NHL Atlantic Division Salary Cap Report

In the new National Hockey League, salary cap era teams are often forced to make tough decisions regarding player evaluations.  This much was made abundantly clear to Rangers fans this week as fan favorite Sean Avery left the club for a boat load of cash in Dallas.  The Rangers brass simply wasn't willing to commit $4 million dollars a year in cap space to a player they didn't value above $3 million. 

With the additions of Wade Redden, Markus Naslud, Nikolai Zherdev, Dmitri Kalinin and the extensions to Paul Mara and Michal Rozsival the Rangers are nearly capped out for next season.  The following will be a review of the cap situations of each team in the NHL's Atlantic Division.

New York Rangers

While the Rangers have decided to completely revamp their team this off-season, General Manager Glen Sather and Coach Tom Renney have not closed the door on a Brendan Shanahan redux.  It's difficult to see how that's possible, however, as the Rangers are nearly capped out. 

The cap next season is set at $56.7 million dollars. The Rangers top hits in the cap are last year's acquisitions forwards Scott Gomez ($7.35 million) and Chris Drury ($7.05 million).  On the defensive side Wade Redden tops out the list ($6.5 million cap hit), followed by Michal Rozsival ($5 million), and Dmitri Kalinin ($2.1 million).

With all their new additions, the Rangers have only a little over $1.5 million dollars in cap space with Fredrik Sjostrom and Nigel Dawes, both restricted free agents (RFAs), and Dan Fritsche heading to arbitration.

New York Islanders

The Islanders franchise gave their fans another reason to be proud entering this off-season.  The club actually entered free agency under the NHL mandated salary cap floor.  This means they were committing less to players salaries than the NHL-CBA collective bargaining agreement requires. 

To fix this problem the team went out and signed defenseman Mark Streit (five years, $20.5 million) and center Doug Weight (one year, $1.75 million).  These signings, along with the buyout money for Alexi Yashin and Sean Bates (totaling about $2.5 million against the cap), are just barely enough to get the Isles over the line. 

Jeff Tambellini, Jeremy Colliton, Frans Nielsen and Bruno Gervais remain as RFA's while Sean Bergenheim has filed for arbitration.

Even with these free agent bombshells the Islanders remain 24th in the league in payroll with over $15 million in cap space.

New Jersey Devils

After last year's free agency debacle in which the Devils let Scott Gomez and Brian Rafalski sign elsewhere, New Jersey committed some money to free agents this time around. 

The Devils re-upped free agents Jay Pandolfo ($2.5 million) and Bryce Salvador ($2.9 million) and brought back Brian Rolston ($5.06 million) and Bobby Holik ($2.5 million). 

With no RFA's or arbitration eligible players the Devils currently have about $1.35 million in remaining cap space.

Philadelphia Flyers

The Flyers have the distinction of being the only Atlantic Division team currently over the cap.  Huge contracts to Danny Briere ($6.5 million), Kimmo Timonen ($6.3 million) Mike Richards ($5.75 million), Simon Gagne ($5.25 million), Jeff Carter ($5 million) and Scott Hartnell ($4.25 million), have the Flyers committing nearly 60 percent of their cap to 6 players. 

The Flyers currently sit nearly $900,000 over the cap.  Patrick Thoreson is the team's only RFA.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Defending Eastern Conference Champions Pittsburgh Penguins have been very active this off-season.  Despite their recent activity, they've managed to remain under the cap. 

Evgeni Malkin's new deal will only count at $3.8 million this season before ballooning to $8.7 next year.  Also extended were Brooks Orpik (at a very reasonable $3.75 million), Marc-Andre Fleury ($5 million), and Pascal Dupuis ($1.4 million).

To fill some of the offensive void left by Marion Hossa, the Pens inked Miroslav Satan ($3.5 million) and Ruslan Fedotenko ($2.25 million) from the Islanders.

Even with all this activity the Penguins find themselves about $1.7 million dollars under the 2008 cap.