This will be an ongoing update with how the Avalanche roster is looking, including estimated cap room. This list includes players under contract with a reasonable expectation to make the team (as of this writing). The depth chart takes some liberties, of course, but it should be acceptable for this exercise. More after the numbers.
| LW | C | RW | |||||||
| 1 | Smyth | 6.250 | * | Stastny | 6.600 | Hejduk | 3.900 | * | |
| 2 | Wolski | 2.800 | Svatos | 2.050 | |||||
| 3 | Stewart | 0.850 | Hensick | 0.850 | Jones | 0.605 | |||
| 4 | McLeod | 0.574 | Tucker | 2.250 | |||||
| Res | McCormick | 0.574 | |||||||
| D | D | ||||||||
| 1 | Hannan | 4.500 | * | Liles | 4.200 | * | |||
| 2 | Clark | 3.500 | Salei | 3.025 | |||||
| 3 | Foote | 3.000 | * | Vernace | 0.545 | ||||
| Res | Cumiskey | 0.607 | |||||||
| G | |||||||||
| 1 | |||||||||
| 2 | Budaj | 0.880 | |||||||
| Under Contract | 19 | ||||||||
| Estimated Hit | 47.560 | ||||||||
| Estimated Cap | 56.000 | ||||||||
| Cap Space | 8.440 | ||||||||
A couple observations & notes.
- The Avalanche don't have an abundance of cap space, but they are not as tight against it as some other NHL teams are. They won't be chasing Marian Hossa (or Dany Heatley) this summer unless they move a large contract off the books, but they aren't as desperate as some have said. Granted, the team they'd be fielding wouldn't be much different than last year's team, but it's still "doable" in terms of the cap.
-Given that Tucker, McLeod, McCormick and Lappy really all belong on the 4th line at this point, it really only makes sense for Lappy to come back IF one of the first 3 is moved. The good news? Buying out Tucker would save...gosh, about $1.5 million. You could use ALL of that money to sign Lappy and you'd be upgrading the position. That's a win-win situation.
-Goaltending aside, it seems like the most glaring need above is a couple of capable 2nd line players. Sakic, of course, is an option here. It's probably too early to start penciling in Duchene yet.
-Speaking of Duchene, figure the cap hit to be around $2.8 or $2.9 million - a sizeable chunk.