The Nashville Predators should have some money to spend

by Dirk Hoag on Sep 21, 2010 2:40 PM EDT in Nashville Predators Analysis

With the final pieces of the Nashville Predators 2010-11 roster secured with the recent signings of Patric Hornqvist and Cody Franson to new contracts, it's a good time to look at the current total salary of the team, and what that means for the upcoming campaign.

In a nutshell? Judging from recent history, David Poile would appear to have a little room left to do some shopping.

Follow after the jump for all the details, and what this means for the season ahead...

Per NHLNumbers.com (along with references to CapGeek to fill a few gaps), and a likely Opening Night roster as listed below (look for the guys with a 2010-11 salary), the Preds could start the season with a payroll of roughly $46.5 million. Last year, before bonus payouts, I show Nashville as having spent $46.15 million. That figure comes by pro-rating the salary of each player based on the number of days they were on the roster during the 2009-10 season, which is what determines their pay. All salaries in the table below are in millions:

Player	Position	2009-10 Salary	Days on Roster	Total 2009-2010 Salary	2010-2011 Salary
Martin Erat	L	5.25	193	5.25	5.25
David Legwand	C	5.00	193	5.00	4.50
Jason Arnott	C	4.50	193	4.50
Matthew Lombardi	C				3.50
J.P. Dumont	R	4.00	193	4.00	4.00
Steve Sullivan	R	3.75	193	3.75	3.75
Joel Ward	R	1.50	193	1.50	1.50
Jordin Tootoo	R	0.98	193	0.98	1.15
Colin Wilson	C	0.88	99	0.45	0.88
Jerred Smithson	C	0.73	193	0.73	0.75
Patric Hornqvist	R	0.62	193	0.62	3.00
Wade Belak	R	0.65	193	0.65	0.58
Ryan Jones	R	0.98	115	0.58
Marcel Goc	C	0.55	193	0.55	0.78
Cal O'Reilly	C	0.55	107	0.30	0.58
Nick Spaling	L	0.74	67	0.26
Jonas Andersson					0.68
Mike Santorelli	C	0.62	62	0.20
Dave Scatchard	C	0.55	57	0.16
Andreas Thuresson	R	0.58	49	0.15
Dustin Boyd	C	0.65	40	0.13
Ben Guite	R	0.55	20	0.06
Triston Grant	L	0.53	6	0.02
Peter Olvecky	L	0.50	1	0.00
Shea Weber	D	4.50	193	4.50	4.50
Ryan Suter	D	3.50	193	3.50	3.50
Dan Hamhuis	D	2.50	193	2.50
Francis Bouillon	D	0.75	193	0.75	1.20
Denis Grebeshkov	D	3.15	42	0.69
Kevin Klein	D	0.80	193	0.80	1.35
Cody Franson	D	0.53	172	0.47	0.80
Alexander Sulzer	D	0.60	103	0.32	0.70
Teemu Laakso	D	0.60	18	0.06
Ryan Parent	D				0.85
Nolan Yonkman	D	0.50	5	0.01
Dan Ellis	G	2.00	193	2.00
Pekka Rinne	G	0.73	193	0.73	2.80
Mark Dekanich	G				0.55
Team Total				46.15	46.58
Salary Floor				40.8	43.4

Some of the lower-paid names in the organization (Sergei Kostitsyn, Aaron Johnson, etc.) can be substituted, but they wouldn't change this picture significantly.

What's important here is that the parameters involved with NHL revenue sharing typically dictate that the Predators operate on a player budget around $4-5 million above the salary floor in order to break even. Last season, for example, the floor was $40.8 million, and the team ended up $5.35 million above that. According to public statements from team chairman Tom Cigarran, they suffered a slight loss with that result (gotta find a citation for that, if you have one let me know).

Gotta a little change in my pocket...

Right now, with 23 contracts in place, the Preds are about $3.1 million above the salary floor, which would appear to leave $1-2 million in budget room available. Some of that will surely be held in reserve in case roster moves are required due to injury, or potentially acquire a difference-maker at the Trade Deadline (note in the table above that last season's major pickup, Denis Grebeshkov, cost the team just under $700,000 due to them carrying his $3.15 million salary for only a few weeks).

Another option might be to acquire an experienced backup goaltender. Jose Theodore is still on the market, but when I checked in with his agent (Don Meehan) last week, he indicated that there had been no discussions with David Poile about the former MVP coming to Nashville.

What would you do with $1-2 million burning in your pocket, and the charge of managing this team? Is there a free agent remaining on the open market who might represent an upgrade over talent on the existing roster? Perhaps you wait for a pending 2011 free agent who could be made available at the Trade Deadline as his team slips out of the playoff hunt, like Milan Hejduk or David Backes (costing only perhaps 1/3rd of their annual salary). Followers of Nashville-area radio host Dave Ramsey would probably want to put the proceeds towards paying off the team's substantial debt load, something on the order of $60 million.

Sound off in the comments below, and let me know what you'd do...

To keep up with all of our coverage of the Nashville Predators, you can subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on Twitter (@Forechecker & @predatweeter), or catch the site on Facebook. You can also email me at the.forechecker@gmail.com.

Poll

What would you do with $1-2 million for the Nashville Predators?

Add an experienced backup goalie

46 votes

Trade to upgrade current forward/defense talent

49 votes

Wait for the trade deadline to get a "rental" player

58 votes

Save the cash and strengthen the team's finances

79 votes

232 votes | Poll has closed

Tweet Comment 11 comments | 0 recs |

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Comments

I like the idea of improving finances...

and so my initial reaction is to save the extra money—$1-2 million isn’t that likely to make a huge difference in team performance, but would make a lasting impact on finances, improving the financial outlook for every Predators team, forever..

