from Michael Russo of the StarTribune,

Thanks to last year’s lockout and how every team had to get compliant with the cap decreasing by nearly $6 million, it is scary how little salary-cap space teams have right now.

The Wild has the 19th-most cap space in the NHL — at $1.8 million. That is not a lot of cap space, especially when you have to leave room for injuries.

Yet, there are 18 teams worse off than the Wild!

Thirteen teams, including the Blackhawks, have dipped into their long-term injury relief, according to capgeek.com. That means you can surpass the salary cap ceiling by an injured player’s cap hit. The tricky thing is once that player is healthy, a team must get cap compliant again.

So there is gridlock out there, making it incredibly difficult to make a trade unless you find a partner that is able to eat part of the salary and cap hit.

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