The NHL and NHLPA have locked in the salary cap for next season. How will it affect Detroit?
The NHL and NHLPA have locked in the salary cap for next season. How will it affect Detroit?
The NHL and NHLPA have jointly announced that the upper limit of the salary cap will be $88 million for the 2024-25 season. That number represents a 5.4% increase on last season's $83.5 million cap. It's the biggest cap jump the league has experienced since COVID arrived at derailed league revenue, restricting salary cap growth to $1 million-per-season in the years since the pandemic arrived. Because the NHLPA finally paid off the debt it incurred to stabilize the cap coming out of the pandemic, the much-anticipated jump could finally come, but what does it mean for the Red Wings?
In terms of pure dollars and cents, it means Detroit heads into the summer with $29,367,361 in cap space. The Red Wings' current payroll of $58,632,639 is actually beneath the cap floor of $65,000,000, though clearing that floor will be no trouble by the time Detroit fills out its roster, with presently only six forwards and five defensemen under contract.
The Red Wings presently have three restricted free agents in Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, and Joe Veleno and six unrestricted free agents in James Reimer, Shayne Gostisbehere, Christian Fischer, Daniel Sprong, Patrick Kane, and David Perron.
To state the obvious, the biggest priority for Steve Yzerman will be locking Seider and Raymond into medium-to-long-term deals that will keep Detroit's twin young stars around for years to come and more than likely eat up roughly half to two-thirds of the nearly $30 million in available cap space.
There is clear incentive for the Red Wings to get those deals taken care of ahead of the draft, so that Yzerman knows exactly how much money he has to work with when he explores the trade market. Now that we finally have certainty on the exact cap for the coming season and with roughly two weeks between the present and the draft, it's a good time for Detroit fans to keep their eyes peeled for whatever's coming next for Seider and Raymond.
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