-Laurent,
Quand mes «espions» me disent que des hauts dirigeants de l’organisation des Sénateurs se préparent en fonction d’une saison écourtée d’une cinquantaine de parties qui débuterait au début de l’hiver 2013, quand on me dit qu’on prépare une série de licenciements parmi les employés de bureau de l’équipe, je me dis que l’automne sera long.
In other words, his sources have indicated that the Senators have prepared for the possibility of a 50 game season that begins in the new year. With the possibility for layoffs within their team offices, it could make for a long fall.
– From that same blog, St-Laurent also mentions that he has also heard that Daniel Alfredsson is back in the nation’s capital; although he has yet to see him working out at the SensPlex with a few other players who are skating in town.
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