Northeast Division

[Jean]

Here's the contract situation for the NE teams so far.. I took the data on the respective team boards over at HFboards

http://hfboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=10

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Montréal

$4,750,000 Saku Koivu

$4,500,000 Alexei Kovalev

$3,525,000 Sergei Samsonov

$2,875,000 Cristobal Huet

$2,565,000 Craig Rivet

$2,394,000 Radek Bonk

$2,280,000 Sheldon Souray

$1,900,000 Mike Ribeiro

$1,900,000 David Aebischer

$1,786,000 Mike Johnson

$1,750,000 Andrei Markov

$1,725,000 Mathieu Dandenault

$1,000,000 Steve Bégin

$0,946,827 Mike Komisarek

$0,673,000 Chris Higgins

$0,600,000 Mark Streit

$0,575,000 Garth Murray

$0,475,000 Aaron Downey

$0,450,000 Tomas Plekanec

Total : $36,669,827

Unsigned RFAs

Micheal Ryder( going into arbitration)

Alexander Perezhogin

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Toronto

F Mats Sundin $6.33 million

D Bryan McCabe $5.75 million

D Pavel Kubina $5.0 million

D Tomas Kaberle $4.25 million

D Hall Gill $2.1 million

G Andrew Raycroft $2.0 million

F Darcy Tucker $1.596 million

F Jeff O'Neill $1.5 million

F Tie Domi BUY-OUT.$1.25 million

F Nikolai Antropov $1.007 million

F Alexander Steen $900,600

F Chad Kilger $900,000

G Ed Belfour BUY-OUT $770,000

F Alex Ponikarovsky $712,000

D Wade Belak $670,000

D Staffan Kronwall $612,500

G Jean-Sébastien Aubin $525,000

G Mikael Tellqvist $519,500

D Ian White $488,000

F Ben Ondrus $469,000

F John Pohl $462,000

Total $37.769 million

Unsigned RFAs

D Carlo Colaiacovo

F Matt Stajan

D Brendan Bell

F Kyle Wellwood

D Jay Harrison

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Boston

Forwards

Marc Savard - $5,000,000

Marco Sturm - $2,100,000

PJ Axelsson - $1,850,000

Wayne Primeau - $1,150,000

Glen Murray - $4,150,000

Yan Stastny - $665,000 (2005-06)

Petr Tenkrat - $525,000

Shean Donovan - $925,000

Mark Mowers - $462,500

Defenseman

Zdeno Chara - $7,500,000

Paul Mara - $3,000,000

Brad Stuart - $2,400,000

Mark Stuart - $942,400 (2005-06)

Goalies

Hannu Toivonen - $532,000

Tim Thomas - $1,200,000

TEAM CURRENT TOTAL = $32,401,900* over 15 contracts (2 not confirmed). Does not include 2006-7 buyout for Green & McEachern of $1,087,500.

REMAINING CAP ROOM AFTER BUYOUTS: $10,510,600.

Unsigned RFAs

Patrice Bergeron

Brad Boyes

Andrew Alberts

Milan Jurcina

David Tanabe (arbitration)

Phil Kessel

Sergei Zinovjev

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Buffalo ( all those players in arbitration.. some are gonna be pissed for sure!)

Jaroslav Spacek 3,300,000

Chris Drury 3,154,000

Teppo Numminen 2,600,000

Jochen Hecht 2,200,000

Martin Biron 2,128,000

Brian Campbell 1,250,000

Thomas Vanek 942,200

Clarke MacArthur 600,000

Andrew Peters 460,000

Mark Mancari 450,000

Total $17,084,200

Players going into arbitration

Toni Lydman

Henrik Tallinder

Maxim Afinogenov

Daniel Brière

Tim Connolly

J.P. Dumont

Paul Gaustad

Ales Kotalik

Adam Mair

Jason Pominville

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Ottawa

Wade Redden 6,500,000

Daniel Alfredsoon 4,670,000

Dany Heatley 4,500,000

Jason Spezza 4,500,000

Martin Gerber 3,700,000

Joe Corvo 2,600,000

Chris Phillips 2,200,000

Mike Fisher 1,500,000

Anton Volchenkov 1,250,000

Andrej Mesazros 1,000,000

Patrick Eaves 1,000,000

Ray Emery 925,000

Brian McGrattan 800,000

Josh Hennesy 600,000

Tom Preissing 600,000

Total 36,345,000

Unsigned RFAs

Chris Neil (arbitration)

Antoine Vermette (arbitration)

Peter Schaeffer (arbitration)

Chris Kelly (arbitration)

Christoph Schubert

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So who's in better shape so far in our division? Buffalo's fate will depends a lot on how arbitration turns out for sure....

[Tony]

I think it's safe to say Montreal is. Their team is almost built. It might take close to 3 million to sign Perezhogin and Ryder but aside that the team is complete. The rookie who craps the roster will likely make the league minimum. So in the end, the Habs are at about 40 million and if Aebischer gets more than their payroll is about 38 million.

