Some movement since last time. Vancouver (Thanks to the Schneider signing and the trade with San Jose) leapt into the lead in the red zone, at nearly $3MM over the cap with 25 players signed, all of them defensemen. So they’re going to have to do something, I guess. OTT, BOS and CHI have held steady, because what else are they going to do (other than dump salary, I mean). Detroit has a new problem with Hudler possibly coming back to them at the worst possible time, causing them to have to either make room or trade his rights. Ottawa obviously hasn’t moved Heatley, and if they don’t they’re going to have to move someone else. San Jose helped themselves by trading away some salary, but they’ve still got 3-6 players to sign with about $3MM to do it.
Again, CAP = cap space; SGN = number of players signed; C-Sp = cap space; cush = summer wiggle room (teams have to get down to the hard cap number by the last day of the pre-season; the number in this column represents cap space plus the summer cushion); /P23 = cap space available per player remaining to be signed (to get to a roster of 23); /P20 = cap space available per player remaining to be signed (to get to a roster of 20); BCush = bonus cushion; madness = cap space available per signing to get to 22, if a team is insane and is willing to spend its bonus cushion (I picked a roster of 22 on the assumption that no team would be balls-out crazy enough to blow its bonus cushion and under-populate its roster; call me naive); LTS23 = players left to sign to get to 23. Oh, and the teams in black are the ones who, for whatever reason, appear to have a self-imposed cash cap.