One of the largest obstacles in the way of what has been a widely-reported interest from the Panthers in Bobrovsky was that they had two goaltenders already on their roster. But with Luongo's retirement, a roster spot is no longer an issue.
The only issue will be the cap recapture on Luongo's contract, which it seems will be in effect for the next three seasons despite his injury history causing him to step away from the game, so no LTIRetirement for Luongo. Luckily or unluckily, the Panthers face a recapture penalty of just over $1M per season for the next three years.
With Roberto Luongo announcing his retirement from the NHL today, the #Panthers and #Canucks will both incur a recapture penalty in the next 3 seasons:#Panthers: $1,094,128 per season#Canucks: $3,033,206 per seasonhttps://t.co/i1qFrgvKbv pic.twitter.com/eiHOl0a83v
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) June 26, 2019
This is a net salary gain for the Panthers, who have been paying him $4,533,333 per season with the Canucks paying the other $800k of his contract – meaning, the Panthers saved just under $3.5M, which the Canucks get hit with a $2.2M salary loss after factoring in the $800k salary retention that now comes off the books.
Back to Bobrovsky. With $3.5M more in salary that pushes the Panthers to a projected cap space of $23,914,206 and while they still need to sign some players with only eight forwards and five defensemen currently on their roster, there is certainly enough room and now a roster spot to sign Bobrovsky.
It also provides a bit more room if they would like to add a certain Russian forward to their roster as well, but to flesh out their team, the Panthers would need to find more room which would likely come from a trade.
So what does Luongo's retirement mean for the Blue Jackets? In short: nothing good.
