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I hate you, Toronto, ON • Canada • 27 Years Old • Male
After a few crazy days of free agency, the dust is starting to settle and all that remains are second-tier players. In the midst of this, the LA Kings find themselves with a payroll of $US 28,340,000 million (thanks to Chip's Cap Central) going into next season. While they have six Restricted Free Agents to deal with, Jaret Stoll and Patrick O'Sullivan are the only ones of the bunch that may be getting anywhere in the 2 million vicinity.

After the 2007-08 season concluded, the NHL raised the Cap once again, bringing it up from 52 to 56.7 million, with the cap floor sitting at 40.7 million. Which means the Kings will have to spend a little over 12 million to reach the floor. This might prove to be a difficult task considering that a) none of their remaining players to sign are worth big dollars, and b) there isn't a big variety of Unrestricted Free Agents to fill the void. And you can scratch Ladislav Nagy off that list, after playing for the Kings last season he's decided to test the Free Agent waters.

Here is a list of the remaining RFA's along with their salaries of the 07-08 season:

Jarret Stoll -- 2.2M (3 point decrease with 30 more games played than 06-07)

Patrick O'Sullivan -- 650K (due for a raise after a 52 point, 22 goal season)

Brad Richardson -- 600K

Matt Moulson -- 500K

Peter Harrold -- 500K

Erik Ersberg -- 575K

After looking at this list, it'd be hard to imagine all these players racking up more than around 6 million. Playing along with that figure (and that was generous), that would bring the Kings to about a 34 million payroll, which would leave them around 6 million under the Cap.

With that said, even with these RFA's signed up, the Kings still need to sign a few players. Whether they call-up prospects or sign free agents is up to them, but they better be willing to spend some money, or else they may find themselves having to trade for players with inflated salaries (ahem, Bryan McCabe and Pavel Kubina are available!).

Free Agents the Kings may target:

Pavol Demitra

Jason Williams

Mark Recchi

Brendan Morrison

Owen Nolan

Mike Peca

Brendan Shannahan

Jason Smith
Filed Under:   Kings   Cap   NHL   hockey  
July 6, 2008 1:41 AM ET | Delete
Hatcher and his 3.5 million would help.... Hextall needs to call Holmgren
July 6, 2008 3:04 AM ET | Delete
guess no one wants to sign there
July 6, 2008 6:40 AM ET | Delete
How about taking Khabibulin off Chicago's hands.
July 6, 2008 8:49 AM ET | Delete
How the Kings and Hawks haven't made a Khabibulin trade yet is strange.
July 6, 2008 11:25 AM ET | Delete
Excellent, thought provoking blog RR. Bravo.
July 6, 2008 5:20 PM ET | Delete
Using nhlnumbers.com The Kings have 13 players signed with a cap hit just over 25 million. That means 10 players need to make up the other 15 million. Not too hard to do, especially if they place Cloutier and his 3 plus million dollar cap hit on the NHL roster. Add Stool and thats about 5 million right there. I expect the Kings to sign Montador and a top 9 forward. The owner has put a limit of about 4.5 million on a salary paid to any player. That is why Khabibulin will not be traded for and the same reason Vishnovski was traded.
July 6, 2008 7:51 PM ET | Delete
O sully is up for a nice raise....maybe ...3-4 mill...At least the kings are not over paying the market!!! Dean Lombardi is predicting a 41-43 mill payroll. We can go after Bertuzzi...at 4 million...LOL what a waist of money...
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