Salary Cap Status 2025

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Hoglips

I'm seeing Kinlaw's deal reported as 3Y/45M with 30M guaranteed. Ugh ... your estimate seemed much more reasonable. I guess that the team sees something that I don't in his resume.

Both things can be true, my estimate of $7.5M was right on the money, it turned out.

His contract is for three years and $45M as reported. It included $16.5M in signing bonus, $1.3M in guaranteed salary in 2025, and $12.2M in guaranteed salary next year in 2026. So that's where the $30M guaranteed comes from, those three things add up to $30M.

The last year of the deal is not guaranteed, his salary would be $12.9M that season if he remains with us. He's got other roster bonuses and workout bonuses, but that's the gist of the deal.

His cap hits will be:

2025: $7.5M ($5.5M for the prorated signing bonus, $1.3M for the guaranteed salary, and $700K in other little bonuses)

2026: $18.4M ($5.5M for the prorated signing bonus, $12.2M for the guaranteed salary, and $700K in other little bonuses)

2027: $19.1M ($5.5M for the prorated signing bonus, $12.9M for non-guaranteed salary, and $700K for other little bonuses)

So you can see a contract reported at an average annual value of $15M per, but engineer the deal such that the cap hit is lower in the first year and higher in the out years, as they've done here.

I feel like it's 15 years ago and I'm on here with CrazyCanuck explaining salary cap 101.