Ottawa Senators Have More Payroll Flexibility After Trade

The Ottawa Senators are a franchise known for operating on a strict budget. Eugene Melnyk believes that he spends enough on player payroll to win in this league, and seems hesitant to hover around the maximum cap spending.

The Senators have to operate within their financial reality, though. They aren’t a team flush with cash, and don’t have the luxury of essentially writing blank checks to players and not worrying about the cost down the road.

It’s probably part of the reason that the Derick Brassard acquisition looked so appealing to them. Their 2017-2018 payroll was going to look pretty hefty if they were going to hand out long term contracts to Mike Hoffman, Cody Ceci, and Mika Zibanejad, all of whom were playing currently on discounts based on what their production was.

Zibanejad is gone now, and Brassard is going to be paid only slightly more per season for the next 3 seasons than Zibanejad is scheduled to play for next season. They achieved basically an economic constant from the trade.

If they don’t want to come too close to the salary cap, they probably couldn’t afford to give Zibanejad what the Rangers will have to give him next offseason as a restricted free agent, while also keeping key free agents during next offseason.

As of now, for the 2017-2018 season, the Senators have about $51.8 million devoted to players. That’s about $21.2 million in available cap space, assuming that the cap remains constant that season compared to this one.

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Judging on the growth of the cap for the past few seasons, it’s likely going to approach $75 million, but we’ll keep it at $73 million for this hypothetical, especially since it’s extremely unlikely that the Senators would get that close to the cap anyway.

Let’s shave off some more of that cap space to an even $20 million, in the name of economic conservatism.

That’s $20 million in space, and as of now, Hoffman, Ceci, Zack Smith, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and Curtis Lazar aren’t signed for the 2017-2018 season.

Assuming those guys are all a part of the long term plan for the Senators, the Zibanejad trade makes it feasible that the Senators can keep all of those guys at fair market value if they so choose.

Let’s assume for 2017-2018 that Hoffman makes $5 million and Ceci makes $4 million. Those are very fair figures for those two based on their production, and it leaves $11 million to divide amongst Smith, Pageau, and Lazar.

Smith has a lot to prove next season. He’s coming off a year in which he scored 25 goals and lead the league in shooting percentage, but before that only had 39 goals in 319 career games. His value going forward will be largely dependent on his production next season.

Pageau is the same way. The defensive grinder took a huge step forward on offense, scoring 43 points. Prior to last season, he had scored 25 points in 87 career games. Pageau had a way smaller sample size than Smith, so his production doesn’t seem as likely to be an anomaly.

Lazar was a 1st round pick in 2013, and is coming off a 20 point season in his second year, which was an improvement on his rookie total of 15.

They’re all intriguing players, but assuming that they don’t suffer severe declines next season, they’ll all be looking for a raise.

Smith will make $2.35 million next season. Pageau is going to make $1.1 million next season. Lazar is going to make $832,500 next season.

If the Senators feel inclined, they have the financial flexibility to keep all of those players long term. Zibanejad being added to that list would have complicated matters.

Moving Zibanejad gives the team a solid contributor in Brassard while also making it easier to keep intriguing pieces down the road in an economically responsible way.

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Depending on how the Senators manage their payroll for next offseason, this Brassard trade will allow them to build for the future if they envision these guys with uncertain contract situations as important cogs in the team going forward. If the Senators play this right, they’re set up well going forward to keep talent on the roster.