By Kathy Burke
If the NHL season is going to start on the targeted date of Jan. 13, players will need to start quarantining this weekend.
What’s holding things up as time gets scarcer and scarcer?
Here’s what TSN, the Canadian hockey bible, says:
There are so many issues around roster size, taxi squads, how that’s going to impact the American Hockey League as an example.
Will waivers be required for players to clear to be placed on a taxi squad? How many players can be there? How do you activate that player from the taxi squad and how many moves can you freely make as an NHL club? So, there’s a lot to work through.
And part of the focus in these discussions over the last number of weeks has been these transactions between rosters and taxi squads as it relates to the salary cap.
We know that’s not changing at $81.5 million but if your roster size is a maximum of 25, then how do you transition players to that taxi squad?
We’re told that at this point it would seem to be like a normal AHL transaction in the sense that no, the player is not leaving town but his salary cap hit would come off the books unless it’s one of those larger salaries that you’re trying to bury.
Everything except for $1.075 million would count against your cap. So, moving forward, there’s all sorts of permutations and language that needs to be figured out including accrued seasons, pro seasons, all things that relate to the expansion draft. So many things to sort through, guys.
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