NHL says the salary cap for 2020-21 will be between $84 to $88.2 million; what does this mean for the Winnipeg Jets?

TSN’s hockey insider Pierre LeBrun tweeted this info from NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly regarding the NHL salary cap for next season:

Bill Daly says he gave GMs a salary cap projection today for next season: the cap will be anywhere from $84 million to $88.2 million. The exact figure will be negotiated with the NHLPA.

The salary cap for the current season is $81.5 million which means that next year could represent a significant jump for teams that are spending to the upper level of the cap.

What do the Jets look like for 2020-21?

According to CapFriendly they’ve got the following tied up for next season:

$48,881,189 in nine forwards (Wheeler, Connor, Laine, Scheifele, Ehlers, Little, Perreault, Lowry and Copp).

$10,8750,000 in four defencemen (Morrissey, Pionk, Dahlstrom and Poolman)

$6,166,000 in one goalie (Hellebuyck).

For a grand total of $65,922,189 million.

CapFriendly is still showing Dustin Byfuglien’s salary of $7,600,0000 on the Jets books for next season which remains up in the air although it appears both sides are still working towards mutual termination of the contract.

Plenty of players will need to be signed but unlike last summer there aren’t any Laine’s or Connor’s in this group:

RFAs: The entire Class of 2015 will be including Jack Roslovic, Mason Appleton, Jansen Harkins and Sami Niku.

UFAs: Cody Eakin, Nick Shore, Logan Shaw, Gabriel Bourque, Mark Letestu, Dmitry Kulikov, Dylan DeMelo, Anthony Bitetto and Luca Sbisa.

There are also a number of players in the minors with the Moose who will need new deals including:

RFAs: Michael Spacek, CJ Suess, JC Lipon and Nelson Nogier.

UFAs: Andrei Chibisov, Seth Griffith and Cameron Schilling.

There is also the question about players that could come up from the minors next season (David Gustafsson, Kristian Vesalainen), from overseas (Ville Heinola) or from college (Dylan Samberg) although their respective cap hits won’t be significant.

Which all means the Jets should have quite a bit of room to find themselves some additional help in areas of need next season although Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff will have to keep in mind that he does have Patrik Laine as an RFA coming up in 2021-22.