Interesting Salary Cap Tidbit

[AJgoal]

From LeBrun's article on ESPN:

"Temporary salary cap

In what has been a vastly under-the-radar story, a buzz item among NHL GMs these days is how they’re going to approach this summer with what will be a higher but temporary salary cap number.

Confused?

The collective bargaining agreement doesn’t expire until Sept. 15 at midnight ET.

But NHL teams have to conduct business under this current CBA until then. As per the current system, the salary cap is once again expected to rise as of June 30 from the current $64.3 million upper limit to as high as $68 million to $69 million, according to guesstimates from some team executives.

That new cap number will exist only from June 30 to whenever a new CBA comes into effect.

The obvious issue is that most teams believe the cap will go down in the new CBA as owners try to scale back the players’ percentage of revenues (the players will have a mighty say in that, however).

So, you could have a situation where the cap is around $69 million for the summer and then much lower come the fall with a new CBA (again, the players will have a say in that).

This will force teams to come up with their own internal cap number based solely on guesswork this summer, because the last thing a team wants is to have a $69 million payroll on Aug. 30 and then be told it needs to shed a chunk of it come the new CBA in the fall.

Either way, just another wrinkle for this summer’s free-agent market."

Consider this: The Flyers have two contracts (Bryzgalov and Pronger) that at the end of the season, they may not want to have anymore. If the salary cap drops by a significant amount from the projected 68-69 million, the new CBA almost must have a buyout clause. This could give the Flyers an out should they wish it. Might depend on if they are over the new cap, though.

[canoli]

that's an insane way to do business. WTF? So 30 GMs have to guess what their cap will be once the 2012/13 season starts...brilliant. The only upside is that it may force the new CBA to include a buyout clause - maybe even more than 1 - maybe we can get a "do-over" with Bryzgalov - ship him out and don't look back.

[xganarchy]

If Bryz continues to suck, that would be a godsend, buying him out and handing the reigns to Bob...

[canoli]

Absolutely. Meanwhile it seems the bar we use to measure Bryzgalov's "suckage" is getting lower or else it's forgotten entirely - in the press, around here, etc.

It's a good thing Buffalo forgot how to play hockey the other night (in the 2nd and 3rd) because otherwise the story once again would've been "Goaltending Kills Flyers' Comeback Bid."