Thanks to the retirements of Daniel and Henrik Sedin, the Vancouver Canucks will have $14 million more in salary cap space — but that doesn’t give general manager Jim Benning a good excuse to spend away this summer.
There’s always a temptation for general managers to spend right up to the salary cap when they have this much space. But Benning is in a unique situation, and he’d be better off actually ctrying to create more cap room.
Young players like Bo Horvat and Brock Boeser stepped up and will now carry the torch as the next franchise icons, unless Elias Pettersson and their 2018 first-round pick are ready to step up immediately.