NHL Board of Governors December Meeting – Los Angeles Kings Version
Monday started off the NHL Board of Governors December meetings in Boca Raton, Florida.
Two major topics were discussed:
To start with, commissioner Gary Bettman has given permission to billionaire William ‘Bill’ Foley II, to conduct a season-ticket drive to measure the level of interest for the NHL in Las Vegas.
Foley is Fidelity National Financial’s Chairman of the Board, and has had an interest in moving a team to Las Vegas.
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Bettman reiterated that this does not mean the NHL is expanding or that the Board is even hearing or considering motions of expansion. It’s simply a tactic to feel-out the level of interest in Sin City.
What does this mean for the Los Angeles Kings?
Nothing really. Nothing yet, anyway.
Should the NHL be the first to have a franchise in Las Vegas there could be another team in the Pacific Division. There could be a division realignment. The Kings would play fewer games against the Eastern Conference, which would mean slightly less travel.
These are just a few examples of what an additional Western team in the NHL could mean. The possibilities, especially with the frequent rule changing NHL we have today, are endless.
The other topic of discussion was the salary cap.
The NHL’s salary cap is set to increase next year.
The current NHL ceiling is $69 million, while the cap-floor is $51 million.
Bettman said, currently, the Board of Governors only have projections.
“I went over a series of projections, preliminary, preliminary projections,” Bettman said. “Estimates that are not carved in stone, but our best guess based on the information available making lots and lots of assumptions on things like revenue growth in the year and perhaps, as significantly, what may happen with the Canadian dollar. Our best guess, and it’s got some variation in it, that if the Canadian dollar stays where it is now for the rest of the season, which is about 88 cents, the cap for next season would be approximately $73 million. It’s just a guess and is subject to variation.”
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So the cap could move up by about $4 million.
What does this mean for the Kings?
Good news in terms of cap-relief. Hopefully by the start of the 2015-2016 Kings training camp Slava Voynov’s situation will be figured out.
Veterans Justin Williams, Jarret Stoll and Robyn Regehr are all set to become Unrestricted Free Agents in 2015. Stoll and Williams contracts are $3.25 and $3.65 million respectively. Which means one of those players could potentially return to L.A. without having to move anything around to create cap-space.
Youngsters Tanner Pearson, Tyler Toffoli, Kyle Clifford, Jordan Nolan and Andy Andreoff are set to become Restricted Free Agents. Certainly Toffoli and Pearson will command significantly more dollars than the $716,000 and $735,000, respectively, that they’re earning now.
Some of the extra $4 million in cap could go towards keeping a few youngsters around for years to come.
It’s only December; clearly nothing is set in stone. It’s good to pick up what’s in the wind, so the Kings can start to plan their upcoming moves. Kings President and General Manager Dean Lombardi is always two steps ahead. Certainly this trend will continue when the NHL’s changes are cemented.