NHL CBA: How Would the New CBA Impact the Minnesota Wild's Cap Position?

With the news that the NHL has proposed a 50/50 split of the all important hockey related revenue, the hope is welling up around the league. We'll save our hope for things we can be more sure of, like winning the lottery. However, as the details come out, there are some questions we can start o have some fun with.

That's the word we're looking for, right? Fun?

A tweet late last night from Bob McKenzie presents an interesting twist to the salary cap. He reports that the cap for this season would remain at the $70.2 million, dropping to $59.9 million next season. For the math impaired, that's a $10.3 million drop in one summer. All of those teams that thought they would be rolling in cap space next season just saw the equivalent of an Alexander Ovechkin and $1.3 million in extra space disappear before their eyes.

Likely not.

The UFAs are all but guaranteed to be packing up under the new cap. No way Bouchard is ready to take the type of scalping that would be needed to keep him around, and the Wild are going to be desperate to unload the injury risk. Cullen is in his twilight, so no reason to worry there, either.

No way I re-sign Cullen or Bouchard. Great guys, but they will be victims of the new world order. The RFAs will have to accept the new reality and sign for cheap or find themselves on the outside looking in. If Brodin has a good season, he gets a spot, maybe even with Suter.

The new cap is going to reek havoc on some teams across the league. As of right now, if the cap is what McKenzie suggests, the Wild lose the massive advantage they had, but they certainly aren't up against a wall. Fletcher has room to breathe, prospects to bring in, and trades he can make.

This is not to say the new proposal does not carry some pitfalls for the Wild. For example:

In other words... those two fancy deals Craig Leipold just signed? Yeah. They carry a cap hit, even if Parise and / or Suter decide to retire at some point in the deal. THat should be fun to deal with just as Mikael Granlund, Charlie Coyle, Brodin, etc are coming into the biggest pay days of their careers.