CHRIS O'Hearn basically grew up in the dressing room of the Winnipeg Jets, graduating from Winnipeg Arena rink rat to stick boy once they moved to Phoenix to become the Coyotes when he was 14 years old.
Now 26 and barely a year out of law school, the son of Jets/Coyotes' executive Mike O'Hearn is one of three Winnipeggers on the leading edge of the NHL's salary cap era with Jason Botterill (Pittsburgh Penguins) and Laurence Gilman (Vancouver Canucks).
Their official titles? Director of hockey administration. The more common buzzword for one of their primary tasks in the new age of financial responsibility in the 30-team NHL? Capologists.
"This team has been my team since I was four years old," O'Hearn said from Phoenix.
"Of course it's a different team now but my whole life as a youngster was hanging out at the rink with Doug Smail and Teppo Numminen and Moe Mantha and those guys, all the way up through the Keith Tkachuks and the Shane Doans and the Teemu Selannes.
"My whole life has been about this organization. So to get the chance to be part of it and follow in my dad's footsteps, it's pretty exciting for me."
Botterill, of course, is the former NHL player from Winnipeg who joined the Penguins this season after graduating with a business degree and working as an intern at NHL Central Registry dealing with salary arbitration matters.
Gilman, the son-in-law of former Jets' owner Barry Shenkarow, was a Jets' employee who moved to Phoenix with the club in 1996. He was fired by the Coyotes after last season's cleanout of the Mike Barnett regime but was hired by the Canucks' new GM Mike Gillis just last week.
The trio are their clubs' front-line experts on the cap, which was instituted after the 2004 NHL lockout and which is now a bottom-line reality for every team in the league.
'Bigger picture'
"In the bigger picture... I'm forecasting what our players will be worth, what will be the marketplace for them not only next year but five or six years down the road," Botterill said from Pittsburgh. But his scope is league-wide.
"Say Team X has eight defencemen on one-way contracts and they're right up against the cap, well you know in the back of your mind... that if that team calls and is looking to move defencemen, they might be in a little more dire straits because of their cap situation."
Is a player on an entry-level contract? Is he a Group 2 restricted free agent? Unrestricted? And how would acquiring that player -- or trading away another who will be seeking arbitration -- impact on Pittsburgh's cap?
Despite having some of the game's biggest stars in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal, the Pens had a lot of cap space this year because all those players are young and still on entry-level contracts. But that will change, and soon.
"Having players like Kris Letang coming in, Tyler Kennedy, they've had a huge impact on our team and it allows us, with their contracts, to be able to go out and get a Marian Hossa or a Hal Gill at the trade deadline and still have (cap) room moving forward."
O'Hearn helps GM Don Maloney on strategy for player negotiations and gets the ball rolling on contracts, among other things. "What's the right number? You have to have that understanding of players."
His job is to know the league-wide contract values of first-line centres and fourth-line wingers, of backup goaltenders and of No. 1 defencemen, of rearguards who are sixth or seventh on the depth chart and often sitting in the press box.
"It's knowing the players and knowing the teams," O'Hearn says. "At this point of the summer, free agency's creeping up on July 1 and you're kind of looking -- all right, what's out there and what are some teams that maybe have cap issues?"
Gilman, by far, has the most wide-ranging experience of the three, having served as assistant GM with the Coyotes for several years. He said almost every team in the NHL has a capologist, but they have different titles and varying additional responsibilities.
"Without question, the critical component of this job is to know not only your own business plan as it unfolds over the ensuing season and the next one to three to five years, you do need to know that with respect to the other 29 teams," he said Friday from Vancouver.
If one team is heavy with young defencemen but needs young forwards, it can seek out a team that needs young defencemen and can part with some of its young forwards, for example. But it all has to make sense now and over the longer term, he said.
"In the old days, you used to just look across the landscape and see, well, there's a team that has assets that we need. But you have to go deeper now. You have to say, well, there's a team that has assets that we need but they also are a team that has needs that match our assets.
"And that's the trick, if you will, in operating in this new system."
Big spenders
and low-enders
NHL salary cap, team by team
(Cap limit $50.3 million US)
. 1. Philadelphia, $56.575 million
. 2. Boston, $56.553
. 3. Rangers, $51.602
. 4. Anaheim, $51.151
5. Oilers, $49.765
6. Chicago, $49.403
7. Dallas, $49.379
8. Maple Leafs, $49.128
9. St. Louis, $49.090
10. Canucks, $49.053
11. Carolina, $48.995
12. Colorado, $48.760
13. Minnesota, $48.634
14. Flames, $48.378
15. Detroit, $48.320
16. Senators, $47.960
17. Canadiens, $47.736
18. Devils, $47.369
19. Florida Panthers, $46.023
20. Los Angeles, $45.635
21. Penguins, $45.135
22. Buffalo, $45.077
23. Islanders, 43.748
24. Atlanta, $43.640
25. Tampa Bay, $42.845
26. Washington, $41.894
27. San Jose, $41.440
28. Columbus, $39.575
29. Phoenix Coyotes, $37.152
30. Nashville, $35.868
. Players on long-term injury
reserve do not count against cap
(i.e. Philadelphia, Boston)
. Performance bonuses count
against cap but there's an allowed
cushion (i.e. NYR, Anaheim)
. nhlnumbers.com states these
numbers are not 100 per cent
accurate
chris.cariou@freepress.mb.ca
NHL PLAYOFF COVERAGE C3
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