The salary cap forces terrible choices upon NHL teams. After all the work that goes into identifying, drafting and developing a player, a professional club can find itself losing him at the height of his career for want of cap space to keep him on the team.
That isn't what happened with the New York Islanders and Kyle Okposo, though. The Isles had the money to keep Okposo on the team. They simply decided that they'd rather use their precious cap space on lesser players.
Whether Okposo's $6.0 million cap hit will be a good idea over the next seven years is debatable. He's had a decent start to his post-John Tavares career with the Buffalo Sabres, posting nine goals and 22 points over his first 31 games with the club. He's also 28 years old, and if he's only a 60-point forward now, the Sabres may be unhappy with his production at the age of 35.
That, though, remains to be seen. What we know for sure is how the players the Isles spent his money on instead have fared.
The obvious place to start is with Andrew Ladd.
Like Okposo, Ladd is an established NHL winger. Also like Okpos ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Jonathan Willis
How the New York Islanders Squandered Savings from Letting Kyle Okposo Walk
December 23rd, 2016 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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