Coming from yesterday’s talks was word that the NHL could include two compliance buyouts for the 2013-14 season.
The compliance buyouts would be made after this season (if there is one) to help ease teams into the lower salary cap. The buyout would not count against the salary cap, and would come out of the players share, which the players are obviously not a big fan of.
The salary cap for this season was set at $70.2 million, but the NHL is aiming for $60 million in 2013-14. The players have dropped their number to $65 million from $67 million.
It would be interesting to see if any teams use the buyout on two players. Some organizations don’t have a lot of free money to throw around.
The Montreal Canadiens were one team that was mentioned often on twitter as a team who could take advantage of this. They already have 2013-14 cap number of over $60 million on 16 players and have three possible candidates in Scott Gomez, Tomas Kaberle and Rene Bourque.
If the salary cap is set at $60 million for 2013-14, or even meeting half way at $62.5 million, there are several teams that would be pushing this limit already. James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail used Capgeek and put together what teams have already committed for the next season and the number of players under contract.
| Rank | Team | Players | Spent | Space |
| 1 | Montreal | 16 | 60.2 | -0.2 |
| 2 | Tampa Bay | 15 | 57.5 | 2.5 |
| 3 | Philadelphia | 16 | 57.5 | 2.5 |
| 4 | Boston | 16 | 57.3 | 2.7 |
| 5 | Chicago | 17 | 57.2 | 2.8 |
| 6 | Vancouver | 13 | 55.4 | 4.6 |
| 7 | San Jose | 14 | 54.3 | 5.7 |
| 8 | Pittsburgh | 15 | 52.6 | 7.4 |
| 9 | NY Rangers | 16 | 51.8 | 8.2 |
| 10 | Minnesota | 16 | 51.1 | 8.9 |
| 11 | Carolina | 15 | 50.7 | 9.3 |
| 12 | Buffalo | 14 | 49.6 | 10.4 |
| 13 | Los Angeles | 13 | 49.4 | 10.6 |
| 14 | Colorado | 19 | 49.3 | 10.7 |
| 15 | Edmonton | 14 | 48.4 | 11.6 |
| 16 | Calgary | 14 | 47.9 | 12.1 |
| 17 | Nashville | 13 | 45.4 | 14.6 |
| 18 | Detroit | 15 | 45.1 | 14.9 |
| 19 | Washington | 12 | 44.8 | 15.2 |
| 20 | Columbus | 14 | 42.9 | 17.1 |
| 21 | Florida | 13 | 41.9 | 18.1 |
| 22 | Toronto | 13 | 41.5 | 18.5 |
| 23 | Ottawa | 13 | 39.1 | 20.9 |
| 24 | Dallas | 14 | 34.1 | 25.9 |
| 25 | Winnipeg | 9 | 33.2 | 26.8 |
| 26 | Phoenix | 10 | 33 | 27 |
| 27 | Anaheim | 12 | 32.8 | 27.2 |
| 28 | New Jersey | 13 | 32.4 | 27.6 |
| 29 | St. Louis | 12 | 32.1 | 27.9 |
| 30 | NY Islanders | 12 | 31.5 | 28.5 |
Player salaries who could be placed on LTIR are included. Players like Chris Pronger of the Flyers and Marc Savard of the Bruins will likely placed on LTIR as soon as the season starts, dropping the Flyers number by just under $5 million and the Bruins cap number by just over $4 million.
Players who are injured are not able to be bought out.
