Cap Crunching with Keith Kavanaugh & Playoff Implications | Morning Cuppa Hockey

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At first timer, he wants a rookie lap.

I told Colby we should just leave the screen

and let him sit here alone by himself for a minute.

He's a rookie lap.

But I think that's too mean.

But Keith, we're happy to have you on here.

We have a lot of questions.

So if you're not familiar with Keith,

he's with Pockedia.

He knows everything there is to know about contract.

He's a good friend of mine.

I even know he'll never say that publicly and neither will I.

But first of all, how you doing, everything?

Okay, with you leading into the playoffs this year,

obviously, it's a little bit different than the past years.

Yeah, no, I'm great.

And Johnny Colby, great to hop on.

Colby, thank you for coming on to the Pockedia hockey show

the other day.

Great episode.

If you guys haven't watched it,

morning cup of hockey fans go over to Pockedia YouTube,

watch Colby's full episode.

Johnny was on there a few months ago.

And Colby, I do have to say one thing.

I saw I just heard the obvious rant about the Fortescue thing

as someone who's working at MSG for two and a half years

who knows some stuff about the organization.

I'm not going to say anything,

but I'm just going to say Colby makes some good points.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's a great way to start the show with you, Keith.

That's a great way to start the show.

Keith, the reason that we wanted you to come on today,

the main reason was this playoff salary cap.

Okay.

And like, how does it work?

And is it your starting lineup?

And what happens if you have an injury

and you have an extra guy on the ice for warm-ups?

When do you have to submit it?

Like, there's just so many ins and outs

and I do feel like, you know,

it's not something that we're talking about enough right now.

The fact that, you know, you're, I think, I believe,

it's your lineup that night has to be compliant.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

Let's take it from the top here, Colby.

Let's just go step by step.

Awesome.

Perfect.

So the difference with the regular season salary cap

versus the playoff salary cap,

and I heard you talk about this at the beginning of the episode,

because the regular season, you said it's each day, right?

It's 192 days and you have basically a salary cap hit,

like it's pro rate at 1, 1, 90 second each day.

So the playoff salary cap is not like that at all.

It's game by game as opposed to season long.

So the cap only counts for your 20 player roster,

so you're 18 skaters and your two gold tenders.

And it must be submitted five hours before the game.

So you're not going to get that gamesmanship

where last year, like Gabriel and a scog has,

was on warmups, but then got scratched.

You're going to know that ahead of time.

To your point, I don't actually know what would happen

if there's an injury in warmups.

If the team would be able to sub out a guy,

it's not clear based on the article that's on Pugpedia's website.

And just for reference to everyone, go to Pugpedia.com

and you just type in playoff salary cap in the search bar.

And the article comes up and it explains the ins and outs.

But essentially scratches and players on injured reserve

do not count against that salary cap.

It's just the 20 players performance and games played bonuses

also do not count or excluded from the playoff cap hit.

I'm going to use LA as the main example to go through this

because they have some interesting nuance

with the playoff salary cap.

So LA still has a bonus overage from last season.

So the ones that are from last season

are passed forward to this season.

So they have a $212,000 bonus overage this season.

So that's counted.

But any games played or bonuses that were incurred during the season

and our overage are passed on to next season

and don't count for this year's playoff salary cap.

So basically, so they're 18 man roster

and their two goalies are for the playoff cap hit.

So acquired players like an Artemi Panarin who had retention

is counts against the salary cap for the playoffs,

but without pro-ration.

So when you make a trade during the regular season,

so let's say a $10 million player is a 50% retained.

So that's a $5 million cap hit.

But if a team acquires them 50% of the way into the season,

they really only need 25% of that whole deal.

So 50% of 50%.

So they only need 2.5 million.

But in the playoffs, they need that full 50%.

So Panarin's going to count 5.821 million

against LA's playoff cap.

But during the regular season, for example,

they only need at $1.77 million of space

because they had a 50% and then there's only 30%

of the regular season remaining.

All paused there.

Are you guys following us?

Everyone follow that?

That's a lot of fucking numbers that you just threw out.

I'm kind of getting it.

But my question just based on what you just said, Keith.

So like, well, we not and correct me from wrong, which I probably am.

Well, we not see, like,

Philip Heidel is a game time decision tonight.

Like, if he's on, you won't see any of that in the playoffs.

And I'm just using that because that was a big thing in 2024.

Yeah, no, it's exact.

That's a good point.

