With a $7.5MM increase to the Upper Limit of the salary cap for next season (from $88MM to $95.5MM), there is a big expectation of spending going up across the league. But not every team is obviously going to spend to the new ceiling and it appears the Senators will be one of them. Speaking with reporters including Postmedia’s Janson Duench, GM Steve Staios indicated that he’s not expecting to spend to the maximum:
“It’s probably not going to be up there and we’ll leave ourselves a little bit. You got to remember, when I first got here, we had no room and it’s nice to be able to create some flexibility, lengthen the roster, lengthen the lineup and give ourselves some options.”
While Staios spoke of staying enough below the cap to create some flexibility for in-season movement, owner Michael Andlauer went a step further, noting to Sportsnet’s Alex Adams that they are a “cash over cap” team at the moment in terms of their spending which is playing a role in things.
Per PuckPedia, the Senators have just over $80.47MM in cap spending for next season. However, their actual cash spending on their roster and dead cap spending (between a salary retention and a buyout) is a fair bit higher, checking in at $85.675MM.
Notably, the Sens still have several roster spots to fill, including re-signing RFA winger Fabian Zetterlund and UFA forward Claude Giroux with discussions underway on both those fronts. Between getting new deals done for them and rounding out the group, it’s quite possible that their actual cash spending runs closer to the $100MM mark. For a smaller market team like Ottawa, it appears that’s a concern.
With that in mind, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Staios trying to backload some contracts where possible to try to balance out the cap and cash spending numbers to an extent which could also open up more budget room to spend closer to the Upper Limit. Not all players are open to doing so, of course, which could limit them in free agency. Alternatively, if there is a player-for-player swap that presents itself, acquiring someone with a cash cost below the cap could become more appealing.
With more than $15MM in cap space, it’s fair to say that the Sens likely still have considerable spending capacity within their budget. But as names start coming off the board over the next couple of months, it appears that Ottawa won’t be using all of its spending flexibility during that time.
A level of prudence every team ought to have. How many teams are screwed throughout the season — replacing injured players, unable to make deadline deals — because they’ve spent every cent of the cap?