What are the Ducks going to do?

From Dan Wood of the Orange County Register:

Ducks general manager Brian Burke finds himself in exactly that situation today. After last week’s free-agent signings of center Brendan Morrison and defenseman Steve Montador, the Ducks are more than $2 million above the NHL’s $56.7 million salary cap for next season.

That is not a problem, for now, because the NHL allows teams to be as much as 10 percent above the salary cap during the off-season, but they must be at or below the maximum figure by the time the regular season begins. And most teams, including the Ducks, want to be significantly lower so as to enable flexibility for adding players during the season. Chief Executive Michael Schulman has targeted $50 million as the team’s budget for player payroll, though the Ducks could meet that goal and still have a higher salary-cap figure because of the way some contracts are structured.

Read the entire post here.

The Ducks are in a bind here. It seems obvious that their most logical move would be to trade Mathieu Schneider, and I believe that will happen sooner rather than later. But even if that does occur, and then Selanne wants to return, the Ducks would probably end up significantly over their ideal $50 million starting point for next season. I guess this is why they pay Brian Burke the big bucks.