Mammoth Rumors

Navigating the salary cap is one of the more important tasks for any GM.  Teams that can avoid total cap chaos by walking the tightrope of inking players to deals that match their value (or compensate for future value without breaking the bank) remain successful.  Those that don’t see struggles and front office changes.

PHR will look at every NHL team and give a thorough look at their cap situation heading into the 2023-24 season.  This will focus more on players who are regulars on the roster versus those who may find themselves shuttling between the AHL and NHL.  All cap figures are courtesy of CapFriendly.

Arizona Coyotes

Current Cap Hit: $79,596,310 (under the $83.5MM Upper Limit)

Entry-Level Contracts

F Logan Cooley (three years, $950K)
F Dylan Guenther (two years, $894K)
D J.J. Moser (one year, $887K)
D Victor Soderstrom (one year, $863K)

Potential Bonuses:
Cooley: $3.5MM
Guenther: $850K
Soderstrom: $850K
Total: $5.2MM

Cooley’s contract came as a bit of a surprise this summer since he had originally indicated that he planned to return to the University of Minnesota for his sophomore year.  The 2022 third-overall pick is likely to have a fair-sized role right away and it wouldn’t be shocking to see him on the top line before long.  While it’s way too early to forecast his second deal, the market is pretty well-defined when it comes to signing impact middlemen off their entry-level pacts.  Start with an eight (especially when the cap is higher in three years) and go from there.

Guenther burned the first season of his ELC last season but notably, was sent back to junior before he accrued a season of service time toward UFA eligibility (meaning he still has seven years of club control).  At this point, it seems likely that he’ll be a regular this season but unless he winds up in a prominent role quickly, the safer bet here is that he winds up with a bridge contract.

The same can be said for Soderstrom who is looking to establish himself as a full-time regular.  If that happens, he should be able to command an AAV just past the $1MM mark on a one-way deal.  Otherwise, a one-year contract around his $874K qualifying offer could be coming his way.  As for Moser, he has quickly played his way into a top-four role, pretty impressive for someone who was a late second-round pick two years ago.  He doesn’t really fit the profile of the type of player who makes sense for a long-term agreement at this point but a bridge pact in the $3MM AAV range should be achievable.

Signed Through 2023-24, Non-Entry-Level

D Josh Brown ($1.275MM, UFA)
F Travis Boyd ($1.75MM, UFA)
D Travis Dermott ($800K, UFA)
D Mathew Dumba ($3.9MM, UFA)
D Sean Durzi ($1.7MM, RFA)
F Barrett Hayton ($1.775MM, RFA)
F Bryan Little ($5.292MM, UFA)
F Liam O’Brien ($775K, UFA)
D Troy Stecher ($1.1MM, UFA)
D Juuso Valimaki ($1MM, RFA)
F Jakub Voracek ($8.25MM, UFA)
F Jason Zucker ($5.3MM, UFA)

Let’s get the easy two out of the way first.  Voracek (who was quietly acquired at the trade deadline last season) and Little remain injured and won’t play in 2023-24.  They will be LTIR-eligible if Arizona runs into enough injury trouble this season that requires them to create some extra cap flexibility.

Zucker had a nice bounce-back campaign last season with Pittsburgh.  He was healthy for the most part and the end result was him playing with some consistency and posting the second-best goal total of his career with 27.  That didn’t yield the long-term deal he was hoping for this summer, however.  Assuming he’s able to have a repeat performance in 2023-24, Zucker should be able to push for a similar price tag next summer while getting a shot at a multi-year agreement.

Hayton is one of Arizona’s more interesting expiring contracts.  The 23-year-old didn’t exactly light it up on his entry-level deal, resulting in a two-year bridge pact.  Last season, he worked his way up to the top line and put up by far his best season, notching 19 goals and 43 points.  A repeat performance could push his AAV into the $4MM range.  But with Cooley signing, there’s a good chance that he will cut into Hayton’s minutes which could hamper his production next season somewhat and cut into the price tag of that next contract.  Had Cooley stayed in college and Hayton remained relatively unimpeded on the top line, his projection could have been more favorable than it seems like it will be now.  Either way though, he appears to be part of the future plans for the Coyotes, something that wasn’t guaranteed to be the case a couple of years ago.

While Boyd has played a much bigger role in the last two years than he did beforehand, he has shown himself to be a capable secondary scorer.  In the 2022 summer, he didn’t have enough of a track record to command a big raise.  But if he has another year like these last two, he could push for a price tag north of $3MM on his next deal.   O’Brien, meanwhile, saw regular action for really the first time last year, putting up his best numbers.  But his role in the lineup is typically one that teams will want to spend the minimum or close to it to fill.  Unless he can show a bit more offensively, it’s hard to see his next contract reaching the $1MM mark.

If you were reading the list of expiring deals and thought to yourself that there were a lot of defensemen on there, you weren’t wrong.  Between these contracts and the two entry-level ones, all of Arizona’s defenders are in the final year of their deals.  That’s a situation that doesn’t present itself very often league-wide.

