Islanders: What you need to know about offer sheets and Mathew Barzal

Where Can the Offer Sheets Come From?

How about we start with who probably can’t give Barzal an offer sheet. And let’s start by looking at the teams who just don’t have any cap space going into the 2020-21 season.

(Of course, it’s possible and likely that teams make moves to free up space. But for this exercise I’m assuming it all stays the same.)

There are four teams that have fewer than $9 million in cap space as we head to the 2020-21 offseason. I’m assuming Barzal will cost around $9 million.

You can argue he could get more based on his importance to this team. But you could also argue that Sebastian Aho recently signed for $8.454 million and that Barzal is a comparable player and should get the same. I’m splitting the difference and keeping it at $9 million.

The four teams with less than $9 million in cap space (at the time of writing) leading up to the 2020-21 season are the Arizona Coyotes ($4.010 million), the Anaheim Ducks ($8.570 million), the Toronto Maple Leafs ($7.091 million) and the Tampa Bay Lightning ($7.833 million).

Then there’s the draft pick compensation the team would have to have in order to sign an offer sheet with Barzal. If we’re working on the notion that Barzal isn’t going to get more than $10.568 million than the team signing the offer sheet would need two firsts, a second, and a third.

That leaves out the following teams (who haven’t already been excluded):

(Note: all those compensatory picks have to belong to that team.)

That leaves the following 16 teams that could possibly send Barzal an offer sheet:

Boston Bruins, Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Detroit Red Wings, Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild, Montreal Canadiens, Nashville Predators, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators, Philadelphia Flyers, Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets.

That’s a lot of teams but it also means that around half the league can’t get in on a Barzal offer sheet.