I was reminded of Eugene Melnyk’s bold prediction in 2019, Melnyk said that the organization is “all-in” for a “five-year run of unparalleled success,” and that he plans to spend close to the NHL’s salary cap every year from 2021–25.
Per Cap Friendly, Ottawa’s Cap hit is $71,597,741. That is closer to the mid-point of $70,900,000 that is it’s to the upper limit of $81,500,000. The actual money spent to the 23 roaster players is closer to $51,000,000 according to spotrac. Can spending another $10,000,000 this year buy a few extra wins. I don’t think we will find out. My guess is that Melnyk’s plan to increase spending counted on gate revenues that may not happen this year.
No revenues due to COVID probably means the only thing the GM and Coach can do is shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic.
But let’s indulge for a moment and see who can that extra 10 Million dollars get.
First there are 17 players, yes that many, that are making over 10 million per season:
Austin Matthews - don’t care,
John Tavares - still good, but maybe 5 years ago,
Cary Price - do we really need another goalie? Ummmmm?
Erik Karlsson – a fan favorite of many, but he is now exiting the desired age group for a rebuilding team (plus the term of his contract really disqualifies him). Sorry Erik, loved your years with the Senators,
Artemi Panarin – the bread man; we have already had a goalie cut open their hand while preparing a bagel. I don’t think we want another bakery related injury. (Tugnutt cut open his hand preparing a bagel)
Connor McDavid – Hum…they guy who put up 5 points against us Sunday. Stop dreaming over our budget.
The following players are also over our budget. - Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, Mark Stone (I’d kick in a few bucks to see him land in an Ottawa uniform as I think most Senators fans would), Drew Doughty, John Carlson, Jacob Trouba, Nikita Kucherov, Sebastian Aho, Sergei Bobrovsky, Anze Kopitar and Max Pacioretty.
Now we come to the 10-Million-dollar players, these are the ones the Senators have remaining Cap space for:
Brent Burns, Logan Couture, Alexander Ovechkin, Jack Eichel, Jeff Skinner, Blake Wheeler, Matt Duchene, P.K. Suban, all make 10 million per season.
I can see a few that could help. But what do you have to give up in return? A core player in the organization’s future, the likes of Tkachuk, Batherson, Stützle, Chabot and Norris?
The youngest in the 10-million-dollar group is Jack Eichel at 24 years of age. Not saying anything wrong about all the above 10-million-dollar players, but in a re-build keeping young is usually the direction.
Looking at the next tier in players below 10 million dollars; Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Vladimir Tarasenko, Steven Stamkos, Evgeni Malkin. These folks are the 30 highest player in the NHL.
A lot of NHL clubs must trade dollar for dollar due to cap issues, therefore, finding a trading partner would be difficult.
In conclusion, just because there is 10 million in cap space, making a Hockey Trade to help this Ottawa Senators team be better this year may not be an easy task. Maybe the Senators should store some of the older deck chairs take out some of the younger deck chairs and get to shuffling them, may be the only way to keep their ship from sinking.
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