Toronto almost has their roster complete but considering that they are still UFA shopping is somewhat a little mind boggling since they still need to re-sign their RFA. Either way, they'll be close to the cap limit if they get their UFAs. Stajan, Wellwood and Colaiacovo will probably make about 3.5 million combined which could boost the Toronto cap to 41 million with about a handfull of guys left to sign.

Kessel isn't going to play in Boston next season since he'll be going to college. Bergeron and Boyes should be getting nice raises. In the end the Boston cap can end up being closed to maxed out. Let's assume 4 million for Boyes and Bergeron, which is reasonable, that leaves about 6 million to sign a couple of forwards and defensemen. Apparently, these guys are still UFA shopping so that too has to be taken into account.

Buffalo could be in trouble. They got about 9 guys at 15 million signed so far (Biron is getting traded, don't expect him to stay in Buffalo). It's not secret most of the players going into arbitration in Buffalo deserve big raises. Dumont, Briere, Afinogenov, Lydman, Tallinder and Connolly could be all making between 2-3 million with Briere most likely being paid the most (3 million+ for him). So if we estimate, they'll be at about 35 million cap with a bunch of guys left to sign (I'd say about 6-7 including the rest I didn't mention going to arbitration). I think Buffalo can pull it off if they squeeze out every saving possible because they still have to re-sign Ryan Miller and that could mean big trouble. He'll be looking for big money.

Ottawa has most of their team under contract which is good but aside that Vermette and Neil are going to cost the most in the players going into arbitration. If we assume those two will take up about 3 million combined than Ottawa will have about 40 million payroll. This leaves them with little wiggle room if they have to re-sign Schubert, Kelly and Schaeffer and maybe another guy or 2 if needed (most likely rookies or cheap guys). So in the end, Ottawa could be another team close to the cap.

[Pierre the Great]

Bottom line on paper anyway.

The Habs are solid

Buffalo has a lot of players to sign

Ottawa still the class of the division

Toronto is old

and the bruins, wel there the bruins.

So my prediction's for the division are as follows

Ottawa

Canadiens

Buffalo

Toronto

Bruins

[jetsniper]

If Boston can stay healthy, I'd put them much higher then last in the division. They've got a shot at the 7th or 8th seed. Where they will be quickly ousted from the first round.

[simonus]

i guess Buffalo is starting to unload the unresignables:

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=171296&hubname=nhl

Pyatt's rights to Canucks for 4th round pick

[ch_nl]

The Canadiens looks like one of the better teams in the east.

Ottawa, Carolina and the Flyers are the only ones that have a better team on the paper. And yet, there's room to discuss that as the Flyers has lost Kim Johnson has departed and Esche/Nittymäki is a weaker duo than Huet/Aebischer.

And there's also injuries. I don't know about this one, but doesn't Samsonov have a long list of missed games due to injuries?

But then there's always surprises. Maybe a rookie will lift the Bruins to a division title. But pre-season things couldn't look better for the Habs.

Now things just have to click as the talent and know-how is there.

Bring back to cup.

[Dalhabs]

With the samsonov signing I feel we can have at least 3 dangerous lines offensively.. the big "?" is the Defence. We might see alot of highscoring games this season .

[bigbird19]

New guy here.

This is a test.

1. Ott ( still too solid )

2. Mtl ( As long as the "new NHL" stays that way for 82 games )

3. Buf

4 Tor ( just because )

5. Bos ( Chara won't offset Thornton )

If this post works, I might be a regular. But for now, the swimming pool beckons.

[KoZed]

I think years of playoffs frustrations and the loss of Chara and Havlat (and Hasek) is about to catch up on Ottawa. They're starting to overshoot their peak years.

With their Cinderella playoffs and many RFA's, I'd expect some sort of setback year for Buffalo. Nothing to be worried about in the long run, but its common for teams who have "arrived" to follow their breakout season with a bad season.

Toronto should remain at the same level as last season, just below playoffs level. A few of their up-and-comers are RFAs so that could have bad consequences on their rebuilding.

Boston will go as far as Toivonen can carry them, which could be further than some thinks. They've got argueably the best top 3 in the division now: Chara-Stuart-Mara can compare to McCabe-Kubina-Kaberle.

Montreal's strenght is its relative roster stability, good mix of vets and youth, talent depth and staff quality. The D is still somewhat questionnable; Huet isnt 100% established and our best forwards had some long slumps last season so there's still lot of room for improvement here; but if carbo & Co. can keep the players all on the same page like they managed to do by the end of last season, the Habs could realistically hope of winning the division title.

[simonus]

our D corps isnt so bad. MTL was 13th in GAA while fielding a sieve-like Theodore for much of the season. In the end our GAA was only .13 higher than Buffalo.

Now we don't have any huge names on the corps and it wouldnt suck to get a top level D man on the team, Im not particularly worried about the D. We do have good shutdown lines in addition to our corps.

Rivet, Markov, Boullion, and Komisarek are very defensively sound. Dandenault definitely was stepping it up towards the end. While I don't expect Souray to be an all-star this year, I think he will definitely give a better performance than last. Markov and Komisarek will be even better this coming year, imo.

Hopefully the additions of Johnson and especially Samsonov, not to mention the maturation of our relatively young forward corps will keep the puck on the other side more.