Gary Bettman announces good news, but not for the Canadiens
Gary Bettman announced very good news for the 32 NHL teams, but the Canadiens won't really benefit from it.
Indeed, the salary cap will finally make a significant jump next season, increasing by $4.2 million.
This is unprecedented since the pandemic.
However, due to penalties given to the Canadiens for exceeding the cap last year and other details, this surplus is already spent for Kent Hughes, possibly even more.
Juraj Slafkovsky ($500K), Kaiden Guhle ($212.5K), Jayden Struble ($57.5K), Justin Barron ($212.5K), and Sean Monahan ($15K) all received performance bonuses that pushed the team over the salary cap.
If we combine the salaries to be paid to Jake Allen and Jeff Petry, it results in a loss of $5,291,250 on next season's cap.
So, the $4.2 million surplus doesn't benefit the Canadiens for the 2024-25 season.
The good news is that there is still a bit more than $9 million of cap space left for Kent Hughes, with only Arber Xhekaj and Jesse Ylönen to sign.
The latter is theoretically expected to be released by the team.
| POLL | ||
Do you think Kent Hughes should wait another year before signing a good player on the free agent market? | ||
| Yes | 193 | 48.6 % |
| No | 204 | 51.4 % |
| List of polls | ||
