Transaction Reaction: The Dallas Stars' Day

Sean Avery officially came off the books for the Stars and Rangers with his assignment to the AHL, but only as far as cap hit is concerned. (Both teams still have to pay him, of course.) The Rangers, a team that typically spends to the upper limit, were understandably happy about the extra cap space.

But the Stars sure weren't. Why? Well, first consider that the Stars are in a major ownership crisis and thus don't spend to the cap. In fact, they don't even come close, because they can't afford it. They don't have any real need or use for extra cap space. And, as Bob McKenzie tweeted, Avery's demotion meant that Stars were actually in danger of being under the floor. They had to do something to replace Avery's dead space.

When the day started this morning, the Stars had their active 23-man roster, plus Adam Pardy and Scott Glennie on the IR. This meant that they had 25 players on their NHL roster.

Usually, players on IR count toward the cap, which would mean Dallas could count Pardy's $2,000,000 and Glennie's $1,620,000 hit towards their cap. However, only Pardy's cap hit counts towards Dallas' total.

I was informed today by CapGeek that Glennie does not count towards Dallas' cap. CapGeek cited Article 15.6 as the reason why, which refers to the compensation players who break training camp on the injury list receive. Both Glennie and Pardy fit into this scenario. CapGeek assured me that Glennie counts as zero.

Because said compensation is defined in Article 15.6 as a rate based off where he played last season, and Glennie spent last season in the WHL and AHL (leagues that do not carry an NHL cap hit), his compensation this season does not count towards the salary cap. Because Pardy spent last season in the NHL, his cap hit does count.

Here is the aforementioned CapGeek FAQ on the subject

So, because Glennie doesn't count towards Dallas' cap, and Pardy does, Dallas only has 24 cap-accountable players. Those 24 players combined to give Dallas a cap hit of $48,817,500. That number is only $517,500 over the floor of $48,300,000. To activate Adam Pardy, Dallas will have to comply with the 23-man active roster rule and send somebody down. The problem is, if they were to do that with their roster as it stood this morning, they would have been under the cap floor. Here's why:

The lowest skater cap hit Dallas could possibly send down is $775,000 (Toby Petersen or Tom Wandell - they do have goalie Andrew Raycroft making less but they need to carry two goaltenders, obviously). Since Petersen and Wandell are forwards, and Pardy is a defenseman, it's more likely that Dallas will send down a D-man when Pardy returned. Currently, the lowest possible Cap hit for a Dallas defenseman is Philip Larsen at $850,000. 

Assuming that Dallas sends down Larsen when Pardy returns, this puts them $332,500 under the floor. To get in compliance, Dallas found themselves needing to make a transaction that resulted in an increased cap hit of at least that $332,500. 

Let's go over what Joe Nieuwendyk's possible in-house solutions were:  he could have called up Jamie Oleksiak to replace Petersen or Wandell, as Oleksiak's entry-level cap hit would have covered the difference required. However, calling him up to either play before he's ready or sit in the pressbox every game would be terrible for his development. It would also start his entry-level contract "clock" if he hits that magic 10th game, as he is a slide risk, and I'm sure Nieuwekdyk had no intentions whatsover of doing that. Also, Oleksiak is a defenseman, so this offers no real benefit for Dallas whatsoever.

He could also have called up goaltending prospect Jack Campbell and send Raycroft down, but again, that would be terrible for Campbell's development.

Seeing no real internal solution, the Stars had to look outside the organization, so they acquired Eric Nystrom from the Wild for future considerations. By adding Nystrom, they had to send somebody down to stay compliant with the 23-man active roster, so they sent Tomas Vincour down.

Dallas assumed Nystrom's full cap hit of $1,400,000. Vincour's cap hit is $800,000. Adding Nystrom and subtracting Vincour added $600,000 to Dallas' team cap hit, which is in excess of the $332,500 they needed. This means that if Adam Pardy is activated, and if Philip Larsen is sent down as the concurrent move, Dallas will be $267,500 clear of the floor.

It's interesting to note that Dallas could have claimed Nystrom off re-entry waivers a few days ago, but that wouldn't have helped them as all, because the half-cap-hit of $700,000 would actually make their deficit relative to the floor worse.

Dallas needed to find a way to take on salary once Pardy was healthy, and they've done so with this trade. An all-around crazy situation.