Salary Cap Ceiling Will Fall Between $79.5-80MM

The NHL salary cap ceiling has been expected to fall somewhere between $78-82MM for some time, and though we got a more accurate estimate yesterday league commissioner Gary Bettman gives us an even closer guess. Bettman today said that though nothing has been finalized, the cap ceiling should land between $79.5-80MM for the 2018-19 season. That’s an extremely substantial raise from the $75MM mark used last season, giving teams plenty of money to play with this summer. The cap floor is expected to be just over $59MM.

With an extra $5MM in their pockets, teams should have ample budget to go after the top names in free agency. Even past John Tavares and John Carlson, there are plenty of names set to hit the open market that could command big dollars. James van Riemsdyk and James Neal are legitimate goal scoring threats that could get long-term contracts, while players like David Perron, Rick Nash and Paul Stastny will still have plenty of money flashed in front of them. The extra cap room will be exceptionally helpful to certain teams, while being used foolishly by others.

Teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens already had huge amounts of cap room and bottomless pockets, and another $5MM should make them even more dangerous on the open market. Though each have concerns going forward, they are in a position to spend if they so choose.

Other clubs, like the Carolina Hurricanes, may have trouble even reaching the cap floor. The Hurricanes are currently sitting at just over $47MM in player commitments for 2018-19, meaning they’ll have to spend quite a bit to even reach the league minimum. Luckily they have some good young restricted free agents to lock up, and there are always several dead contracts able to be passed around to help out the league’s most frugal clubs.