We had already looked at Edmonton, Minnesota, Nashville and St. Louis when all four of those teams were eliminated from the playoffs over a month ago. Now that the playoffs are done, it is time to look at the next five teams in the West (Anaheim, Arizona, Calgary, Chicago and Colorado) and see what the plan might be for next season. All salary cap projections are by Alex Maclean.

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Anaheim Ducks (missed the playoffs for third straight season)

The Ducks have perhaps hit bottom and are on their way back up after this season. I wouldn't say they are bouncing up, but more like splatting and then climbing a rickety rope ladder, but at least it is up. The club still has two more seasons of carrying a $2 million cap hit for buying out Corey Perry but has $22.55 million of cap space available for next season. If we add the LTIR for Ryan Kesler ($6.875 million) and Jakob Silfverberg who could be out a while after hip surgery ($5.25 million) they are looking at a minimum of $29.4 million in cap space next season and possibly $34.65 million.

Ryan Getzlaf and his $8.25 million AAV contract are finally off the books and I would think he will re-sign for one or two more seasons at a much more reasonable rate to help the Ducks out (projected $1.788 million AAV). I can’t see the Ducks bringing back any of their additional unrestricted free agents (UFA) other than perhaps 29-year old Sam Carrick who had an impressive 13 game stint with the team last year, but he has never played more than 16 games in the NHL in a season, so he would be strictly depth.

Anaheim will need to move on from or re-sign the following restricted free agents (RFA), Danton Heinen ($1.56 million), Isac Lundestrom ($1.47 million), Maxime Comtois ($2.53 million), Max Jones ($1.72 million), Sam Steel ($1.71 million), Alexander Volkov ($1.8 million) and Josh Mahura ($0.955 million). If my math is correct, this leaves the Ducks about $15 or 16 million for next season to upgrade their roster if they choose (dependent on LTIR). The Ducks should be poised to take advantage of the Seattle expansion draft and be a broker for some salary, rather than using all that space for an expensive free agent or two as this team is still 3-5 years away from contending.

The consensus seems to be the Ducks losing Kevin Shattenkirk or Adam Henrique in the expansion draft. Notwithstanding his performance in the World Championships, but Seattle taking Henrique and his three years remaining at $5.825 million AAV or Shattenkirk at $3.9 AAV for two more years, would be doing Anaheim a solid.

The team will need better seasons from Rickard Rakell, Heinen, Steel, Henrique and John Gibson and a return to health for Hampus Lindholm, Josh Manson and eventually Silfverberg. The Ducks will need to make some decisions on some young players like Max Jones, Sam Steel, Volkov and Josh Mahura and whether they see growth in their games enough to warrant keeping.

Jamie Drysdale won't be eligible to be sent to the AHL next season as a 19-year old so the team will either have to keep him in the NHL or send him back to the OHL.  I think we can expect to see continued improvement from Trevor Zegras, Isac Lundestrom, Troy Terry and Maxime Comtois, but the Anaheim roster is slim for these types of younger players who should be trending upwards. The Ducks pick 3rd overall this year and should be able to get a good piece for 2-3 years down the road. The pick is unlikely to help them this year, so the Ducks are not going to be much improved next season unless they do the unwise thing and spend to the cap without leveraging it as much as they should.

Arizona Coyotes (missed the playoffs and have missed them eight of the last nine years)

This is a franchise in disarray. Their former GM John Chayka quit, and they were found to have violated rules on draft testing in 2019 and subsequently had their 2nd round pick in 2020 and their first-round pick in 2021 taken away. The list goes on.

The Coyotes had a breakout year from Jacob Chychrun who had 18 goals and 41 points in 56 games at the age of 23. Another player that improved significantly was Conor Garland (39 points in 49 games) who took over a little from Clayton Keller in prime power play opportunities and ran with it.

Players who didn't seem to progress were Keller, Nick Schmaltz, and Christian Dvorak, while Phil Kessel had a bit of a bounce-back year to lead the team in scoring with 20 goals and 43 points in 56 games.

Their captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson is rumored again to be on the trade block and from most reports, it sounds like he has expanded his allowed teams from two. The unfortunate part is that his play is no longer worth $8.25 million for the next five seasons.

As for the salary cap next season, Marian Hossa is finally off the books, so it is now just Michal Grabner and $1.26 million of cap hit for next season as a result of his buyout in 2020. The team has $31.4 million of cap space for next season, but it is unlikely that the team will spend to the cap.

