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NHL decides to boost salary cap as revenues rise

The NHL salary cap will be about US$44 million next season, an increase of US$5 million per team, after league revenues were higher than expected in the first year following the season-long lockout.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and players' association executive director Ted Saskin met on Monday in New York and set the upper level of the cap at approximately US$44 million with the minimum rising to about US$28 million, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting who declined to be identified because the final figures have not been released.

Bettman returned to North Carolina on Monday and presented the Carolina Hurricanes with the Stanley Cup following their 3-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of the finals. Before the start of the series, Bettman said he expected next season's cap to fall in the US$43 million to US$44 million range.

The cap figures will be a topic on Wednesday when the NHL board of governors convenes in New York. The final numbers will be officially set once all the revenues from the 2005-2006 season are calculated by the end of June.

They are expected to be in the US$2.1 billion range, significantly higher than the projected amount of US$1.8 billion. The league and the union used that figure to set this season's cap at US$39 million with a floor of US$21.5 million.

"The previous cap wasn't miscalculated, it was a negotiated number,'' Bettman said before Game 1 of the finals. ``It is predominantly an increase in revenues. The cap was lower than it should have been this year based on what the revenues turned out to be, but nobody had any idea what the revenues were going to turn out to be because nobody had ever been in the situation that we were in. Revenues will be at an all-time high for this league."

Former Montreal Canadiens coach Alain Vigneault was hired as coach of the Vancouver Canucks, who promoted him from their minor league affiliate on Tuesday.

He replaces Marc Crawford, who was fired in April after missing the playoffs for the first time in five seasons. Crawford has since been hired as coach of the Los Angeles Kings.

Vigneault coached the Canadiens for more than three seasons (1997-2001) and spent last year behind the bench of the Manitoba Moose. He led the American Hockey League team to its first 100-point season and the second round of the playoffs.

The 45-year-old Vigneault spent most of the last 20 years coaching, starting in the junior leagues of his native Quebec in 1986-1987. He was an assistant with the Ottawa Senators from 1992-1996. After another stint in the juniors, he become the second-youngest head coach of the Canadiens on May 26, 1997.
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