So these rosters with the 18 men who are going to be dressed in the two goal lease.

Like, that has to be submitted five hours before the game.

So you're not going to see this game'smanship at warmups.

Like I mentioned,

I think it could be leaked or, or sometimes coaches like, you know, yeah.

Yeah, like is this where are they submitting it to like the league office?

I would imagine it submitted through like the NHL's like central registry.

So there's, I guess there is opportunities for gamesmanship where maybe the teams on each side

don't fully know what it's going to be.

But, you know, the insiders are so good nowadays that I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting some leakage.

Like a few hours before the game time once it's submitted.

So it has to be submitted to the NHL.

But then how that information is dispersed after that is like probably totally up to the insiders kind of approach it.

Interesting.

Wow.

That's going to be a whole new wrinkle for for the playoffs this year.

Like the line.

I love the mind games.

Yeah.

No mind games.

Listen.

I mean, Kevin Weeks of all people has has a mole at central registry.

I mean, that guy definitely has somebody at central registry.

I think we know Frank and Elliott have some people that must work in.

I mean, remember when Frank busted up the entire fan.

I mean, not the entire mansion draft.

And then, you know, Elliott's obviously always on top of these things as well.

So that will be a new a new wrinkle then this year.

Will be the leaking of the lineups, I guess, for the insiders.

100%.

And yeah, the nuance to like the retention part, like it depends if you're acquiring the player or if you retain on the player.

So LA also retained on Corey Perry's contract.

So they have one million retained when they traded him to Tampa.

So instead of getting that full like one million cap charge for them in the playoffs, it's only, you know, pro rate it.

So they basically only have a $218,000 cap charge for Corey Perry's retention.

Whereas like Penaer and they have the full 50%.

Corey Perry's is basically 25% of what they retained.

So will we have any situations right now?

Like are there teams like in trouble of like having a scratcher guy?

Like, yeah, that's kind of what I have no idea about.

Yeah, so let me explain.

So I think Colorado is going to be the closest to being up against this playoff salary cap.

I think somehow some teams approached to trade deadline this year.

Is they were pretty conservative because of this new playoff salary cap?

I think in prior years, you would see teams kind of, you know, if they, if they were going to be regular season compliant, they don't care about this playoffs at all because it's a new thing.

So I think teams played it safe at the deadline, which is why maybe we saw less action than we would have.

But Colorado is going to be the close because so right now, if you look at their current lineup because of scratches and injuries, they have about 15.6 million dollars in playoff cap space.

But when you add cadre, Rock Nelson and Josh Manson in for Parker Kelly, Bartikov and Blankenberg, that gets Colorado right about 95 million dollars playoff cap it, which gives them about $550,000 in playoff cap space.

But the interesting wrinkle that they can get around to is if they're going to play Blackwood or Wedgewood, depending on who they want to play, they can scratch that second goalie and then put up a league mingoli.

And so they can actually get more cap space that way because this, you're assuming the back up is not going to play and if the starter gets entered in the back.

Yeah, like that. I didn't, I mean, do we think that that's actually going to happen? Have you heard rumblings of teams looking at doing that, Keith?

Yeah, so that's that's basically the first thing that I heard is like how they can get around it is by playing a third string goalie as the back up and letting the back up, you know, sit in the press box.

But it would just be for that game, right? If the third string goalie is the back up and letting the back up, you know, sit in the press box, but it would just be for that game, right? If the third string goalie is the game, you could flip it.

So what I mean, what happens if that guy goes down in the first period? I mean, that's, that's a, you know, especially because most teams are built with two guys that they feel like they need to count on in the playoffs.

Like that is a, Zach Anderson said it. I'm going to quote him. That's a dangerous game to play. I mean, and it sounds like Colorado is the one that's probably going to need to look at doing that.

And they've needed both goalies during their playoff run. So that will be a very, very interesting circumstance. And here's what I wonder. I wonder because everybody's comp, all the GMs obviously complained.

Hey, this is bullshit. It's illegal Vegas, Florida, whatever. Like I wonder what happens or one of these GMs going to get burned now who was complaining about the usage of LTIR, dressing about a third goalie and then a third goalie playing that to me will be a very interesting story if that does happen.

Yeah. And I think too, like there's also scenarios where maybe you're like fifth or sixth defenseman who's making two three million dollars. Like you think that the league men guys making seven seventy five could, you know, play as well if not better than him.

So you're going to scratch that guy who makes a little bit more money to save on the cap. But like I think Colorado is really the only team up against it. I was looking to like Vegas has about six million dollars in space right now.

