The early snapshot of the Calgary Flames’ 2023-24 cap situation isn’t great

The National Hockey League concluded their March general manager meetings in Florida on Wednesday, and one of the big pieces of news the emerged wasn’t terribly surprising: the league is still projecting a $83.5 million salary cap for the 2023-24 season. (Commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t rule out the possibility of a slightly higher cap getting negotiated, though.)

If the cap stays at $83.5 million, the Calgary Flames will face some challenges getting under that ceiling.

Let’s dive in!

Courtesy CapFriendly, here are the Flames’ cap commitments for 2023-24 assuming a 22-man roster and the guys currently on the roster stay on the roster, with gaps filled by players on league minimum deals.

All-in, that’s a 22-man roster with an $84.51 million cap hit. With a $83.5 million ceiling, the Flames would need to jettison $1.01 million in cap hits to get under the ceiling – and that’s not factoring in injury replacement call-ups throughout the season. Generally-speaking, the Flames have tried to have a couple million of cap space available to facilitate in-season manoeuvring, so we’d expect them to try to have around $81.5 million in commitments on the books – so that would require around $3 million or thereabouts to head out the door (and not get replaced).

Easier said than done.

Here’s that over-the-cap 22-man projected roster in line form:

It’s not bad-looking, but it’s really similar to the Flames’ roster that’s currently 10th in the Western Conference.

In short, there are a few reasons why we’re expecting some roster turnover this summer. First of all, it’s rare for even successful teams to run it back with the same group – good managers usually keep tweaking things to maintain momentum. Second of all, the Flames disappointed in 2022-23 (even if they eke into the playoffs), and so under the same credo we would expect change just for the sake of mixing up the group a bit. Finally, the simple cap realities that the Flames find themselves in pretty much require some moves to make the math work.