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Gary Bettman hints at higher salary cap next season

Nashville Predators v Phoenix Coyotes

GLENDALE, AZ - NOVEMBER 03: Shea Weber #6 of the Nashville Predators walks back to the locker room after warm ups to the NHL game against the Phoenix Coyotes at Jobing.com Arena on November 3, 2011 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

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After telling NHL general managers to take a “business as usual” approach despite CBA uncertainty, commissioner Gary Bettman dropped some interesting tidbits to reporters including The Globe & Mail’s James Mirtle.

Despite the rather elementary - almost flippant - delivery of his response, Bettman’s take on next season’s salary cap certainly seems interesting:

On the salary cap going up over the summer before a new CBA comes in: “Revenues continue to grow so you know how the system works. Revenues grow, the cap grows.”

That probably seems painfully simple, but one of the worries heading into the new CBA negotiations was that owners may try to dial back the salary cap. That might still be the case, but it’s promising to hear Bettman say that the cap is likely to rise.

Heightened floor?

What he didn’t discuss was the salary cap floor. One interesting (and one would assume, at least slightly less contentious) possible debate for the CBA talks revolves around the possibility of “relaxing” the minimum amount a team must spend to be cap complaint. The higher ceiling is fantastic for the Chicago/Pittsburgh/Detroit’s of the NHL, but smaller market teams often struggle to spend enough to stay in the game.

If you take Bettman’s quote as a totally accurate prediction, one would guess that the floor would follow the ceiling’s lead - and make lower-budget teams continue to strain with it.
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As with all of this talk, we’ll ultimately just need to wait and see. Yet with big-ticket players like Shea Weber set to hit the unrestricted free agent market, things could be a lot more fun if teams are allowed to spend big.

(Well, they might not end up that fun for the Nashville Predators, but still.)