But if William Carlson comes back, they still have about one point three million dollars of space can considering you basically get William Carlson's five point nine. But then you're going to scratch someone who's about nine hundred K.

So it's a net charge of about five million dollars. Similarly with Minnesota if they play Nick fullino and scratch McCarran, they still have about two million dollars. Those are the three teams that are really up against it. So.

But what would the penalty be though if they go above it? Like what would like what would that you can't trust that.

It's like a cap. It's a cap and balance issue. Like you can't do that in the regular season. You have to be cap compliant.

That that.

It makes me wonder like in Colorado when when Bednar is doing his lineup card like he needs to basically be talking to their cap guy. I mean that.

Yeah. Something you don't even have to do that during the regular season because if you have the roster there, you know you can play everyone right. You can't even be non compliant during the day.

Right. So like the cap guys are talking to the GM and they're like the guys who Bednar can choose from like he already knows it's cap compliant. Whereas in playoffs, you have the roster plus you have all these extra scratches too.

And then you're like, all right, this is my roster. Are we good? Like you have to actually go to the cap guy or the GM be like, are we good?

Yeah. And I feel like after this year, it's probably not going to be as much of an issue because teams like aren't all going to be at the salary cap. They're not all going to push to the limit.

I think we talked about that too the other day. Like they're not going to be cap sailing teams, not everyone.

Yeah, teams are going to slowly work their way into it. So yeah, that's just that alone, Johnny. I think adds a little bit of a wrinkle.

And to this year's playoffs, I really do. I think that's that is a that's something I have not heard any any other show talking about from from what I know, Johnny.

No, you do, Keith. Maybe you do. But maybe you guys are talking about a puck media. But I don't I haven't I haven't seen that anywhere. I don't I haven't seen that disgust anywhere. That's that's pretty interesting.

It should also just goes like way above my head. I am I'm I'm going to have to like read the article and and still try to understand this more like it doesn't seem like it's that black and white. No, am I.

No, I'm saying it is it isn't for the people like me think about the people like me. Yeah, I tell everyone this the salary cap is like the first 80% of it.

The first 80% of the salary cap is easy to understand, I think. And then there's that 20% that's just so nuanced and complex that just like even like some of the stuff is kind of going over my head to where I'm texting heart who's the founder of puck pdb.

What's the situation here? And yesterday I actually had him put like if you go to teams on puck pdia. There's like this playoff cap section. So you go to each team. You can look at their playoff cap. You can sort by how much space they have.

They actually manage the roster and make the roster moves that you want to see if the team does x y and z will they still be cap compliant to that 95.5 million dollar ceiling.

It's funny. I don't know if you could see our chat Keith, but Vic just put up a poll. Does Johnny understand a word Keith just said yes or no.

He's like, I'm going to throw out a crazy. There's no way Colby would know the reference, but like you see the movie Goodburger Colby. Yeah, so not your so not your kind of movie.

Well, dude, that movie's not a bit like 30 years old or so. Yeah, I think it's a nightmare, but you are.

But what is it?

I mean, that's like a legendary movie.

All but the character movie and gets like the contractor or whatever from key and top and he looks at his. I know some of these words.

You know what's funny, Johnny? And I don't know if my mom is watching the show today. She's she's now generally a consumer of the show, but she will still hit me with a Goodburger line like every now and again.

Yeah, great.

My guess would be she took me to see that movie in a theater when I was really young and and you know, I, I mean, listen, I'll always remember the first movie I took Sloan to. So she probably remembers that type of stuff from when we were kids.

So that's funny that you brought that movie up and that you thought I wouldn't know it. That's up. There we go. I'm getting the text right now. So yeah, funny thing about that movie too.

Like I had the VHS of that movie, but it was orange because it was like Nickelodeon in branding. So it was like a traditional black VHS.

Yeah, yeah, that's it. If the audience even knows what the VHS are.

Our audience, I think is like, honestly, you kind of I think our audience is like around if not older, like around 1997. So yeah, I would I would have been out of an eight eight or eight years old when that movie came out that you would have been what one Johnny or 96.

That was one. That was born 96. Wow. All right. All right. I was like floor five.

Do you guys have any other questions about the playoff salary cap? Like I think the main takeaways for your audience to understand is that it's just the roster that's dressed.

There are deadcap charges that get added to. So it's the roster's that dress plus if you like buy out a player like retention. I mentioned there's two nuances bonus over just from the previous season.

