St. Louis Blues Not Alone In Sudden Salary Cap Crunch

The St. Louis Blues have always spent up to or near the salary cap under Tom Stillman’s ownership. However, the Blues have lots of company near the ceiling with a lot of teams in a crunch.

The fact the St. Louis Blues are inching closer to the salary cap ceiling is of no great surprise to most fans. Ever since Tom Stillman took over control of the team, he has given Doug Armstrong the freedom to spend near the cap.

Plenty of fans complain about where and how that money is spent. Many, including myself, at one time or another have questioned if the talent on the Blues was worthy of being that close to maxing out every dollar.

We finally got somewhat of an answer to that question. The Blues won the 2019 Stanley Cup with a good mixture of high-dollar contracts and smart deals that were either picked up from other teams or team-friendly contracts that maximized the dollar to production rate.

Of course you are going to have contracts fans want to be rid of. However, every team in the NHL that is not trying to stay above the salary floor has a contract they regret like Alexander Steen‘s or Jay Bouwmeester.

The bottom line is whether those players produce. Not everyone that gets paid $5 million plus is going to net you 20-30 goals, but if they are contributing in positive ways almost every night, then the contract is worth it.

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The interesting thing going on in the NHL right now is a sudden crunch for quite a few teams. It seems as though many teams were planning on the salary cap going up to around $83-85 million or more and got caught with their pants down when it peaked around $81 million.

St. Louis has made some smart choices in their contracts that allowed them to keep almost everyone they wanted to from their championship squad. The only player likely squeezed out by the lack of extra funds might be Pat Maroon.

Other teams are not so lucky. As of August 10, 2019, CapFriendly.com lists the Blues as having $1.9 million in cap space. Despite how low that number is, the Blues have nine teams that are closer to or above the ceiling.

Pittsburgh is right at the cap and might have to use whatever relief they can get to maneuver their roster pieces around. For as bad as they have been in the standings, the Buffalo Sabres are $1 million over the cap.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are currently an astounding $3 million over the cap. The Leafs still have the Mitch Marner situation to iron out too. They will definitely have to utilize the Long Term Injury Reserve relief just to get things under control.

Of course, all these situations are fluid. The cap numbers fluctuate depending on who stays with the big club after training camp and who ends up in the minors.

Some players might have bigger contracts, but get beat out and start the year in the AHL because they don’t have waivers exemptions. That can have a big impact on your cap hit.

The Blues still have to figure out Ivan Barbashev’s contract too. However, the bottom line is that the Blues are in a surprisingly good spot, despite having what feels like no room.

Despite some of the slightly questionable moves by Armstrong, he has kept the team in a spot where they can retain most of their necessary pieces without putting themselves in a crunch. Other contenders, like Tampa Bay had to shed a few contracts to get the breathing room of $7 million they have now.

Vegas’ initial plan was to stockpile draft picks and build for the future. Making the Stanley Cup Final in their first year has quickly put them in the crunch with only just over $1 million in space and already having shed several quality players from that initial team.

It goes to show what a steady approach can provide. The Blues will never please all the fans because they aren’t going after those players that will get the $10 million-plus per year deals or trade for the high priced name at the expense of the future.

But, while we have not always agreed with each individual contract, it cannot be denied that Armstrong has kept the Blues in a spot where they can always make moves if prudent but also have enough room to give young guys a spot to shoot for. It’s about as good a spot as you can be in and one that many teams envy at this point when they have spent a ton of money and have nothing to show for it yet.