Bettman provides cap update; more league news

With the Canadian dollar falling to 80 cents of the American dollar this week, next year’s NHL salary cap is in danger of not rising all the way to the initial projection of $73 million that Gary Bettman provided at last month’s Board of Governors meeting.

This has an impact on the Kings, who, according to numbers provided by CapGeek.com at the time of Alec Martinez’s six-year contract extension last month, have $60.2 million allotted to 14 players for next season, and will need to negotiate new contracts with a pool of restricted free agents to be in Tanner Pearson, Tyler Toffoli, Kyle Clifford, Jordan Nolan, Andy Andreoff, Martin Jones and Nick Shore, amongst others currently in Manchester. Players bound for unrestricted free agency include Jarret Stoll, Justin Williams and Robyn Regehr, while Anze Kopitar is eligible to negotiate a new contract on July 1, 2015.

While speaking with reporters at All-Star Weekend, Gary Bettman provided an update on how a weakened Canadian dollar will impact next year’s salary cap.

Gary Bettman, on the salary cap and the Canadian dollar:
There has been a lot of speculation about the impact of the fall or decline of the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar and its impact on hockey-related revenues and the salary cap. I assure you that even with the decline in the Canadian dollar, the salary cap doesn’t fall off a cliff. When we gave you the rough estimate projection in December, the same estimate that I gave to the clubs, we were projecting a cap of $73 million, assuming the 5-percent increment under the collective bargaining agreement, based on the Canadian dollar at 88 cents to the U.S. dollar for the rest of the year. That would be 73 at 88. At 82 cents for the rest of the year, the cap would be 72.2, and at 80 cents, the cap would be 71.7. These are not in the context of a $70-million-plus cap dramatic numbers. As of Friday I think the Canadian dollar was 81 cents. Nobody can project exactly where it’s going, but the point that I’m making is you’re not going to see a dramatic difference. The cap is computed based on currency on a daily basis. It’s averaged over the season, so even as I said with an 80-cent Canadian dollar, we’re still looking at a cap of almost $72 million.

Other topics covered:
–The World Cup of Hockey will return in 2016
(Bettman said this has no bearing on 2016 Olympic participation)

Anze Kopitar, on representing a continent instead of an individual country:
Well, to start, it’s probably going to be a little bit different than the normal atmosphere around the national teams, but we’re all athletes. We’re all competitive, and I’m pretty sure pretty much whoever is going to come together for the tournament, we’re going to go out and play hard.

Kopitar, on thinking about a potential European team:
Well, I think the countries that I guess were left out or are potential to be eligible to make Team Europe, I think we have a lot of good players from Switzerland, Slovakia, Denmark, Norway, you name it. I think it’s going to be competitive. I think to start it might feel a little bit weird just because you’re bringing everybody together, but I guess one similar thing would be in golf when they bring together the Ryder Cup team, Team Europe. I think we can kind of draw on that maybe, and like I said before, the guys are always professional, and we’re competitors, and it will be a hard tournament.

–Player and puck tracking systems are being tested tonight

Gary Bettman, on player and puck tracking systems:
Our fans are at the center of everything we do with technology, in arena, online and on the air, which is why we with the cooperation of the NHL Players Association will be testing a player tracking system tonight at the Honda NHL All-Star Skills Competition and at tomorrow’s All-Star Game. Through our partnership with Sportvision, we are going to take advantage of the All-Star festivities to use technology to take our fans deeper into the game by embedding Sportvision chips into pucks and player jerseys, using our digital platforms and our broadcast partners, NBC, Rogers and TVA, we will be able to showcase quantitative data, puck and skating speed, puck trajectory, puck location and other key data points behind the skating, stick handling and shooting abilities of the top players in the game. While we’re excited about doing this test, we’re not exactly sure where this will all take us. This is, if I can coin a phrase, in the embryonic stages of a work in progress, but ultimately we are hoping to deliver the kind of data that will create insights and tell stories that avid and casual hockey fans will enjoy. In short, we are attempting to embark upon a journey that hopefully will enable us to create and then maintain a digital record of everything in our game and compile a complete digital history.

–Expansion is on the horizon

Gary Bettman, on expansion:
There continues to be a lot of talk and speculation about expansion. I really have nothing new to report that I haven’t previously reported. Las Vegas is getting ready. They’re still not ready yet, but they’re getting ready to launch the season-ticket campaign. We continue to get expressions of interest from other places, including Seattle, where the mayor came to visit and we had a nice chat, but I think the building status, at least in downtown Seattle, is still uncertain at this point at best.

Bettman, on any timeline for Las Vegas expansion:
I’m glad you asked the question because we’re not controlling that process. We haven’t put hard deadlines or hard numbers. Bill Foley asked us for permission to do it so he and ultimately we could get a sense as to whether or not a market that so many people think is unique would support at the grass-roots level, if you will, a franchise. He’s going to have to make those judgments and then tell us what it is. My guess is the campaign will kick off at some point in February. If he’s still running the campaign next October, my guess is tickets didn’t sell so quickly, and if he’s able to get to a number that makes a lot of sense and shows a great deal of enthusiasm in two or three weeks, he and we will have a better sense of the market, and as I’ve said, and I will reiterate, we have no firm commitments. This is his request to see if he should continue chasing his dream.

–Next year’s outdoor games will take place in Boston, Minneapolis and Denver