Currently, they only have three defencemen that are signed in Chychrun, Ekman-Larsson and Ilya Lyubushkin. The team will need to decide on UFAs Alex Goligoski ($2.3 million), Niklas Hjalmarsson (34), Jason Demers (33) and Jordan Oesterle ($1.52 million). The club could go with youngsters Victor Soderstrom (20), Kyle Capobianco (23) and newly signed Vladislav Provolnev (26) who is coming off of a 10-goal and 20-point year in the KHL in 48 games. Provolnev's contract is two-way so he will need to perform well in training camp to stick. They might give a shot to one of the other two but unlikely both, so the team will need to bring back at least three of the UFAs in Goligoski, Hjalmarsson, Demers or Oesterle or sign similar players on the open market.

Other significant UFAs are Derick Brassard ($1.4 million), Michael Bunting ($1.2 million) and Antti Raanta ($1.76 million). The team has a reasonable chance of losing Adin Hill in the expansion draft so re-signing Raanta might be in the cards. If the Coyotes can sign Brassard to a one or two-year deal at $1.4 million, it would make sense, but Bunting might have priced himself onto another team with his 10 goals in 21 games last year.

RFAs are Conor Garland ($4.56 million), Adin Hill ($1.2 million), Dryden Hunt, John Hayden and Lane Pederson. The Coyotes can't afford to not to re-sign Garland and Hill might not be their issue, while Hunt, Hayden and Pederson fill depth roles, which the Coyotes are very weak in. Arizona should have between $10 and 12 million of cap space at the end of the day to use at their discretion, but this team is not going to attract the bigger name-free agents, so at least they can't make that mistake.

It is going to be difficult for Arizona to improve next season as the team will need Keller to get back to his 65-point rookie season pace, and they will need to get some value for Kessel and perhaps Darcy Kuemper in the final year of their contracts. They will also need progress in Barrett Hayton and Soderstrom. Perhaps Jan Jenik is their dark-horse rookie next season and surprises with 15-20 goals? Otherwise, the cupboards are pretty bare.

Calgary Flames (Missed the playoffs, two years removed from a 107-point season)

The likelihood of Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk all being Flames at the end of next season is very slim after this past season of disappointment. The Flames were supposed to be a better team with the additions of Jacob Markstrom, Chris Tanev and Josh Leivo. They weren't and things will need to change.

Andrew Mangiapane was perhaps the only Flame that showed a significant improvement, with Dillon Dube and Rasmus Andersson showing slight trends upwards.

Very good seasons were had by Elias Lindholm, Mark Giordano, Noah Hanifin and Chris Tanev, while the rest of the roster was average at best if not regressing. There were disappointing seasons from Gaudreau, Tkachuk, Markstrom and Leivo and a disastrous year from Monahan. Four of your best players having off years is not a recipe for success.

As for the salary cap going into next season, the Flames have $14.5 million in space and this is the last year of the dead cap for Troy Brouwer and his $1.5 million for his buyout in 2018.

The consensus appears to have Mikael Backlund, Dube or Oliver Kylington as the most likely to be lost in the expansion draft.

Unrestricted free agents are Derek Ryan, Josh Leivo, Brett Ritchie, Nikita Nesterov, Michael Stone and Louis Domingue. The team will more than likely look to replace all of them unless Ryan agrees to come back at around $1 million for one or two years. To replace all of these players, it will be about $7 to 10 million to keep the same level of output and overall play. The team needs to have learned from overplaying Markstrom last year and will need a steady backup that can play 30-35 games next season.

Restricted free agents are Dube ($2.8 million), Glenn Gawdin, Dominik Simon, Connor Mackey, Kylington, Matthew Phillips and Juuso Valimaki ($2.48 million) with Dube and Valimaki being the two important signings. If all RFA are signed the total cap will be between $7 and 10 million.

The Flames just don't have the cap space to bring everyone back, thus the rumor mill surrounding shedding some salary with Monahan ($6.375 million). The team is likely to give Mackey or Kylington a shot and perhaps Tyler Parsons gets a look as the backup in the net. They might have to go young and cheap in their bottom six as well, and we all know how much NHL coaches love to do that.

Any roster upgrades the Flames have next season will be from within and counting on existing players being better. With the expansion draft and the possibility of losing another player, the roster will look diminished on paper.

