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Een toevluchtsoord voor het Ondervoede Hockey

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And the team spent just about $23 million on forwards in 2007-08.

Deadline acquisitions such as Huet and Sergei Fedorov are prorated against the cap, which is particularly helpful in a case such as Fedorov’s, as Columbus picked up the lion’s share of his $6-million-plus salary last season.

According the NHLnumbers, the Caps by early spring 2008 were on the hook for just under $42 million in salaries and bonuses counted against the cap — whereas at season’s start, when the team was closer to $39 million in payroll, it had about $12 million of cap room to spare. One of the reasons George McPhee was able to be so aggressive at the February trade deadline was the cap space he had this past season. Look for him to have a lot less of that in 2008-09.

Recall that when hockey returned post-lockout in 2005-06, the salary caps was at $39 million. In 2006-07, it jumped up to $44 million. This past season it stood at $50.3 million. The salary cap was envisioned as a system of cost controls for the owners, but in three short years it sure has risen fast, hasn’t it? Draw your own conclusions, but recall how the resolution of the 2004-05 labor impasse was characterized — with the owners having the players over a proverbial barrel. I’m not sure it’s quite worked out that way.

We won’t know for some months still what the salary cap will be for 2008-09, but educated guesses peg it in the mid-fifties-million range.

Accounting for just those players’ salaries on the team’s books for 2008-09, NHLnumbers has the Caps committed to forty one and a half million dollars for next season. Alexander Ovechkin’s salary accounts nearly a quarter of that. Moreover, consider that the ranks of the unsigned for next season include a no.1 netminder; Mike Green; Sergei Fedorov; Brooks Laich; Matt Cooke; Matt Bradley; Shaone Morrisonn; Steve Eminger; Boyd Gordon; Eric Fehr; and Quintin Laing.

Oh, and Karl Alzner.

Now Brian Pothier’s $2.5 million is included in that $41 million-plus figure, and his future is quite uncertain. But even if the Caps were to gain cap relief for Pothier, the signing of just Green, Alzner and a goalie, you have to figure, is going to push the payroll fairly close to $50 million. Conceiveably, that might leave the Caps with less than $5 or $6 million of cap space to sign seven or eight name bodies familiar to Caps’ fans. And of course, no NHL team wants to be pressed hard against the cap.

To state the obvious, it will be George McPhee’s most challenging offseason in terms of player contract negotiations and cap management.