Hello my Salary Cap-friendlies! Most of you know me from the Looking Ahead articles here at DobberHockey (with new articles out every Friday during the season, tell a friend), but I will now also be here to talk all things salary life and love this upcoming season. My qualifications you may ask. Well besides being cap obsessed and texting my hockey chats fake trades seemingly once a week, it's a hobby for me to analyze new signings and try to come up with what will come next for players that may be up for a new deal soon. As sad as that may seem. July 1 is a holiday for me (Happy Canada Day from Chicago, IL!) but it's the New Year so-to-speak.

There's more that I'm sure that will touch on this season and truly can't wait to dive in. For starts though before free agency gets crazy, I want to focus on some names in the Stanley Cup Final that we just watched, and what some of the cap ramifications might be moving forward.

*For this article roster percentages will be omitted with most fantasy sites undergoing offseason maintenance as well as some fantasy leagues not yet renewed for the upcoming season.

Jonathan Marchessault – RW/LW – Vegas – 32 yrs old
Contract: $5M – One year remaining – M-NTC

That's Mr. Conn Smythe now and deservedly so with 25 postseason points (2^nd) and 13 postseason goals (tied 1^st). Yes, winning the Conn Smythe is a big deal for sure, but we'll see how it helps his case once his current contract is up following this season. I think for Marchessault he's in a good spot to continue production next season, Vegas is great at making sure their top six at home get bottom six matchups and playing alongside Jack Eichel on the top line and power play is a plus. Can he continue right where he left off from the postseason? While I don't think that will necessarily be the case, I think there's a roadmap where he ends up somewhere around 55 points this season with well over 200 shots on goal.

When it's time for him to come to the table to re-up his deal he'll be 33 and I'd imagine if Vegas does offer him a contract, it would possibly be somewhere in the neighborhood of where he stands now, but much shorter term. Marchessault was 27 when he signed his current six-year deal and I think if you're rostering him I'd think his current cap hit will likely remain near where it is currently.

Jack Eichel – C – 26 yrs old
Contract: $10M – Three years remaining – NMC

I just have to touch on Jack Eichel quickly here. He becomes the first skater to carry a $10M AAV against the salary cap to win the Cup during the Cap era. It's not possible until somebody does it. While I wasn't a big fan of his primary assist numbers last season (and that goes back to his time in Buffalo), there's times where even at the end of a long shift he is still the fastest skater on the ice and excels up close at even strength.

If you're rostering him my guess is that you've had him before the trade over to Vegas, sit back for now and enjoy what production he can bring while healthy. It can be difficult at times to weigh his cap number, but I think there's enough good ancillary players now that you can field a high cap number like Eichel's. Where it gets difficult is for players that have a new higher contract that is set to kick in, but that's worth discussing another time.

Ivan Barbashev – C/LW – 27 yrs old
Contract: UFA

I don't think there's a lot of leagues out there that are rostering Barbashev but I'd interested to see what happens here with him. I thought he looked great in playoffs, and I can't be the only one that thinks that. He just came off his current contract at $2.5 per and I'd imagine is in line for a raise from Vegas. However, I think there's a roadmap here to where a club talks themselves into signing him and outbids Vegas (or possibly themselves) in offering him a contract. I don't think a player like this will wait long to sign, my guess is this gets done sooner rather than later.

Adin Hill – G- 27 yrs old
Contract: UFA

Remember that time when Vegas won a Stanley Cup with their fourth-string goaltender in net? Because that happened and I don't we're talking enough about it. I think Vegas did an excellent job in making the game easier in front of him, but Hill still had to stand in and make the saves.

If you're out there right now with Adin Hill on your roster as one of your goaltenders, then I'd be very ready for a nice little salary bump to impact your roster. They'll obviously be clubs that have their sights on making an offer but if I'm Vegas I'm making this a priority to sign him, even with having only around $3.5M to spend this offseason.

Even if Vegas talks themselves into Logan Thompson as their opening night starter (which they very well might), they could go the route of a tandem net giving Hill around 35 starts this season. This one's going to be interesting to see just where it goes, it's either going to be a club offers a sizeable amount to get Hill on their roster or Vegas makes their best effort to keep him. I write about goaltenders over on our sister-site GoaliePost and there was a point in the season where I thought that Thompson would actually end the season with the most points in net and for a while that actually looked very plausible. Either way Vegas goes, I think they'll be well off in net.

Florida Panthers
$10.2M cap space coming into next season

We have to now go over to the losing side but to start I just want to lump all of Florida into one, we'll call it think tank. For the winning club it's clear, do what you have to do to repeat even when that means either selling players high or having to sign players for potentially more than they'd be worth otherwise. For the losers though it's always, "Where do we go from here?"

I feel like in sports it's always easier to think tear it all down and start from scratch, and in some cases yes that makes sense, but I don't think that's the right way to go here if I'm Florida. They don't really have any "big ticket" free agents coming up this summer and I think really, the only big non-injury question mark here is if Spencer Knight will be returning from the Players Asst. Program. So why not sign a couple mid-level players and run this thing back? We'll get into it a bit more, but I think Florida might do their best Vegas impersonation of using LTIR as we get closer to the start of next season.

Sergei Bobrovsky – G – 34 yrs old
Contract: $10M – Three years remaining – NMC

If you're rostering Bobrovsky in a salary league you might be handcuffed to that cap hit. Even a struggling goaltender at times with a higher cap hit is usually a player that's on your roster for better or for worse. Looking at you Jacob Markstrom.

We can go back and forth about his deal and the ramifications it has and will continue to have against the cap, but the fact is the number is where it is so we have to look at the positives along with the fantasy outlook. Last season Bob had a 12-13-2 record through January which isn't where you'd want to see him at but following a return from injury in February posted a 12-4-1 record. The question here is what are we going to get from him moving forward and is what we saw in the playoffs sustainable over a full 82?

Might be a no-brainer, but I don't think there's a world where he starts in less than 35 games for Florida next season, barring any injury sustained of course. Florida will have to make a decision as to whether or not they'll be bringing back Alex Lyon and while we expect Spencer Knight back in the fall, it's uncertain just how he will look in net.

I can't imagine we'll see the .943 save percentage and 1.89 goals against that we saw in the Toronto series, but I still think as starts go he'll be in net and should face a good amount of volume if Florida plays the way they did this season. By that I mean leading the league in times short-handed.

Matthew Tkachuk, Aaron Ekblad, Brandon Montour

I'm pairing these three together because these are two Florida skaters that I don't believe we'll see on the ice come opening night, as I'd imagine both of them will be starting the season on LTIR. For Tkachuk we know he sustained a broken sternum (ouch) in the Cup Finals along with what I'm venturing to guess a shoulder injury as well. Would it surpsie me if he was on the ice come opening night? No, but I'm just reading the tea leaves here and giving it a best guess. For Ekblad it's more what body parts are not hurt as opposed to ones that are given what we know already and it's already been reported that he will in fact start next season on LTIR. Montour we already know, as he's having off-season shoulder surgery and will miss the start of next season.
 
Just thinking what happens next, I feel like Florida is just the club given their injuries to go after bringing in another piece to their blueline. I'd leave the door open to trade or even a signing if Florida plays the long-game with LTIR. For fantasy, it's more just being prepared to start the season without these skaters on your roster.

For continued fantasy news and notes, follow me on Twitter @ndySanz.