It was recently reported by PuckPedia that the Habs will incur a salary cap carryover penalty next season for $1.17 million as a result of their bonus overage. Here’s an overview of how that occurred.
It should be noted that not all precise contract details are available so it’s possible that one of these is off slightly but this should give you a good idea of how the overage comes together.
Forwards
Cole Caufield ($212,500) and Juraj Slafkovsky ($250,000) each had four ‘A’ bonuses in their contracts. Here is what is qualifies as an ‘A’ bonus.
- Top six in ice time among forwards (total and/or per game) on the team (minimum 42 games)
- 20 goals
- 35 assists
- 60 points
- 0.73 points per game (minimum 42 games)
- Top three in +/- among forwards on the team (minimum 42 games)
- End-of-season All-Rookie Team
- Selected to NHL All-Star Game
- NHL All-Star MVP
Caufield hit three of these this season and would have almost certainly hit a fourth had he stayed healthy. He reaches them on goals (26), ATOI (18:03, third among forwards), and points per game (0.78).
Slafkovsky, meanwhile, didn’t hit any of those. Even if he had stayed healthy, his limited ice time would have made it difficult for him to reach pretty much any of these milestones.
Then there’s Sean Farrell. By signing so late in the season, he wasn’t eligible for ‘A’ bonuses but he did receive $25,000 for playing in at least five games.
The only other forward that played for Montreal this season was Owen Beck who played in only one game so he obviously didn’t hit any of his ‘B’ bonuses for games played.
Total Forward Bonuses: $662,500 ($212,500 x 3 + $25,000)
Defence
Jordan Harris and Kaiden Guhle both were eligible for two ‘A’ bonuses in their deals while Justin Barron has one. Here are the qualifiers for blueliners:
- Top four in ice time among defencemen (total and/or per game) on the team (minimum 42 games)
- 10 goals
- 25 assists
- 35 points
- 0.49 points per game (minimum 42 games)
- Top three in +/- among defencemen on the team (minimum 42 games)
- Top two among defencemen in blocked shots (minimum 42 games)
- End-of-season All-Rookie Team
- Selected to NHL All-Star Game
- NHL All-Star MVP
Guhle makes the cut for ATOI (20:31, third among defencemen). Had he played the full season, he might have had a shot at making it on blocked shots as well.
As for Harris, he makes the cut on plus/minus. With Barron not playing in 42 games, he doesn’t count in the comparison group for this calculation, moving Harris up to third (-3) behind Mike Matheson (+7) and Johnathan Kovacevic (+3).
Barron, as noted, didn’t play enough to qualify for the ones with the games played requirement and didn’t put up enough points so he didn’t get anything for his bonuses.
Technically speaking, Guhle and Harris are still technically eligible to make the All-Rookie team in which case there would be an increase to the ‘A’ bonus cost ($212,500 for Harris, $207,500 for Guhle). Only two defencemen make it and with all due respect to them, they’re not among the top two freshmen blueliners in the NHL.
Harris also had $82,500 in games played bonuses which it appears he met based on the total carryover penalty.
Total Defencemen Bonuses: $507,500 ($212,500 x 2 + $82,500)
Total Bonuses: $1,170,000 ($662,500 + $507,500)
With Montreal finishing the season in LTIR, they had zero cap space. As a result, there was no room to capture the bonuses on the cap in 2022-23 which means it rolls over to next season. That was the case last year as well with that amount ($1,132,500) counting this year. As long as Carey Price is on the books for the Canadiens, it will continue to be the case so get used to seeing bonus penalties for a few more seasons at least.