Anaheim Ducks: What Happens to if Ryan Kesler Misses the 2018-19 NHL Season?
Ryan Kesler may miss the 2018-19 with a hip injury. Greg Johnson answers some of the questions surrounding Kesler’s contract and the Anaheim Ducks salary cap situation.
Last Friday’s Sportsnet column by Elliotte Friedman mentioned Anaheim Ducks shutdown center Ryan Kesler may miss the entire 2018-19 season while rehabilitating his hip injury. Ducks fans are wondering how that will affect the team.
I Thought Kesler Returned from His Injury
Ryan Kesler did return from his off-season hip surgery to play 48 physically demanding games for the Anaheim Ducks last season. The pain was grueling for Kesler, and his play was grueling for fans. Opposing fans don’t have much sympathy for our local nasty center. It was clear to those watching, Kesler could hardly swivel at the waist while on the ice last season. His results showed it.
It looks like Kesler is in real trouble now. He’s not interested in further surgery. According to Friedman’s 31 Thoughts column, “…word is he (Kesler) is not interested in retiring, wants to play and is doing everything he can to get there.”
Is retirement in question? This injury is clearly worse than any of us expected. Let’s go with the assumption Kesler is going to sit out the season and try to return in September of 2019.
Before We Start, Where Are the Ducks with the Salary Cap?
As we know, the Anaheim Ducks have been a budget team for most of their recent history. That means Bob Murray has had an internal budget to work within instead of the league-wide salary cap. Recently, the Ducks have spent nearer to the cap ceiling.
It probably didn’t hurt that the Ducks received their share of the Vegas Golden Knights’ $500 million expansion fee. This season, the NHL is expected to have a salary cap of near $82 million according to FanSided’s Derek Grochowski.
The Ducks have nine forwards, six defensemen, and their two goalies under contract for the upcoming season. These 17 players, including Kesler, have a combined cap hit of $65,758,333. That would leave the Ducks only $16,241,667 in cap space (assuming an $82 million cap) barring any trades or other transactions.
The Ducks typically carry an in-season roster of 23 players. That means they’ll need to fill six more spots for that $16M+. Ducks fans also have to remember Bob Murray will be busy this off-season. He has four players that are restricted free agents, meaning the team controls the player, but they are not yet under contract.
Those players are inexperienced puck-moving defenseman Andy Welinski; burly left wing Nick Ritchie; explosive defenseman Brandon Montour; and the best of them all, the dangling right wing Ondrej Kase. Suffice it to say there won’t be much cap space available for Murray to use to replace Kesler without using long-term injured reserve (LTIR).
Can Contract Insurance Help?
The Ducks are still a cost-conscious team. There’s a reason fans get great value from the team when they attend a game. So the potential loss of a huge contract is concerning. Although private contract insurance is available to the team, the cost is prohibitive.
There isn’t a lot of detail about the NHL’s current contract insurance plan. The latest information available indicates the league self-insures through a pooled premium paid by each club. That premium is based on the contracts of the teams’ highest-paid players. Teams can recover up to 80% of the contract.
Preexisting injuries are typically excluded from coverage. But it’s likely Kesler’s injury was not a repeat occurrence. It sounds more like this is an extension of the original injury. If contract insurance applies, that will help the cost-conscious Ducks to ice a competitive team in Kesler’s absence.
Does Kesler Qualify for Long-Term Injured Reserve?
We’ll know the answer to this question soon enough. There are two qualifications a player must have in order to qualify for LTIR. CapFriendly.com does a great job giving details of LTIR. Suffice it to say the qualifications are: Kesler must be unavailable for 24 days and 10 games. It sounds like this will be almost automatic once he receives his physical.
How Does Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) Affect the Kesler Situation?
Oh boy, now it’s going to get tricky. Most people think (LTIR) works just like sending someone back to the minor leagues does. We all remember the frequent driver miles logged by many of the San Diego Gulls/Anaheim Ducks last season as they were sent to San Diego for a day just to be recalled the following day.
Ducks general manager Bob Murray did that to ensure he had as much salary cap space as possible. And he received salary cap relief equal to the player salary for each day they “spent” in the AHL. But putting a player on LTIR doesn’t necessarily buy a team dollar for dollar relief.
If the Ducks are at the cap when the season starts, and Kesler is eligible, he may be placed on LTIR. This means the Ducks may exceed the salary cap on any given day by Kesler’s $6.875 million salary. Assuming he does not return during the season, the team can replace Kesler with a player or a collection of players with cap hits combined up to $6.875 million.
If the hard-headed center comes back during the season, he will complicate Anaheim’s situation. Let’s hope Murray has a good read on Kesler’s situation. If the Ducks are below the cap when they place Kesler on LTIR, they may only exceed the cap by the amount of Kesler’s cap hit minus the available cap space. We’ll see if Murray tries to bump right up against the cap to start the season before placing Kesler on LTIR.
What are some of the Other Benefits of Kesler on LTIR?
One thing Murray can do is bank cap space. If he puts Kesler on LTIR and brings up a player with a minimal cap hit, say, $1 million, he can gain additional cap space to use later in the season. This could give the Ducks flexibility before the trade deadline. If the season is going well, they can add a significant player or two. If the season ends up in the toilet bowl, they can trade that cap space for other assets.
What Does It All Mean?
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First and foremost, we should all be concerned about Anaheim Ducks warrior Ryan Kesler. If you’ve been to Honda Center for a game over the past few years, you likely noticed a large amount of Kesler’s #17 jerseys adorning fans as they walk into the arena. He’s hugely popular. Now there’s talk of his career being over due to this injury. Hopefully, that isn’t the case.
Let’s also remember what the team was like before Kesler arrived. Going into the 2014-15 season, this team hadn’t advanced beyond the second round since their Stanley Cup win in 2007. Since he arrived, they have been to the Western Conference Final twice. If you discount last season where Kesler was obviously well below one-hundred percent, that’s two out of three years in the third round. Kesler is important to the team on the ice and in the locker room.
If Kesler misses the entire season, it will be imperative that the young guns, who have been preparing at the Ducks’ AHL affiliate in San Diego, step up and burst onto the scene this season. Bob Murray doesn’t have much cap space to work with, so he may have to rely on younger players with bargain contracts.
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Additionally, Kesler has a full no-movement clause in his contract. He is unlikely to waive that clause unless he’s done playing. The one thing Ducks fans know is Murray already has a plan in place to deal with Kesler’s absence.