Salary Cap Conundrums - Forwards
The Oilers Salary Cap Structure - Opportunities and Problems with their forwards
First of all, by nature, I am an optimist. Secondly, I follow a pretty easy philosophy: don’t do stupid things. As a fan of the Edmonton Oilers, the first causes me to overlook some of the gaffs the organization has done in the past in hopes of a brighter future.
This post is not about dragging on with questionable roster decisions, player personnel choices, or really missed trade opportunities. What it is about is the current salary cap structure of the team, and where there are opportunities, and where there are problems.
Current Situation
Whether or not this is a playoff team is not the debate for this post. I have made some assumptions regarding roster decisions. I have included Hyman at $5.5 million x 7 years, Barrie at $4.5 million over 3 years due to the amount of chatter in our MSM here in Edmonton. I have also re-signed Chiasson at a $1 million cap hit, graduated Benson to the NHL, and re-signed Yamamoto to a $2.5 million x 2 year bridge deal. This team has $394,699 in cap space (0.48% of cap space remaining).
Cap Space Allocation
When I try to evaluate a team’s salary cap situation, I try and look at it as a percentage of the roster compared to the percentage of the total cap space available. This upcoming year has a flat salary cap, so 2021-2022 year will have a total cap of $81.5 million. This is how I break down the cap structure for a team:
Forwards - 14 of 23 roster spots = 60.9% of salary cap
Forwards make up the majority of the NHL roster, and should take up the largest chunk of it. 60.9% of the salary cap means that a well balanced cap team should have $49.6 million allocated to the forwards group.
Let’s look at our team:
Line 1: Hyman - McDavid - Yamamoto (Total: $20.5 million)
Personally, the default I put for a cap team’s first line is $20 million total cap hit (24.5% of the cap). These are your most talented players, so they are going to be your highest paid ones. The Oilers are $500,000 above this, but they have Connor McDavid, so I won’t complain about that.
Line 2: Nugent-Hopkins - Draisaitl - Puljujarvi (Total: $14.8 million)
My internal cap number for a second line is about $18 million (22.1% of the cap). Good teams have essentially two number one lines, and the Oilers do have this when they run McDavid and Leon Draisaitl apart from each other. This line represents excellent value into the upcoming season, the team has roughly $3.2 million in space here. Pay attention to that number for later on.
Line 3: Shore - Turris - Archibald (Total: $4 million)
This is not a good line. As a reminder, I made this roster based on either currently signed, or rumoured to be signed players. For a third line, you would like your team to have a total cap hit of $6.5 million (7.98% of the cap) for these players, so the Oilers have about $2.5 million in room here. If they bury Kyle Turris, they will gain an additional $1.125 million in cap space for this line. I will again come back to this, remember the Oilers could have $3.625 million in cap space allocation for the 3rd line.
Line 4: Benson - McLeod - Kassian (Total: $4.96 million)
The Oilers pay dearly for 4th liners. In an ideal world, you’d like the total cap hit of your 4th line to come in at $3 million, 3.7% of the cap. Zack Kassian’s cap hit is $3.2 million. I do believe the Oilers (and most NHL teams) use similar numbers for their cap allocation. Kassian is paid like a 2nd line RW, but he plays sub-replacement level on the 4th line. This is not ideal. He has also not performed well since December 2019, when he was welded to McDavid. If the Oilers can find a taker for Kassian, they can reallocate this cap space accordingly. But this isn’t the worst cap allotment on the Oilers, despite being $1.96 million over the ideal allotment.
Extra Forwards: Neal - Chiasson (Total: $6.75 million)
You’d like to see your extra forwards have a total cap hit of about $2 million, or 2.4% of the cap. James Neal has a terrible cap hit, and we knew this when we traded Milan Lucic for him. The man does not play at an NHL-level anymore. Which is why he has been featured as a popular buyout option. Right now, the Oilers have 8.3% of their cap devoted to extra forwards. If they can find a taker for Neal, which I do think there is are opportunities, they should do it to save $1.9 million of dead cap space over the next 4 years. If not, bite the bullet and buy him out. Alex Chiasson at $1 million isn’t a terrible deal for a 13th or 14th forward.
