Okay, while everyone else in the city of Philadelphia is putting their two cents in about Stamkos, here's mine. I'll attempt to break it down for you.
The Flyers can exceed the $64.3 million cap limit by 10-percent ONLY in the summer, which allows them to hit $70,730,000. That's a huge amount of money considering their current payroll is $56,018,095.
Anthony SanFilippo of The Delco Times with more:
The Flyers would love to be able to go after him and have discussed a possible offer sheet that could cripple the Lightning and force them to trade him to the Flyers.
First, they have to make sure they can put together a contract offer that not only would force Tampa into submission, but would be manageable enough on the Flyers end to be able to move other pieces around to make sure they could work within the confines of the cap.
Secondly, they have to make sure their offer is the best offer. There are a lot of other teams interested in signing Stamkos to an offer sheet and many of them are in a better cap situation to offer a maximum allowed deal, which would better the Flyers.
I have the feeling that this attack will be more surgical than the one on Osama Bin Laden's compound if it's to succeed. A lot of things will have to fall into place.
SanFilippo goes on further and says if the Flyers were to send Stamkos an offer sheet, it would be 12-years and worth around $115 million (roughly $9.6 million per year). Given the extended "summer" cap, this is manageable.
Still, though, CSNPhilly's Tim Panaccio suggests that Lightning Owner Jeff Vinik will go deep in his pocket to retain Stamkos. Panaccio tweeted that a source told him this:
"Vinik is a billionarie and will match any amount ... exercise in futility."
If, in fact, Vinik does not match any offer sheet, the Lightning may try to trade Stamkos to get some return (I say send them Hartnell!). This is why today is such an important day in all of this. If the Flyers send Stamkos an offer sheet today, the Lightning will be able to counter it tomorrow before the deadline Friday.
It's worth a shot. If I'm the Flyers, I establish a price that is high enough to make Tampa think, but low enough to where they aren't over-over-over paying for Stamkos.