It's tough being on the verge of unrestricted free agency on a team with little-to-no cap space. It's even tougher when you've been a member of that organization for more than half a decade and helped it to ultimate victory twice in that span.
But that's just the situation that both Justin Williams and Jarret Stoll find themselves in at present.
Both players joined the Los Angeles Kings during the 2008-09 season, and both are scheduled to hit unrestricted free agency at the end of the year.
With the Kings signing defenseman Alec Martinez to a six-year, $24 million contract extension announced yesterday, they now have $60.1 million of cap space tied up in just 14 players, according to CapGeek.com. With the failing Canadian dollar making it seem more and more likely that the cap won't rise much if at all beyond its current $69 million, that leaves precious little space for Kings general manager Dean Lombardi to fill out the rest of his roster and pay soon-to-be unrestricted free agents, Stoll and Williams.
"However, it means Lombardi will have to make some difficult choices with his remaining free agents, and that means something's got to give," wrote Adam Proteau of TheHockeyNews.com. "You can't blame Lombardi for that, as he's been one of the league's best managers of his cap situation. Rather, you have to blame the cap system, because it was designed to spread out talent throughout the league regardless of the circumstances under which championship teams are built. It happened to the Blackhawks; it happened to the Bruins; it happened to the Penguins; and it will happen to the next Cup-winner and the champion after that."
It's a good problem to have, considering it involves winning the Cup, but it's still a problem. Adding restricted free agents like Tyler Toffoli, Tanner Pearson and Martin Jones to the mix only complicates things further.
It looks increasingly likely that Lombardi is going to have his hands full putting together next season's roster and, beyond that, will have a number of difficult decisions to make in the coming years.