Oilers Forward Cap Allotment = $51.01 million (62.6% of the cap)
This isn’t terrible, but they have allocated an additional $1.41 million (1.7% of the cap) to their forward group. This is actually not too bad, considering they have the highest paid player in the league. This is made worse however, because two of their forwards are incredibly under-productive on the ice (Neal, Kassian). If they could get out from under both of those contracts, they can sign a couple more productive forwards to increase their bottom 6 forward depth.
Forward Cap Opportunities
The Oilers problems with their forwards are obvious to everyone, hopefully. We drastically overpay sub-replacement level players, like Kassian, Turris, and Neal. But what can you do? I will only be talking about the forwards here.
Kyle Turris Opportunities
Kyle Turris has zero trade value, so I only see burying him in the AHL for his final year as the only opportunity here. The Oilers organization hands out second years of deals far to generously, especially after a player has been bought out and is looking to prove they still belong in the NHL. By burying him, the Oilers save $1.125 million in cap space.
James Neal Opportunities
Neal is apparently well liked in the room, but his cap space can be allocated much better, and I am sure winning would do a lot to soothe the pain of losing him.
Opportunity 1: Buy him out
Buying him out incurs a cap penalty of $1.916 million per year for the next 4 years. This isn’t terrible as it gains $3.834 million in cap space.
What to do with Neal’s buy out cap space?
Sign Tomas Tatar or Mattias Janmark for a cap hit of around $3 to 3.5 million and play them as your 3LW. My preference would be Janmark, as he can play centre, and is a couple years younger. But Tatar has shown he can score 5x5 in a depth scoring role. The concern with Tatar, is that he has been benched by both Vegas and Montreal two post-seasons in a row.
The third line currently has space for an additional $2.5 million, add in $4.96 million in space by buying out Neal and burying Turris in the AHL, they could potentially add $7.46 million to their third line with free agent signings or trades. Now, that is also $1.46 million over our internal cap of $6.5 million for the third line, leaving $1.46 million available to improve other lines, defensive groupings, or goaltending.
Opportunity 2: Trade him
Neal isn’t un-tradable because he can be bought out. I’d be looking for teams that have cap space and look to be rebuilding and want more draft capital. Rumoured as of this writing, is that the Coyotes are looking at moving Darcy Kuemper, who carries a $4.5 million cap hit. This reduces the total cap hit on the Oilers by $1.25 million, and can help them solve their goaltending issues, more on that in another post.
Zack Kassian Opportunities
Kassian is a unique player. When he is on, he can impact the game unlike most other players, except maybe Tom Wilson. But he hasn’t been that player in well over two years, and his cap hit is awful. If the team can trade him for draft capital, or in a package for a more useful player, then they should actively pursue that. Teams are actively looking at increasing their grit, and by trading Kassian, you are taking that away from your team, but I subscribe to the idea that better players make better teams. I would only make a trade for picks for Kassian to utilize the $3.2 million in cap space.
I would take his cap hit and allocate half to a 4th liner on a $1.6 million cap hit, and the other half I would put into the defence cap allocation. More on that next post.
Long-Term Outlook
A smart GM would be trying their best to re-sign Jesse Puljujarvi to a long-term deal this summer. The second line currently has $3.2 million in cap allocation available. Meaning if you can lock him up for say, $4.375 million x 8 years, then the team should absolutely execute that deal before he has an even bigger breakout season in 2021-2022 and prices himself into 1st-line RW territory.
I am a big fan of Kailer Yamamoto, and he provided excellent value on his ELC contract. I do have him on the 1st-line, as a value contract to stay as close to $20 million for the line as a whole. Long-term outlook, I am not as high on him as Puljujarvi, which is okay. I see him as a 2nd to 3rd line RW at the moment. If he performs well over the bridge deal I signed him to, I would likely look to cash in on a higher value to regain picks, or to improve the roster somewhere else. But that is a question for two years down the road.
I personally do not care about the Oilers giving a seven year deal to Zach Hyman. It lowers his cap hit, and helps them win in the McDavid-Draisaitl window. Anything four years in the future isn’t real. Don’t @ me.