Dumba struggled last season in his final year with Minnesota which undoubtedly hurt his market this summer.  Once the dust settled on the Erik Karlsson trade, he quickly settled for this agreement, one that is for less than he was probably seeking.  However, it gives him a chance to play a much more prominent role, one that could land him a fair bit more (perhaps in the $5MM range many expected this time around) next summer if things go well.  Durzi is in a similar situation as instead of being a player sitting fairly low on the depth chart in Los Angeles, he will have a chance to play more minutes and produce more.  He’s already likely to land a fair bit more than his $2MM qualifier next summer; it’s possible that he could double that if he can push his point output past 40.

Brown and Stecher are in similar spots in their careers.  Both are third-pairing players and the market hasn’t been kind to those players in recent years.  Brown might be hard-pressed to make what he’s getting now unless he can play his way up the depth chart while Stecher’s value is pretty well established considering he signed this deal just under two months ago.  Valimaki opted to sign early last season, foregoing a higher qualifying offer in exchange for some guaranteed money and a longer look.  Considering how he finished last season, he left some money on the table.  If he can even come close to putting up 34 points again while maintaining a similar role on the depth chart, he could push for something in the $3MM range as well.  Now healthy, Dermott will be looking to re-establish himself as an NHL regular but unless he can lock down a full-time spot, his next contract is likely to be below the $1MM mark as well.

Signed Through 2024-25

F Nick Bjugstad ($2.1MM, UFA)
F Michael Carcone ($775K, UFA)
F Alexander Kerfoot ($3.5MM, UFA)
F Jack McBain ($1.6MM, RFA)
G Karel Vejmelka ($2.725MM, UFA)

Kerfoot spent the last four seasons primarily in Toronto’s middle six, spending time both on the wing and at center.  He goes to Arizona on a contract that pays him the same money and will likely result in him playing the same role.  He’ll need to establish himself as more of a full-time top-six forward if he wants to command a sizable raise in 2025.  Bjugstad returned to the desert after being moved as a rental at the trade deadline.  He took a cheap one-year deal last summer to get an opportunity to play a bigger role and made the most of it.  If he can stay on the third line, they’ll get a good return here but if he winds up on the fourth more often than not, he’ll have a hard time beating this next time out.

McBain (who took a dollar less than the AAV listed above) had a good rookie year, providing plenty of physicality with a bit of scoring from the bottom six.  This deal gives both sides more time to evaluate to see if he can be a full-time third-liner which would position him to add a million (more if the offense really picks up) in 2025.  Carcone has been a minor leaguer for most of his career but a strong showing at the Worlds landed him this one-way commitment and what should be a chance to carve out a full-time roster spot which will go a long way toward determining his future.

At the time Vejmelka signed this contract (which was still in his rookie season), his name was in trade speculation.  Since then, not much has really changed.  The 27-year-old has helped keep things respectable at a time when winning was pretty low on the priority list but it remains to be seen if he’s going to be part of Arizona’s long-term plans.  If he puts up numbers like his first two seasons over these next two, his market value isn’t going to be much higher than this.  If he happens to be moved onto a team looking for more short-term success and takes a step forward, however, then he could shoot toward the top tier of the backup market.  Assuming the cap jumps up, that could push him to the $4MM range.

Signed Through 2025-26

G Connor Ingram ($1.95MM, UFA)
F Matias Maccelli ($3.425MM, RFA)
F Nick Schmaltz ($5.85MM, UFA)
D Shea Weber ($7.857MM, UFA)

Again, let’s get the injured player out of the way first.  Weber hasn’t played since the 2021 Stanley Cup Final when he was with Montreal and he isn’t expected to play again.  He’s LTIR-eligible as well if Arizona needs to open up more cap room.

Schmaltz has averaged just shy of a point per game in each of the last two seasons, albeit years that he missed nearly a quarter of the campaign due to injuries.  He has shifted to playing on the wing much more often, a move that has suited him so far.  The issue for Arizona is the back-loaded nature of the contract.  For a team that is trying to keep salary costs down, Schmaltz being owed $24.45MM in money over these next three seasons stands out considerably.  From a cap perspective, he’s a nice bargain if he continues to produce at this level.  But with the salary situation, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Coyotes at least assess what the trade market might be for the 27-year-old.

Maccelli was a nice surprise for the Coyotes last season.  After having a very limited impact in 22 games in 2021-22, he wound up finishing third on the team in scoring with 49 points, making the All-Rookie Team, and finishing fourth in Calder Trophy voting for Rookie of the Year.  Considering the small sample size of NHL success, Arizona opted for the bridge contract.  If the 22-year-old can build on those numbers, he could add a couple million or more with the benefit of arbitration eligibility at that time.

Ingram’s debut in the desert didn’t go to well as he struggled mightily in his first eight games.  After that, however, he posted a .921 SV% in his final 19 appearances, a number that is well above average.  That has warranted him a longer look and if he’s able to continue playing anywhere close to that level, he’ll be a nice bargain for Arizona.

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