Salary Cap and Marian Hossa
TSN reports that the salary cap for next season will be set a mere $100,000 above last year’s cap. That’s going to make it very tough if not impossible for Detroit to sign Marian Hossa. The most recent reports suggest Detroit is offering a contract that would work out to a cap hit of $4 million per season while Hossa’s agent is seeking a deal somewhere in the neighborhood of an average of $6 million per season.
Even if Hossa decided to take a steep discount and sign with the Wings for a cap hit of $4 million per season it is going to be tough sledding to get beneath the cap. Bruce MacLeod indicates Detroit is roughly $4.5 million below the new salary cap threshold, but that is with only 9 forwards and 1 goaltender. So they’d need to sign Hossa, three more forwards and a backup goaltender for $4.5 million. That’s impossible. Here is how I see the contracts on the books impacting Detroit’s cap number:
Forwards: 9 total
Pavel Datsyuk: $6,700,000
Henrik Zetterberg: $6,083,000
Johan Franzen: 3,954,545
Val Filppula: $3,000,000
Dan Cleary: $2,800,000
Tomas Holmstrom: $2,250,000
Kris Draper: 1,583,333
Kirk Maltby: 883,333
Darren Helm: 599,444
Cap total: 27,853,655
D-men: 7 total
Nicklas Lidstrom: 7,450,000
Brian Rafalski: 6,000,000
Brad Stuart: 3,750,000
Niklas Kronwall: 3,000,000
Andreas Lilja: 1,250,000
Jonathan Ericsson: 900,000
Brett Lebda: 650,000
Cap total: 23,000,000
Goalie: 1 total
Chris Osgood: 1,416,667
TOTAL CAP HIT: $52,270,322
REMAINING SPACE: $4,529,678
Just for fun let’s play with the idea that Hossa will sign with Detroit for $4 million a year on average. Here is what I think needs to occur for this to happen.
There are two options for signing Hossa for $4 million: trade two forwards or one d-man. Trading forwards is problematic as you’d need to trade more than one in order to add Hossa to the team; but if you trade more than one player you need to find cap space to fit in five forwards rather than the four that are necessary right now. The math becomes more difficult in this scenario.
Trading a defensemen would be very tricky given the guy most likely to be moved in a pure salary swap - Brad Stuart - has a no-trade clause through next season. You would also need to replace a top 4 defenseman and that would be nearly impossible given the small amount of cap space Detroit would have remaining. The only way this could work would be if the organization really believed Jonathan Ericsson was ready to play top 4 minutes.
That’s questionable given the fact Brad Stuart played the heaviest minutes at ES in the playoffs. Ericsson finished 5th in ice time amongst D-men so it’s not a stretch to believe he’ll be able to assume top 4 minutes in the near future. Ericsson was also right behind Stuart in 3rd place for most ice time amongst D-men on the PK, ahead of Niklas Kronwall. So my guess is Brad Stuart would be the guy the Wings would try to move if they are able to sign Hossa.
If that were to happen the cap totals would then look like this:
Forwards: 10 total
Pavel Datsyuk: $6,700,000
Henrik Zetterberg: $6,083,000
Marian Hossa: $4,000,000
Johan Franzen: 3,954,545
Val Filppula: $3,000,000
Dan Cleary: $2,800,000
Tomas Holmstrom: $2,250,000
Kris Draper: 1,583,333
Kirk Maltby: 883,333
Darren Helm: 599,444
Cap total: 31,853,655
D-men: 6 total
Nicklas Lidstrom: 7,450,000
Brian Rafalski: 6,000,000
Niklas Kronwall: 3,000,000
Andreas Lilja: 1,250,000
Jonathan Ericsson: 900,000
Brett Lebda: 650,000
Cap total: 19,250,000
Goalie: 1 total
Chris Osgood: 1,416,667
TOTAL CAP HIT: $52,520,322
REMAINING SPACE: $4,279,678
In this scenario you can probably keep Derek Meech’s miniscule $483,333 salary to serve as your 7th defenseman and 13th forward. That would give you over $3.75 million to sign two forwards and one back-up goaltender. That’s much more reasonable. But it requires:
-Hossa taking a 50% pay cut to stay in Detroit.
-Brad Stuart waiving his no-trade clause.
-Believing Jonathan Ericsson can eat up top 4 minutes at ES and be a top 4 d-man on the penalty kill. This year.
I personally don’t see all that happening but that is my guess on what needs to happen to keep Hossa in Detroit.
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Great to see you back Dave, excellent post.
Thanks Tyler.