WHY KEITH PRIMEAU COUNTS AGAINST THE UPPER LIMIT IN 2007-08

    To explain how this all came about, I'll give some background.

    As those of you who frequently visited the old site remember, whenever I put out a list of salary and cap information on the Flyers, Keith Primeau's name was always on it ... and I always got questions about why.  Until recently, the best I could offer was, "Because the NHL still lists him on its files" - but I never had a better explanation than that.  I didn't know why the NHL would continue to list him even though he had retired, but if they did ... well, there must be a reason - whatever it is.

    That changed recently when on the Flyers team board at HFBoards.com, a poster gave a quote from an article written by Rob Parent of the Delaware County Times which talked about the signing of Daniel Briere - in that article, Parent noted that to get Briere in under the salary cap, the Flyers would defer money they owed Keith Primeau.  This didn't make any sense - were the Flyers really paying Primeau even though he was retired?  Could deferring money they were going to pay him help their cap situation?  Was he counting throughout 2006-07?

    Shortly after that, I made a note on the Flyers cap page about the possibility that Primeau still might count toward the cap, and James Mirtle sent me a link to an NHL.com article about Primeau's retirement in September, 2006.  In that article, it mentioned that the team would continue to pay Primeau, but the payments wouldn't count against the salary cap.  OK, fine ... so the team's going to pay him is '06-07 and '07-08 salary ... but why wouldn't he count against the cap?

    A few days before the 2006-07 season started, Steve Konowalchuk retired from the Colorado Avalanche due to injury, but the Avalanche elected to pay him his 2006-07 salary; Adrian Dater of the Denver Post later revealed that because the Avs were paying Konowalchuk, he would count against the Upper Limit for the Avalanche in 2006-07 but the team could use the LTI exception for him.  If Konowalchuk was counting against the Upper Limit for the Avalanche because he was still being paid, it didn't make sense that Primeau wouldn't count against the Upper Limit for the Flyers.

    So ... I contacted the NHL office in New York, and asked what the actual story was on Primeau ... and got an answer.

    1.  Primeau did in fact count against the Upper Limit for the Flyers in 2006-07.  He counted $3,166,667 - his Averaged Salary under the contract.

    2.  The Flyers did get permission to invoke the LTI exception on Primeau in 2006-07 and have already filed to do so again in 2007-08; they simply have to notify the NHL office when they wish to invoke the LTI exception.  The amount of Primeau's Averaged Salary they can replace will depend on where the team stands with respect to the Upper Limit.

    3.  Primeau will count $3,166,667 against the Upper Limit in 2007-08 (but again, the team can invoke 50.10(d) to replace his Averaged Salary), and the timing of the payment of his 2007-08 salary will not affect whether he counts against the Upper Limit in '07-08 (or how much) ... meaning he would not count against the Upper Limit for the Flyers in 2008-09 or beyond.

    So ... this leaves a few questions unanswered:
    -- Where did Philadelphia end the 2006-07 season with respect to the Upper Limit?  They probably ended exactly at $44 million after considering Primeau's LTI exception ... but I'll re-run numbers to try and nail this down.  No matter what, I'm confident they didn't end the season over.
    -- How much of his averaged salary will be replaced for 2007-08?  Combined with Mike Rathje, the Flyers have potentially $6,666,667 that they can replace - but it's almost certain that they're not getting all of it.  I've made a preliminary assumption on this, and will work to tweak it during the season and try to answer this.

    However ... it's very clear that Keith Primeau should be listed on the Flyers cap pages and counted in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 cap calculations.  As such, I'll have him listed on the applicable pages and spreadsheets as needed, but will leave this page up for at least the entire 2007-08 season so everyone can refer back to this as needed.

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