The Pittsburgh Penguins have a lot of projected salary cap space
Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now: The Pittsburgh Penguins have around $42 million in projected salary cap space after signing Connor Dewar at $2.25 million per. Re-assigning or moving Ryan Graves and Jake Livanavage would increase that number even further.
Evgeni Malkin could get a new contract from the Penguins. Egor Chinakhov is arbitration-eligible, so he could come in around $4 million on a short-term deal. RFAs Ryan Shea and Arturs Silovs could come in around $3.3 million and $2.1 million, respectively.
If the Penguins were to move any of Erik Karlsson, Rickard Rakell, or Kris Letang for rebuilding assets, they may need to acquire salaries just to reach the salary floor.
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The Columbus Blue Jackets have a list of important free agents to make decisions on and will need to keep in mind next year’s RFAs when looking to spend their cap space
Jeff Svoboda of Blue Jackets.com: The Columbus Blue Jackets have around $40 million in projected salary cap space, but they have a long list of RFAs and UFAs to make decisions on.
What ends up happening with UFAs Boone Jenner, Charlie Coyle, and Mason Marchment will dictate a lot of what happens this offseason. Will they need to fill those holes and roles or not? They’ve had some talks, and there is interest, but still work to do.
Will Adam Fantilli and Cole Sillinger sign bridge or long-term deals, and at what money?
If the Blue Jackets don’t bring back Gudbranson, they’ll be in the market for a right-handed defenseman.
Can see the Blue Jackets wanting to commit to Greaves. Merzlikins has four years left on his contract, and would give them added flexibility if they could move his contract. Waddell did say it’s not easy to find goalies.
When looking at this year’s free agents, they obviously have to keep in money needed for this year’s RFAs – Adam Fantilli, Cole Sillinger and Jet Greaves – but also next year’s RFAs – Kirill Marchenko, Kent Johnson and Dmitri Voronkov.
“This year, if we don’t make it to the cap, it might be because we know next year we have multiple-year contracts coming up,” Waddell said. “I think that’s where we have to look at it from the business side of projecting out contracts. You have a lot of guys coming up next year. You have more guys the following year, some key guys. You have to put it all in your planning.
“Let’s say you have $5 million extra, you say this guy will help us, but you have to give him four years. Two, three and four may be difficult years. That’s all stuff we’ll figure out.”
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Would the Blue Jackets consider trading their mid-first-round pick for someone that would help out now?
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