ChirpEd- A Closer Look at Ottawa’s Cap Situation SensChirp

WRITTEN BY SENSCHIRP READER- MikeS

One of the concerns raised by the media and fans since the recent Matt Duchene trade is that it could potentially place the Ottawa Senators in cap trouble going forward and that there’s a chance that Duchene will walk when his contract expires at the end of next season.

Lets look at why that’s not the case. Here is our current contract commitments going into the 2019/2020 season:

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What many people seem to forget is that with Clarke MacArthur likely destined for the Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) list, the Senators won’t be paying his full salary. This means that the cap space would be available to the Senators. Ottawa will have $34.138 committed in cap space and $35.45 committed in real dollars.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the contracts the Senators will have to deal with and try to project some possible salaries for those players.

-Erik Karlsson- With some of the recent contract signed by star players, many seem to be predicting a $12-$12.5 salary range. Let’s give him $13 mil just to be generous.

-Mark Stone- Could probably demand a lot but north of $7 mil seems possible.

-Matt Duchene- While it sounds ludicrous, many are saying we will have to pay $8.5 to retain him. That’s probably a little high but let’s give him that for this exercise.

-Derick Brassard- Given his age and current situation, I don’t think he can really expect much of a raise at all on the open market. I’ll guess around $5 mil.

-Colin White- I have no idea how to predict this one. Best guess – short term bridge at $1.8 mil a season, similar to the Dzingel contract.

-Tom Pyatt- I think as long as he is at this level Guy Boucher will like to have him around. Probably around $1 mil or less.

-Ryan Dzingel- If he improves he may be in for a raise. As is, I doubt he sees much of one.

-Freddy Claesson- Fully expect us to resign him. Buddy’s with EK and has the potential to earn a job as his partner going forward. I’ll guess $3 mil a season.

-Cody Ceci- I don’t believe the organization sees him in their long term plans, unless Phaneuf’s contract can be moved. It just doesn’t make sense to keep them both so we’ll budget for one of their contracts.

-Chris Wideman – The pending UFA is likely gone but if he stays it will be an affordable contract.

-Ben Harpur- Don’t see him getting a huge raise unless he breaks out next year.

If you include the CORE guys at the (high estimates) I project we end with something like this:

The cap will go up, but I kept the real dollars there in case we are still talking budget. Let’s assume the cap goes up to $80 million for the 2019-2020 season. Some analysts have suggested it will do that next year.

If you add in Dzingel and White, we would have around $3.4 million to sign 2 forwards, 1 defenceman and some spares. While doable, this will likely get a little dicey. If we pick one of them, we would have about 5.2million to spend to sign 4 forwards, and 2 D. This should be feasible, but could be even easier if we restrict the players on the roster and use callups. Also keep in mind that I its unlikely that it will take $29 million to resign Karlsson, Stone, and Duchene, so we will have a little more wiggle room then that.

The scary thing is, while feasible, the B word might come into play here. If salary is restricted, the team could let Brassard go. That would still leave the Senators with a solid top 4 and possibly a good top 9 forwards (if some young guys step up).

Unless Dorion does an atrocious job with his contracts, this team should not be in cap trouble, trying to maintain their core. Their issue will come the year following, when Chabot/Brown are no longer ELCs.

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