Chicago Blackhawks (missed the playoffs for the third time in past four years; 109 points in 2016-17)

The Blackhawks were 24-25-5-2 last season, which is better than I would have given them a chance to be, especially when it was clear that Jonathan Toews would be out for the whole season. Alex Debrincat, Patrick Kane had very productive years, while Dominik Kubalik duplicated his fine rookie season point-wise (0.68 pts/game). They had emerging years from rookies Pius Suter, Philipp Kurashev, Kevin Lankinen and Brandon Hagel which they hope can be built upon. Seasons lost to injury, for the most part, were Toews, Alex Nylander, Kirby Dach, Brent Seabrook and Andrew Shaw.

The team will need better seasons from Dylan Strome, David Kampf and need improvement from at least one of Adam Boqvist and Ian Mitchell.

Before taking LTIR into account the team has just over $6.2 million in cap space next season, but will be able to use $3.9 million for Andrew Shaw and $6.875 million for Seabrook, bringing their total to about $17 million, assuming Toews is back and healthy enough to play this year. They still have one more season of $0.750 million in dead cap space for the buyout of Olli Maatta (rumored to be bought out by LA, as well).

The club only has Vinnie Hinostroza as a UFA that they might bring back, but RFAs are Kampf, Nylander, Pius Suter, Hagel, Nikita Zadorov and Adam Gaudette. If they bring back all of these players, perhaps it will cost them $7-10 million, leaving them with $7 to 10 million to spend to upgrade or provide a landing spot for an unmovable contract from another team. I don't know if you can justify Zadorov and what salary he might demand, so he might be unqualified, making him UFA and left exposed as well. The expansion pick seems to be one of Connor Murphy, Brett Connolly, Calvin De Haan, Nikita Zadorov, Collin Delia or Malcolm Subban.

There are heavy rumors of the team looking to trade Duncan Keith and his two remaining years of $5.538 million cap hit, perhaps allowing the team to pursue Seth Jones or Dougie Hamilton.

The Blackhawks are a team on the rise but will need to be healthy to realize that next season but if they make some bigger acquisitions this off-season they could improve significantly. They won't be as patient to look for prospects or picks with their cap space as others, as Kane and Toews’ window is rapidly closing. It's no different than the dilemma the Canucks were facing in the last three or four seasons with the Sedins and if Stan Bowman were wise he would learn from that.

Colorado Avalanche (lost in Round two of the playoffs)

The Avalanche have made the playoffs four seasons in a row, but have not made it past the third round in any of those years. Fortunately, they are still in the eye of their window to win but will struggle to keep the roster intact because of salary cap constraints.

Colorado had great seasons from Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Devon Toews, Phillip Grubauer, Samuel Girard and Cale Makar. The team will need similar seasons next year if they hope to maintain their status as one of the best teams in the league. If the team loses Tyson Jost to expansion, they have Alex Newhook coming up, but he fits a much different role. If the team loses Ryan Graves, they have Bowen Byram, but once again different roles. The Avalanche are just so deep but will need to make decisions on Nazem Kadri, Erik Johnson and Valeri Nichushkin going forward after next season.

Colorado has just under $25.5 million in cap space next season but I'm not sure of the status of Erik Johnson's injury and the $6 million cap hit he has, so it could be $31.5 million. UFAs are Gabriel Landeskog ($8.56 million), Brandon Saad ($4.23 million), Pierre-Edouard Bellemare ($0.9 million), Patrick Nemeth and Grubauer ($8.74 million). Before we even get to the restricted free agents and assuming they don't re-sign Saad or Nemeth the team is more than likely going to spend $16-18 million on Landeskog, Grubauer and Bellemare. That scenario would bring them down to between $7 and 9 million remaining.

Restricted free agents are Cale Makar ($9.6 million), Tyson Jost ($1.4 million) and Connor Timmins ($0.8 million), so even if the team loses Jost or Ryan Graves ($3.2 million), someone will need to come in under their value to get everyone back. It will be tight for Joe Sakic but he negotiated the best contract in the past 10 years with the Nathan MacKinnon deal.

With the expansion draft, I don't see how Colorado avoids going a little backwards with their overall roster as the players coming up might not be as far along as those that are leaving. They will still be a very good team but will need to hope the experience of the past few playoffs has helped the younger players and gets them over the hump next season.

Next week we will look at the remaining teams in the West which will be Dallas, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vancouver, Vegas and Winnipeg.

Thank you very much for reading and if you have any comments or suggestions please message me or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15.