Looking at the Hamilton Steelhawks

The team currently only has 2 million in cap space, and they must do a delicate dance if they want to keep the talents they have over the next few seasons.

First and most easy fix for securing long-term cap relief - don't pay Donnie Dicks as much. The upcoming RFA and rookie has a whopping cap hit of 10 million. What the rookie did at the time to deserve such a massive upgrade of a contracts compared to his contemporaries is unknown. Sitting near 500 TPE, he comes nowhere near worth that kind of money, but his development and training/equipment for the year have mostly been covered with the contract alone. The 10 million contract sits tied with starting goaltender Geezus Kryyst, who is at 1047 TPE. Given that starting point, and the fact that near-2000 TPE star Robert Phelps is on a Hometown Discount contract worth 4 million, I would suspect Donnie Dicks should receive around the 4-5 million mark next contract. Still more than some of his contemporaries with similar TPE, but they seem to want to pay him and keep him happy, as is any team's right with their promising youngsters.

Other than that, a few IA players that are up for new contracts this year can come and go, filling as needed, and are very cheap and replaceable. Next offseason after S 47, however, is where they need to prepare their money saved from the eventual new Dicks contract. Players like Zajac, Skalbergs, and Dover are all strong pieces that will be up for new contracts. If they want any more money, Hamilton has to start preparing this season.