So there are some deadcap charges, but essentially to your dressing and how you position that is kind of up to the teams.

Everybody everybody now has homework that hasn't seen the movie Good Burger. You have to go and watch the movie Good Burger.

For those of you, I mean, I probably haven't seen that movie in 20 years, but if you haven't seen it, make sure you go go find it somewhere. Go ahead, Johnny.

You mess with Kurt. You go to the grinder.

Keith, I do want to ask you though, like you are a big devil's fan. I know you know fits a little bit.

Like I should ask, you know, what you think of their next hire is GM and president and anything that you know, because I do know that you know some devil stuff.

So I figured we can repay it on that.

Yeah, I texted Fitsy after he got like, oh, just like wishing him the best thank him and he texted back right away with a little thanks Keith with a little beer.

Great guys.

I think it's here.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I think the it seems like and I know you had Emily on your show a few days ago and she was talking the dynamic of having, you know, Shanahan as the president of hockey ops in sunny meta as a GM.

And I think that dynamic makes sense having like someone who's a hockey guy who's been around it and the president spot with someone who's on up and coming a little bit too.

I do like hate.

I don't hate the Jamie Lang and Brunner talk as well.

Like he was a great devil captain for a little bit of time has done well in the Boston Bruins front office there.

And then there's John Chica too, who I know I know Megan pretty well the co founder of statleets with John, who is the youngest GM in the NHL at the time of 26 years old with the coyotes.

And then he actually had like a meeting with the devils.

I know there was some weirdness that happened there and they had to position it as it was for the entire ownership group because I don't think he was allowed to interview for the same position as the coyotes GM with the devil's GM opening.

So they had to say it was for like, you know, the 76ers they own and they own a premier league team so they're like.

When you break the rules, you get caught and you get in trouble. I mean, you'd think that guy would have learned his lesson by now didn't he?

Didn't he like screw up badly and they they lost a bunch of draft picks and fines and I mean, they probably never paid the fines.

But was that guy a good general manager?

Did he do a good job when he was in Arizona or Phoenix at the time?

I guess they were called like I don't remember him having this like illustrious run as a GM.

But I could be misremembering it.

Yeah, I don't know if he necessarily had the greatest run in Arizona.

And like you mentioned, there were some sanctions they had to give up a draft pick because of some combine testing issues or something that they were doing behind the scenes was kind of the main culprit there.

But I think to like the other point too is like Stathletes is like a really well run organization.

They're very analytically driven.

And so maybe if he had someone you know as a president of hockey opposite he could work with and come into that GM chair.

Maybe there'd be a better like balance of power between that.

So I think like there's there's just some options on the table like I know people are also talking about Tyler Dell a little bit who came from was in Jersey went over to Carolina.

Then Mike go back to Jersey.

So I think there's a lot of options here.

And I don't know like Marty Brodor is also in the front office too.

Like maybe he's going to interview for a role as well.

I know it's interesting.

I don't think he wants to be the GM.

I don't think he wants that job.

And also if we've learned anything in Detroit like you can't hire your legendary your number one.

Like Scott Stevens, Marty Brodor and like Patrick Elias to me are three names that come up that like cannot be the general manager of the New Jersey Devils because they don't do a good job.

You can't fire them just like in Detroit.

They can't fire eyes.

Again, like I think you can always ask him to go be president and bring in a GM and make it a make it a two headed or deal.

But I I would think they would steer clear of those types of things Keith like without knowing the insides like that's what I would think.

Yeah, and that's why Shanahan makes sense because he did play for the Devils has some familiarity but he's not a quote unquote franchise legend.

So I think that's why like someone like that makes a little bit more sense.

So we'll see how it plays out to us all call be talking about Jack Hughes and person wanting out of wanting out of Jersey.

And you know, if they want to make that happen, they can make that happen pretty easily.

So I didn't love to hear that because I hope that he's for a while, but I get it.

I just think they have enough, you know, like if they want to if they want out, they'll make it happen.

It's like they will. I mean, these that level of player can control his own destiny.

He just can. I mean, whether whether they should or shouldn't they they can and they do.

Yeah. I think if Austin Matthews wants to force himself out of Toronto, he will.

Like any of these guys can do it. You just don't usually see guys do it.

Yeah. And I think that's why when a few weeks ago when Fitsy was still GM, I was suggesting the Devils to do everything they can to get Brady could chuck.

