I'm sure most people have their own opinion, I'm kind of curious to hear which number of players most think to be optimal? 20, 21, 22, or the max of 23?
I think 21 is a decent number, with a mix of 12F, 7D, and 2G. It leaves you protection in case of an injury in the pregame skate, and it saves 1.0 mil in cap room (NHL minimum salary is $0.500 mil for the 09/10 season), relative to the same roster with 2 additional, league minimum salaried players. It's the cap room argument that most intrigues me, as I'm not sure how important it is to have extra players on your roster if you can simply replace them via LTIR when injuries hit. The problems come when players are injured, but not so seriously injured that they need to go on LTIR. In that case though you can just call a player up,provided you have cap room, and I wonder how that trades off with having 1 mil extra to spend elsewhere in your roste?.
Additionally, one's decision regarding the roster number depends on the team's player mix and waiver situation. Do you want to have 3 extra players to give match-up flexibility vs different teams? Are there players that you value enough to not risk waiving, even if they aren't line-up regulars?
I guess it goes to the larger question "How closely should a team willing to spend to the cap actually get before they are cutting too fine a line?" And what is too fine a line?
4 comments:
I wrote this post ages ago:
http://ykoil.blogspot.com/2007/03/competitive-budgets.html
Take care speeds :-)
I think it depends on your system and the waivers eligibility for your kids.
I guess it goes to the larger question "How closely should a team willing to spend to the cap actually get before they are cutting too fine a line?" And what is too fine a line?
That's a good question. If you bump into Darryl Sutter, I'd be intrigued to hear his answer ;)
Seriously, what you'd leave on the table to start the season likely depends on the age and relative health of your roster. If I have Marian Gaborik, I might want an extra buck or two just in case, although he normally gets hurt badly enough that LITR is involved. Having watched Calgary's fiasco this spring, I'd want a million on the side, but maybe that's just a bad experience corrupting my assessment. If you have 500,000 of that left in hard cap space at the deadline that would likely be enough for almost any scenario. That would be just under 2.5 million in equivalent space, and given that your call-ups are likely bargain bin types you could call up as many as you'd need, even for non-LITR situations.
Coach's point re: system and waiver eligibility is quite correct, of course. That principle noted, as a preference I wouldn't want more than 22 guys in the bigs. 13F 7D 2G. I want as many guys as possible playing on a regular basis somewhere. Playing in the A is still usually better than watching in the Show, and yes, that includes Springfield in 08/09.
Seriously, what you'd leave on the table to start the season likely depends on the age and relative health of your roster. If I have Marian Gaborik, I might want an extra buck or two just in case, although he normally gets hurt badly enough that LITR is involved.
This is the part I find really interesting, because I think it makes a bit of a counterintuitive point about the salary cap:
The more injury prone guys you have, in a way, they less you need to worry about salary cap room. As long as you have enough injury prone players, chances are one of them will always be injured. Then you can stick that guy on LTIR and by the time he's ready to come back someone else will probalby be injured and you might be able to use the LTIR all year to effectively raise your cap, though you wouldn't have access to a fully healthy roster until the playoffs (if everyone happened to be healthy at once). It would be a bit of a gamble in the sense that were everyone healthy at the same time, you'd have to make a trade or some sort of roster move, and maybe teams would decide that risk isn't worth the reward.
It's an interesting idea, anyways, on how to spend more than the cap while spending within the cap rules, and the cap's injury rules.
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