The NHL announced the guidelines for the 2020-21 season salary cap. How will it affect the New York Rangers after the Chris Kreider contract and the Brady Skjei trade ? It’s mostly good news, but there is work to be done and questions to be answered.
At the GM meetings Wednesday, the NHL announced that the salary cap ceiling will be somewhere between $84 million and $88.2 million next season. The league has to negotiate the number with the NHLPA and the final number should be revealed by June. The $84 million number is with a zero percent inflator. If the full five percent inflator was used, it would be the $88.2 million number.
That’s a minimum increase of $2.5 million with a maximum increase of $6.7 million.
In 2019-20 it was $81.5 million, an increase of $2 million over the prior year and less than what most had projected. The NHLPA triggered a one percent inflator last season to get the cap to $81.5 million.
Here are the annual increases in the salary cap over the last five years.
2019-20: $81.5 million ($2 million increase)
2018-19: $79.5 million ($4.5 million increase)
2017-18: $75 million ($2 million increase)
2016-17: $73 million ($1.6 million increase)
2015-16: $71.4 million ($2.4 million increase)
There had been fears that the increase would be similar to the $2 million increase last season and knowing that is not the case, it’s good news for teams like the Rangers.
Let’s look at the Rangers’ 2020-21 cap situation. To be safe, we will project the increase at the low end, to end up at $84 million though the NHLPA has always triggered some kind of inflator, so it should be higher.
The current roster
The Rangers currently have 15 roster players under contract for next season along with five Restricted Free Agents and two Unrestricted Free Agents (Jesper Fast, Greg McKegg)
Forwards (8):
Artemi Panarin $11,642,857
Chris Kreider $6,500,000
Mika Zibanejad $5,350,000
Pavel Buchnevich $3,250,000
Kaapo Kakko $925,000
Brett Howden $863,333
Filip Chytil $863,333
Julien Gauthier $863,333
Defense (5):
Jacob Trouba $8,000,000
Marc Staal $5,700,000
Brendan Smith $4,350,000
Ryan Lindgren $925,000
Adam Fox $925,000
Goalies (2):
Henrik Lundqvist $8,500,000
Igor Shesterkin $925,000
They also owe buyout payments to three players:
Buyouts (3):
Kevin Shattenkirk $6,083,333
Dan Girardi $1,111,111
Ryan Spooner $300,000
Totals
Those 15 players under contract make $59,613,689.
The three buyouts total $7,494,444.
That means the Rangers have committed $67,108,133
That leaves a range of potential projected cap space from $16,891,867 to $21,091,867.