Flames probably won’t be over the cap for 2019-20
By Ryan Pike
3 years agoFriends, the 2019-20 National Hockey League regular season is over. When hockey returns for the post-season, there won’t be a salary cap. That means we can take a look at how the Calgary Flames spent their cap space.
The good news? More likely than not, they’re not going to be over the cap this season.
The salary cap this season was $81.5 million. We won’t get into all of the math, but there were players who were with the Flames all season and some that weren’t.
Full freight
19 players had their entire cap hit on the Flames’ books for 2019-20. Adding the two buyouts to that total, the Flames had about $71.155 million tied up.
- Forwards Matthew Tkachuk ($7 million), Johnny Gaudreau ($6.75 million), Sean Monahan ($6.375 million), Mikael Backlund ($5.35 million), Milan Lucic ($5.25 million), Elias Lindholm ($4.85 million), Derek Ryan ($3.125 million), Sam Bennett ($2.55 million), Mark Jankowski ($1.75 million) and Andrew Mangiapane ($715,000)
- Defensemen Mark Giordano ($6.75 million), Noah Hanifin ($4.95 million), TJ Brodie ($4.65 million), Travis Hamonic ($3.57 million), Juuso Valimaki ($894,166), Rasmus Andersson ($755,833) and Michael Stone ($700,000)
- Goalies David Rittich ($2.75 million) and Cam Talbot ($2.75 million)
- The buyouts for Troy Brouwer ($1.5 million) and Stone ($1.17 million)
(Yes, I know: the Flames paid Brouwer twice as much to not play for them as they did Mangiapane to play for them.)
Partial freight
Partial cap hits accounted for about $6.694 million on the Flames’ books. These were for players that were on the NHL roster for some, but not all, of the regular season period.
- Forwards Michael Frolik, Tobias Rieder, Dillon Dube, Zac Rinaldo, Austin Czarnik, Buddy Robinson, Alan Quine, Glenn Gawdin and Matthew Phillips
- Defensemen Oliver Kylington, Derek Forbort, Erik Gustafsson, Brandon Davidson and Alexander Yelesin
All-told, basic cap hits accounted for about $80.85 million, leaving the Flames $650,000 in room beneath the cap ceiling.
Performance bonuses
The other thing to worry about is performance bonuses. Four Flames that spent much of the season on the roster had them as part of their contracts: Rasmus Andersson ($57,500), Oliver Kylington ($82,500), Dillon Dube ($182,500) and Juuso Valimaki ($425,000). The total value of achievable bonuses was about $747,500 (which is more than their cap space remaining).
But they won’t need to use much of that remaining cap space.
Easy stuff first: Valimaki’s bonuses were tied to awards and production thresholds and since he got into zero regular season games, he won’t make the bonuses. Dube’s bonus was likely tied to playing in all 82 games and since he was a mid-year call-up he won’t get that dough. Andersson and Kylington reportedly had staggered bonuses for games played that activated at various points. Kylington only qualified for about half of his bonuses, while Andersson had played in every game and probably has an argument to be made with the league for pro-rating his bonuses.
Even if the Flames have to pay out all of Andersson’s bonuses, they’ll probably only be on the hook for roughly $99,000 in bonuses. Because Valimaki was on the long-term injury reserve all season, the Flames are allowed to go over the actual cap by $894,000 (his cap hit). But they won’t need the space because they won’t pay out very much in bonuses.
Long story short? The Flames managed their cap just fine in 2019-20 – especially after they traded Frolik to Buffalo – and they won’t have a cap overage penalty eating into next season’s cap. And it’s a good thing, too, because the cap for 2020-21 is expected to be flat and they’ll need all the wiggle room they can get.
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