Oilers will still be in salary cap hell despite reported NHL increase
The Edmonton Oilers don’t have a lot of cap space, and that doesn’t appear to be changing heading into next season.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced at Tuesday’s Board of Governors meeting that the league is expecting the cap to rise from the current $83.5 million up to $87.7 million next season. This makes for an increase of $4.2 million and would be the first significant cap increase since the 2017-18 season.
Gary Bettman says the cap will go up to $87.7 million and adds the league has made more than $6 billion in revenue.
Also says the draft will be in Vegas and are finalizing plans to hold it at The Sphere.
— Ryan S. Clark (@ryan_s_clark) December 5, 2023
The Oilers, however, won’t be able to enjoy that increase as a good chunk of it is already spoken for by a player who isn’t even signed with the team next season. Instead, $3.25 million of that $4.2 million increase will be allocated to Connor Brown’s performance bonuses, which he hit after playing in his 10th game of the season back on November 18 against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The hope when the Oilers signed Brown to that contract was that he would play so well that the added cap hit next season would be worth the trouble. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case, as Brown has just a single assist with the Oilers through his first 16 games. To add salt to the wound, the bonus will count toward the cap in a year that Brown is currently not under contract to play with the Oilers.
If the two sides decide to split at the end of this season, the Oilers will be effectively dealing with $3.25 million in dead cap added onto their already difficult-to-navigate financial situation.
If the cap does rise the way the NHL expects it to, the Oilers will have about $10 million of space heading into the offseason. That number will surely be lower if the team opts to re-sign expiring players like Brown, Warren Foegele, Mattias Janmark, and Vincent Desharnais.
Signing even one or two of those players would drag the Oilers’ remaining cap space down to about the $8 million range, which doesn’t leave a lot of room to make significant improvements to the roster.
Another thing hindering the Oilers is the $1.9 million in dead cap from the James Neal buyout that will remain until the end of next season.
This means that the team will have to make moves if they want to have more flexibility in the offseason. A move that would go a long way in helping would be finding a way to get out of the remaining three years of goaltender Jack Campbell’s contract that carries a hefty $5 million cap hit. Though any trade involving Campbell’s entire cap hit is sure to be an expensive one.
The NHL salary cap may be going up, but without a lot of work, it won’t give the Oilers much more room at all.
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