Ben Shelley: Flat salary cap creates another hurdle for the Islanders

I'm not being anything but honest with this statement.

If I were to put NHL front offices into three categories (good,meh,excellent) I'd label the 'Meh' group Lou types

good luck

If they decided to deal Leddy.. there would be no shortage of teams interested.

If they decided to deal Leddy.. there would be no shortage of teams interested.
- dozerD10

And thank Christ for that.

I've been beating this drum for weeks. Wouldn't it be nice to have Pageaus' $5 mil available?

This is how I see it. Martin, Kuhn, Green, Brassard and Greiss are gone. That's 12,850,000.
Add the current contracts for Barzal, Pulock and Toews to the 900K cap space, and the Islanders have 17,250,000 to play with.

I'm not sure Leddy gets any more than a 2nd pick or a developing mid-level prospect. I would package Komorov and a big prospect, or Boychuk and Eberle.
Another option is the value contract of Mayfield with Boychuks hefty price and get back a 1st round pick. Lets hope Hickey and Dobson can fill in for a couple of years. Ugh.

The Islanders will finally need to bring up, and play, the young prospects.
Johnston slides in for Martin, Dal Colle fills Kuhns role. The question is, which prospects will the Islanders lose? Is Tanner Fritz or Hickey wanted anywhere?

I hope we don't lose Koivula or Mayfield. And then there is Sorokin.

If you think things are bad this year, wait for the nightmare looming in 2021-2022. 6 contracts ending, all players the Islanders will want to re-sign.

Lou done screwed up grabbing Pageau instead of packing Greiss with an aged player at the deadline. It wasn't our year for a big run.

Could hope for a random turn of events like Ho-Sang files for arbitration and is ruled that he has to pay the Islanders 2m a season to stay in their system

We can take some players in for some picks.

Have a thought on the cap situation. Lou could use the bonus cushion to get around the cap for a year, perhaps 2. Performance bonuses can be part of an ELC or for a 35+ player. Rewrite Leddy and Boychuk contracts for a lower AAV, and make up the difference with performance bonuses. Those bonus payments wouldn't count against cap until AFTER next season. That would give him a chance to unload some cap at trade deadline, when teams are willing to take a hit to get what they need to fill injury spots (or whatever).

I don't know if Lou can get this past the NHL, and I'm not solid about all the rules to renegotiating a contract to adjust/delay cap hits.