With Radek Faksa, Tyler Pitlick, and Brett Ritchie still battling injuries the Dallas Stars may have to recall a forward for Friday’s game against the New York Islanders.
And because of the salary cap their options will be limited.
Each day teams don’t carry a maximum cap hit they add additional cap space for the next day, similar to bank interest. This is the reason you see some teams, particularly those close to their AHL affiliate, sending players back-and-forth so often in order get as much cap flexibility as possible.
In the Stars case, as of this moment (November 8, 2017) they have roughly $680,000 in cap space.
If they played tonight and needed to call-up a forward, the only AHL forwards eligible would be Mark McNeill ($660,000), Justin Dowling ($650,000), and Cole Ullly ($646,667) because of their salaries.
According to Stars general manager Jim Nill, waiting until Friday will put the Stars in the $700,000 range. That would give the Stars an opportunity to call up either Brian Flynn ($700,000) or Curtis McKenzie ($700,000) if they wanted to.
Either way, highly-touted prospects Denis Gurianov ($894,166) and Roope Hintz ($811,667) won’t be available as call-ups Friday because they make too much money at the NHL level.
This also explains why the Stars played Jamie Oleksiak at forward on Monday and didn’t call-up a player from the AHL. Nill said there would have only been two forward call-up options that day (Ully and Dowling), since the Stars only had $650,000 in cap space.
This is why the Stars typically try to sign depth players, like Dowling (who makes $200,000 in the AHL) and goalie Mike McKenna ($650,000 NHL/$225,000 AHL) to the NHL minimum salary and reward them with a higher salary on the AHL-side of a two-way contract.
“With the cap world it may be better for a depth player to make $650,000 than $750,000,” Nill said. “Because you have a better chance of getting called up and aren’t limiting your chances by putting a team over the salary cap.”
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