With Chris Kelly re-signed, and the official terms coming in at 1-year for $1.265 million the above is an updated salary cap situation for the Ottawa Senators come next season.
I expected Kelly to get no more than $1.25 million, but considering that's around how much Peter Schaefer was making, I suppose for Kelly, who was a more productive and consistent player, it's only fair.
Which means, there's not a lot of room left for the Senators to play with. If assuming Josh Hennessy, Lawrence Nycholat and Niko Dimitrakos will be in Binghamton next year, their salaries won't count against the cap. That frees up a little less than $2 million worth of cap space, giving the Senators just a little bit over $5 million to play with. If that's the case, the Senators will need to spend that money on a forward, and have Christoph Schubert swing back to D to take over Nycholat's vacant post. However, given the market this off-season, it may be too optimistic to suggest that the Senators could get a useful second or third-line winger for only $3 million and keep the rest as insurance come the trade deadline.
No Hamilton Predators
Sorry Jim, looks like you'll have to try again as the Nashville Predators owner Craig Leipold has indeed signed a letter of intent with a local group to sell the team with every intention of keeping the team in Nashville.
Leipold announced Wednesday he has signed a letter of intent to sell his team to the group. Eight partners put down $10 million as a deposit towards the purchase price of $193 million.
The bid was less than the $220 million offered by Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie when Leipold announced May 24 he had signed a letter of intent to sell his team, but Leipold said Balsillie ruined that deal by indicating he might move the Predators to Canada before money changed hands.
Balsillie renewed an arena lease and took season ticket deposits in Hamilton using the Predators' logo and applied to the NHL to relocate before applying for ownership.
"Jim Balsillie went his own direction with a rogue lawyer who had no intention of honouring the process of being an NHL owner," Leipold said. "Obviously, we didn't go forward, so we began the process to find a new owner."
The Predators told the NHL during the league's draft in late June not to consider Balsillie's offer.
Learn from this Jim, people don't like it when you use what's not yet yours to profit. Don't know what this means for all of those people who did end up opening up their wallets for non-existent season ticket deposits though.
The team must average 14,000 in paid attendance this season to keep the arena lease in effect after the upcoming season. Freeman said they have no intention of breaking the lease but emphasized the Predators must average enough in ticket sales to collect under the NHL's revenue-sharing plan.
A 15-hour rally July 19 helped sell 726 season tickets, which Leipold called the biggest sales day in the franchise's short history.
The amount of fans rallying around keeping the team in Nashville is extremely heart-warming, although I question why Leipold would be so enthusiastic about keeping the team in a market that has proven not to be successful. He has admitted that he's lost a lot of money and that he couldn't make it work in Nashville, despite putting a spectacular team on ice. If it's not the fan-base, then it's essentially bad business decisions being made [I mean, if those mustard yellow third jerseys were any indication].
Either way, I'm not entirely surprised and in a sense, it's what I would have preferred.
TSN and NHL Re-Negotiating
TSN and the NHL are re-negotiating a new broadcast deal that will see the Canadian Sports channel broadcast more games from Canadian teams. The deal is reported to include:
* More games involving Canadian teams, including more Toronto Maple Leafs games;
* The opportunity for a Canadian match-up in the playoffs;
* Broadband streaming rights to games televised on TSN.
The length of the contract will almost certainly match the six years that takes the CBC's NHL deal to 2013-14, starting in 2008-09.
Earlier this week, TSN's French-language partner, Réseau des Sports, announced six-year contract extensions with the Montreal Canadiens and NHL, beginning immediately.
...
As for TSN, the rights fee that it will pay the NHL isn't known, although it would be in the $50-million range, perhaps more.
The CBC is paying the league $100-million annually for a more comprehensive national schedule that includes a Leafs game almost every week, most of the playoff series involving Canadian teams and the exclusivity to the Stanley Cup final.
TSN's new contract is unlikely to kick in until the current deal expires at the end of 2007-08, although it's possible broadband rights would start immediately.
Under the current deal, TSN only broadcasts playoff series between American teams, while CBC holds the rights to Canadian teams. As a transplanted Ottawa fan in Leafs Nation, the broadband streamed games is something that would be greatly beneficial to me, as to a lot of other transplanted fans. TSN has some of the most talented people working for their broadcasts so it would be great to see them being able to broadcast more games.
Labels: chris kelly, hamilton maybe predators, jim balsillie, nashville predators, ottawa senators, salary cap, spreadsheet fun, tsn
Broadcasting Sens games would be fantastic. Regional blackouts are the worst.
The brief stint where they were all stream-able on TVU last season was amazing.
Shit, son! I didn't know that you guys had that much tied up in the first line and Redden. Wow.
That chart is bitchin', BTW.
I wonder if all the TSN streaming would work in the States. I've had problems with it before, especially now that I'm farther from Canada than I used to be.
Matt - I agree with you. what's the point of getting a digital cable package if you can't watch anything!
That was a great time in my life, although I got asolutely no work done.
Kirsten - It's true, it's kind of sad. I'm willing to give the top line that much money [it's less than say what the top 3 in Tampa's getting] but that 6.5 for Wade is...heavy.
Thanks! That's what happens when I'm bored at work.
Hmm, I know CBC only lets you stream if you're in Canada...I think most of my friends in the States have been able to stream from TSN thus far.
As a fan from a small market, I can't even imagine throwing that much money at three players like Tampa's big three. That's usually the payroll for a whole sports team around here. Redden...yeah. I hope he steps it up.
Awesome, I'll keep my fingers crossed. I've cheated and gotten CBC before when on vacation up north (anything Duluth or north gets CBC on TV), so I'll keep an eye on it. Last year I got cut off from the internet at school by using up too much bandwidth trying to stream all of the games during the playoffs.
Sherrrrrrrrrrrrry! I am glad that they signed Kelly, he is worth the money - more so than Emery :P
I just wished that they signed him for more than one year.
I was kinda hoping that NYR would not pick up on Avery's arbitration - I personally think that he would make a good additional to the line-up.
Hope things are well ;-)
PaV - I'm really glad too! I think the money for Kelly is better than the money for Emery definitely. I also wish they could have had him for longer, but I suppose this way it's easier to assess the cap situation for next year since there are so many free agents to take care of.
I'm iffy about Avery myself. I think he'd be a good third or maybe even second line winger and he comes cheap enough but with that personality, ooh I don't know haha.
Things are going well! Glad to hear from you!
Sherry - hmmmm I kinda agree with you on Avery, but I just think Ottawa needs thats type of player.... a Darcy Fuc... err Tucker type.. you know?
Sorry I haven't been around much. Been SO busy. But its been worth it.
it's wrong this season, vermette is getting 1.2 mil not just 1
Kate, the year-to-year salaries are different but the ones listed are their cap figures, so that's the figure that should be used when calculating the Senators' salary cap situation.