Not just because he's a really good player, but because he lived with Quinn for two years at the NTDP.

No. And so they're best friends.

So like getting Brady plus his two brothers would only make it that much more enticing for a guy like Quinn to come over

and probably take a little bit of a discount on a deal, even though they might not need it given the rising salary cap in the next couple.

Yeah, except they have all those no trees.

Laws that they just don't know.

Yeah.

14, 14, probably they lead the NHS that log jam. So listen, Keith, this was, this was really informative for our listeners.

Like I, I do think if there's any questions during playoffs, like, and we, we need clarifications, we will definitely check back in with you.

We go to five days a week, starting next week, but I, if this pops its head up and a team ends up in a weird situation, Colorado ends up,

maybe they only dress 11 forwards one night or something like that, or we don't see wedgewood and blackwood and uniform one night and they're healthy.

We will come back to you for sure, and we will get you to break that down, but we appreciate the, uh, the nerdiness from you today.

Numbers from you today.

Um, we need someone like that.

Johnny can barely read.

So it's, it's hard to really have these conversations with him.

Um, so thanks for coming on.

Oh, I certainly could not, but I can read.

I mean, there's definitely a difference in our intelligence levels. Like I don't think anybody would question that.

So Colby, I also, before I, before I go here, I did get a text, a heart texted me that, uh, someone from the college hockey news wants to come on the puck

Pedia show to dispute some of the stuff that you and Grinnelli have said about college hockey. So I would, uh, I'm interested to see, uh, in blue.

Adam says like have him on.

I think that'll be, that'll be good. I know he, he definitely sits on the opposite side.

You know, you don't have to say someone. I know it's Adam. I like Adam. He's a good guy. Um, he runs college hockey news.

He does a great job with all that. He started it.

But he's definitely a proponent of, of keeping the regionals the way that they are, uh, probably keeping bar stool out of college hockey.

Um, it's just a different, it's just a different version of, uh, of what people and how people see growth.

But listen, he'd be, he'd be a great guest to have come on and, and, um, you know, there are some other really good Mike McMahon's at, uh, college hockey news.

We've had him on our show before he's tremendous. Um, but there's also a couple of people that, that right at that, that network that I think make me feel like, how can you take any of these people seriously?

Um, you know, they're just, they're, you know, whatever. They're social justice warriors. They're not even hockey writers. So that's funny.

Because I had to double check to make sure I didn't even know who it was.

Oh, yeah. No, listen, Adam and I go back and forth all the time. He's a super passionate guy. Like I, I have a lot of respect for what he does.

And, um, you know, we've had, we've had a lot of really good conversations over the years where we just agreed to disagree.

You know what I mean? And, and so, but I think that that's good. I think all the conversation is important.

I think the bait is important. I think looking at why it's working, why it's not working. My opinion, his, all of it, all of it matters.

But, um, you know, again, it's just, it's a, it's a different, it's a different perspective, right?

It's a little bit of the new school versus old school.

So you should have them on. I'm like, I think that would be, that would be good. Like I think let, let people hear his side of it as well.

Same to bait, too, as Johnny, right? For the play in Colby's pretty anti play in, but me and you are on the side that I think in eight, no, I'm kind of game seven to start the playoffs will be pretty, pretty nice.

Yeah. I don't want to get into that again. I mean, people were, they have 82, they have an 82 game play and they're going to have an 84 game play in next year, right? Play yourself under an 84.

Did you see Johnny's tweet, too, I'm not Johnny Lies, Chris Johnston, where he was doing the conference seating for the four Eastern match. Oh my god, really, really.

Billy Pizzler seven and eight.

It's so bad. I mean, listen, that needs to change. I mean, that's, that's, that's undeniable. That needs to change so.

So all right, Keith, thanks for coming on today. We had a long show, but we appreciate you kind of waiting and jumping on here at the end. And like I said, if these things,

come up and they rear their head, like, we'll definitely circle back and bring you on again to explain it to everyone. Cause like, I think our, I think our, our listener base is smart. I do.

I think it's like a mature smart, interested more than surface level audio and video base here. So I think they probably ate this up more than Johnny did. And so like I said, we'll, I like this stuff.

We'll circle back. I like some of these things. We'll use crayons. I'm all right. Tell it to me. Yeah.

That'd be a good, that'd be a good bit. That'd be a good bit. Next time Keith comes on. I'm just coloring here on the side of the stock.

All right. All right, Keith. Thanks, man. We appreciate it.

Thanks, Royce.

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