Was just doing a little research on capgeek.com (great site!) for a future post and came across a chart which places the Columbus Blue Jackets as the 4th lowest spending team in the NHL.
They have the Jackets spending $47,754,859 on 22 players. That is slightly lower than my total of 48.141 mil but I also include Duvie Westcott's 600k buyout as part of my total.
That kind of took me by surprise. I knew they weren't top 15 by any stretch but I thought they'd be higher than bottom 5.
The only teams that spend less than the Jackets are the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes ($45,079,999), the traditionally low spending Nashville Predators ($42,763,333) and the re-building New York Islanders ($42,310,066).
Out of the 10 bottom spending teams so far this year only two (St. Louis and CBJ) made the playoffs last season.
If the Jackets spent another 5 million (which we know would be a quality player) they would still be bottom 12 in the league.
Bright side a 10 million gap from 26th to 1st is a lot better than it ever was in the pre-lockout era when that gap stretched in some cases upwards of 50 million. Down side is that it stings really bad when a guy like Erhoff is just sitting out there for the taking and you can't pull the trigger due to what I believe are salary constaints even though you're some 11 mil under the cap and the 4th lowest spending team in the league.
I understand this is a small market and nobody wants to bleed red but man that sucks from a competitive perspective. I mean just imagine if we landed him how that changes the complexion of this lineup?
No doubt the Jackets and Howson operate in some handcuffs in this market. I just hope it doesn't catch up with us this season.
We need this lease situation resolved stat!!
-LTL
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Jackets 4th lowest spending team in NHL
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2 comments:
LTL: Great point on the lease situation. I'm telling you - this status quo approach, if they follow through with it - will be the difference as to why (I personally don't believe) they make the playoffs, this season.
Teams like the Oil, Stars and the Preds have a renewed lease on playoff life - in the case of the Preds, if they can acquire some offensive firepower - I assume Radulov returns, this season, and, love or hate (preferably the later) Z, the man will produce points, and that might be all they need to get that last spot I'd normally reserve for the CBJ.
Again, a BAAAHD feeling about this approach....
Honestly I don't see this as a small market at all and if we can make the playoffs the next couple years and go a round or two deeper, this town will go Blue Jackets-Crazy again and we should be able to swing another $5-7M/year.
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