The reduced salary cap ceiling helps the Montreal Canadiens

By Omar L | Jun 23, 2019

Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

The NHL has finally released the salary cap ceiling for the 2019-20 season, and although it’s lower than expected, the Montreal Canadiens can make use of it.

Well, it’s better late then never right? NHL insiders have been teasing the release of the salary cap ceiling, and the hockey world finally got its answer. The Montreal Canadiens, as well as the other 30 teams in the NHL, will have up to $81.5 million to work with while the floor is $60.2 million.

It’s only a $2 million salary cap increase from last year’s $79.5 million. In many cases, an increase is an increase, but NHL teams are concerned of how little the increase was. Some were reporting the salary cap could go up to as high as $83 million giving teams who are right up against the ceiling some more room to work with. But instead, the NHL and NHLPA decided to go for a lower boost in order to decrease escrow (a percentage of money taken from every player’s contract).

Keep the word “escrow” stored in your memory as it’s going to continue to be one of the deciding factors for the next few years, especially when a CBA needs to be negotiated.

With an $81.5 million ceiling, the Montreal Canadiens have a little north of $10 million to spend in free agency or the extensions of their restricted free agents. That’s more than enough room. Teams like the Vegas Golden Knights, on the other hand, are in a bit of trouble. The same goes for the teams who have key players in need of new deals such as the Toronto Maple Leafs (Mitch Marner) and Winnipeg Jets (Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor).

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Even though those teams are stressing a bit, the Montreal Canadiens are sitting pretty, which is a massive asset moving forward. The biggest strength any team can have is cap space. The new age of NHL talent has young players demanding a lot more out of entry-level such that teams have to make difficult decisions to have the room to keep them along.

Take Nashville for example. They don’t have young free agents to resign but captain Roman Josi is going to need a contract and the Predators might make a splash on July 1st. Combine that with the limited cap increase and you have a situation where the Preds were forced to trade P.K. Subban.

Many are going back and making it about his character, but it’s strictly cap purposes. What was important to the Devils acquiring him was that they were one of few teams who could take on the full $9 million cap hit.

Sportsnet’s piece on the deal had an interesting quote from general manager David Poile:

"We had to make a business decision. With an aim at strengthening our forward corps this off-season, and the continued strength of our defensive group, we felt it was necessary to clear up salary cap space this way."

The trade in of itself isn’t that grand. The Predators got two young defenceman on cheap deals as well as two second-round picks. But again, Poile needed to shed cap space to add to their forward corps and paid the price to do it.

The Montreal Canadiens need to go down this line of being a team’s safe haven from cap crunches. They did it last season in taking on Steve Mason‘s deal and were rewarded with Joel Armia.

Vegas is in a really tough spot as they’re over the ceiling and haven’t even signed number one centre William Karlsson yet. Can something be worked out there?

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Limited salary cap increases are going to continue to work in the favour of the Montreal Canadiens up until the point where their stars will need to get paid. In the meantime, Marc Bergevin should be keeping his phone on and listening to any and all possibilities. We saw him making a lot of small talk with other general managers on the draft floor and that needs to continue.

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