Floor. No, no, no, no, no. Don't be bringing up to salary cap floor. There's no point to it. Good morning to you. Good Friday morning.

Damn Kowatchewitch of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports, and this is Daily Shot of Penguins.

It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're into football and or baseball,

I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Pirates.

Hope you'll have the chance to check those out as well.

Concluding my week of digging really deep into the Kyle Duba session that I

covered the other day up in Cranberry. There's been tons and tons of feedback and questions,

comments, and it's been, as you might expect, on an array of subjects, as the session itself was.

Not one of those has been more surprising to me than those who are wondering, and I've seen, heard and read a lot of this,

how the Penguins are ever going to spend up to the NHL's salary cap floor

for the 2026-27 season.

I'll give you a little bit of background here.

The ceiling for next season is jumping by $8. million to 104 million highest it's ever been. The floor,

which is always part of any salary cap system, will in turn rise to 76.9 million. It makes for a range

there between the ceiling and the floor of around 25 million.

That's usually where the range is.

Well, some have taken the knowledge that the penguins will have more cap space heading into

this summer than any other team, that figure currently being around 42 million, and presuming that they're

going to have a really tough time even just qualifying for the floor. And on the surface, I can see that.

I can see where it's not easy to envision the penguin spending even just the 17 million to get to the floor.

Because look, bring back Yvgeny Malkin.

What's that going to cost you five, six at the most?

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