Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

You Can Call It "Creative Bookkeeping

06/27/2015 at 8:54pm EDT

from Chris Johnston of Sportsnet,

Don Maloney nearly slipped out of the building unnoticed. The sly fox had already completed a mind-bending trade that was as much about salary cap gymnastics as hockey, but he played coy when I approached him just off the draft floor.

“I made a deal,” Maloney said. “A small one.”

While that characterization was technically true, the ramifications for the Arizona Coyotes and Philadelphia Flyers were rather large: Sam Gagner and a conditional draft pick to the Flyers for defenceman Nicklas Grossmann and Chris Pronger’s contract.

The perpetually capped-out Flyers will realize a savings of $7.28-million next season — assuming they buy out Gagner, which isn’t guaranteed — while Arizona moves $7.194-million closer to the cap floor, adds a defenceman and only takes on about $125,000 in actual salary commitments.

Working through the components of the trade, which included the Flyers retaining $500,000 of Grossmann's salary while dealing a future Hall of Famer who hasn't played since 2011, requires some heavy duty math.

What it all added up to is a creative bookkeeping maneuver for both teams.

continued

from Frank Seravalli of TSN,

Coyotes general manager Don Maloney swore in Las Vegas earlier in the week he wouldn’t have any trouble to getting to the league’s salary cap floor.

“It won’t be hard,” Maloney said, almost winking. “We’re not going to go into next season with 12 entry-level players, I can tell you that.”

In one fell swoop on Saturday, he got Arizona closer to minimum $52.8 million spending threshold and lessened the burden of the Philadelphia Flyers at the same time.

continued

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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