However, if a rent-a-player gets the team further in the playoffs, that’s more revenue. I don’t at all expect one player would really make that kind of difference, but just for argument’s sake…

How much additional revenue could Nashville expect from going an extra round in the playoffs—or perhaps just squeaking in as opposed to just missing?

How much of that would be a long-term source of income (new fans attracted by extra excitement or whatever) as opposed to just short-term?

by Smashvillain on Sep 21, 2010 3:03 PM EDT reply actions

While it’s impossible to project the long-term impact of a deep playoff run, the immediate boost from extra playoff home games isn’t as great as it used to be. According to the CBA, as a Bottom 10 revenue team, the Preds would contribute to the revenue sharing fund 30% of the ticket proceeds from a “theoretical, fully-priced, sold-out regular season game”. For Middle 10 revenue teams, they contribute 40% of that figure, and Top 10 teams contribute 50%.

After taxes, that theoretical value of a sellout is probably somewhere in the $800-900K area. So if they get $850K in extra ticket revenue from a playoff game, and have to kick back ~$240K to revenue sharing, that leaves $610K (plus concessions, merchandise and sponsorship money).

A round can be anywhere from 2-4 games, so we’re probably talking something like $2-4M in extra revenue per round, but of course that would be offset by operating costs.. Player salaries are taken care of during the regular season, but there’s still a bite there for everything else.

As mentioned above, Denis Grebeshkov cost the team around $700K. It’s too bad he didn’t play much due to injury, but he did provide the team a shot in the arm when he dressed.

On the Forecheck is SB Nation's blog covering the Nashville Predators. Catch me on Twitter at @Forechecker.

by Dirk Hoag on Sep 21, 2010 3:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Always, ALWAYS, go with the long term. Kill the debt.

by BigFatCat999 on Sep 21, 2010 3:25 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

backup goalie is essential. if a current camper is suitable, then sit on the money for an injury fill in or trade deadline move. we always can use the money on the captain down the road.

by predswilrule on Sep 21, 2010 3:35 PM EDT reply actions

Put it toward improving the finances. But if the backup goalies are getting lit up in the preseason, snag a goalie instead.

by BradHerman on Sep 21, 2010 3:46 PM EDT reply actions

citation

Tom mentioned the slight loss last year during one of his radio appearances – either with Plaster or with Abraham, can’t remember which though. He did them back to back the day they announced the Boots buyout stuff.

Blog- http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul
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by pwnicholson on Sep 21, 2010 4:05 PM EDT reply actions

slip it to weber under the table to see if he’ll stay. ;)

"It's gonna be fun on the bun."

by flyalder on Sep 21, 2010 4:09 PM EDT reply actions

Rental...

Long term benefit would be a playoff run. More home games, more local interest, and more cash flow coming in. Plus, it goes a long way to players like Weber and Suter to show them we’re SERIOUS about winning that big ol’ trophy.

Nice article, BTW.

by ExcellenceThroughGuesswork on Sep 21, 2010 8:38 PM EDT reply actions

I'd also support re-signing our captain...

and shut Wings fans and some Canadians about him being traded. :D

by DonBorvio on Sep 21, 2010 8:59 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

It depends, of course!

My answer is wait and see. All things considered, more downside to making a move now.

let’s face it, folks, it’s early in the season. There’s no reason to think that we WON’T make the playoffs, but we’re certainly not entitled to. Anything could happen. What if we’re not in the playoff picture in the spring? We wasted more money on a 1-2 mil a year player in a depth move in the early season and didn’t get what we needed. We could’ve spent that 2 mil on our top 2 d salary, which we WILL make room for unless we trade suter for ovechkin or sthg equally improbable.

What if cw wins the #1 center position and kicks butt but gets hurt at the all-star game! (as an aside, I’ll give 300-1 odds on that if there are any takers) That same amount of money would give pay for (based on grebeshkov 3.5 mil season/750K for the rest of year) almost anyone to replace him. if poile had to make a trade, we’ve got the assets to do it (Trading just NJ 2d round pick and kostisyin would be an absolute knockout, but there are prospects and depth at D and also some fw depth).

And what about just pure rental? I think poile is a superb gm and I would want to give him as much cash as I possibly could and let him pull off a crazy high-risk high-reward rental trade. Forsberg did not work out in hindsight, but it was a damn good trade at the time. Brendan witt – well, didn’t give up a roster player, and look where we are now.
I’m not sure off the top of my head who is good and an impending UFA or acquirable RFA. Poile’s shrewd asset conservation makes some of these “cheap” when you think about it (e.g., Ellis’s useless rights and an ex-captain whose ship had sailed for ANY top 6 forward! SCORES PLZ THNKS)

Was glad to see arny come, and am glad to see him go. No hard wishes — not everybody is captain material, and he gave us some of his best years statistically.

I think the best thing to do is to play it cool for now and see what develops. I hope that at trade time, the best thing to do will be to acquire a rental – but we’ll see.

by gray000 on Sep 22, 2010 8:15 AM EDT reply actions

Here's another thought:

If we run deep into the postseason, what RFA (if any) would you like to see Poile submit an offer sheet for? due to good trade relations I’d rule out FL, SJ, Philly, maybe wash, maybe atlanta – poile won’t be effective if he alienates gms that he can work with.

by gray000 on Sep 22, 2010 8:18 AM EDT up reply actions