Devils vs. Capitals Roster Construction

Big news in the NHL recently is not that the Devils lost yesterday to the Penguins, but how--in that they only dressed 15 skaters (not including the starting and backup goalies). Normally, a team plays 18, although in cases of suspension or injury, a team can start less. New Jersey got a lot of press for their big acquisitions of Ilya Kovalchuk and Anton Volchenkov during the offseason in the hopes of creating a dynamic offensive and defensive lineup. I figured it would be worthwhile to compare the Devils with the Capitals, who did not make any splashes in the offseason and have stuck with developing and promoting players through their system. The following salary numbers are from sportscity.com.

The Devils are currently at a cap number of $63,609,600 (right near the salary cap max) while the Capitals are at $59,807,000. The Caps actually have the two highest cap numbers (Alex Ovechkin at $9.538 million and Nicklas Backstrom at $6.7 million) and generally have an equal number of highly paid players. But there are some striking differences in roster makeup and payout between these two teams. The Capitals goalie tandem of Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth combine for a $1.644 million cap hit. Martin Brodeur's cap number is $5.2 million alone. But the real difference lies in the payouts below the superstar level. While both teams have five players who have a cap hit of $4.5 million or higher (which unfortunately for Caps fans includes Michael Nylander), the Devils have nine players with a cap number between $2.6 and $4.5 million, while the Caps have only four. The simple math is that with those many players making significant money, it is nearly impossible for the Devils to have any financial flexibility.

It will be interesting to see if the Devils have a hard time handling the normal injuries that occur during an NHL season and how that affects them as the season goes on. At 0-3 right now, the Devils have other concerns on their minds. They are currently ranked 23rd in goals scored and 30th in goals allowed (small sample size, I know). Kovalchuk, the 100 million dollar man, currently has more fights than goals. Nevertheless, the Devils will have to improve with the players they already have, as their cap management has made it virtually impossible to find help elsewhere.