NHLPA Offer Calls for Extra Picks, Cap Movement, More

[RGM81]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=403145

According to TSN hockey analyst Aaron Ward, the offer also calls for a limit on 'non-player' spending such as costs for head coaching, front office and management payrolls.
In addition, the union's proposal suggests - at the discretion of both the NHL and NHLPA on a case-by-case basis - giving extra draft picks to teams in financial trouble.
The players' offer also allows for franchises in distress under special circumstances to be permitted to trade or sell up to $4 million in cap space to another team - giving the team a way of adding another 'paycheque.'

While I think that this is something that will be reined in pretty tightly, it is a distinct paradigm shift away from the idea of parity and a level playing field. It somewhat allows the stronger teams to go back to the old ways of the pre-2004 lockout where they can use their wealth to ensure that they can sign all of the best players, to the detriment of smaller-market teams that originally drafted and developed those players.

Say this scenario were in place right now. Jamie Benn is currently an RFA. The Vancouver Canucks decide that they want this player and submit an offer sheet that he cannot refuse and that Dallas cannot match due to their lack of financial resources. The move puts the Canucks over the salary cap. In addition to the mandatory giving up their draft picks as compensation, the Canucks in a separate move also "help" Dallas by buying $3M in cap space from them, essentially poaching an emerging superstar for a handful of (assuming the Canucks remain a top-tier team) late 1st round picks and a pithy amount of cash. The Canucks immediately bolster their roster while the Stars lose one of the top young players in the NHL and have to go about the process of replacing him through the draft, which is by no means a sure thing.

[centrehice]

RFA behaviour should be strictly attached to the salary cap. At anytime that you pursue a player and you would immediately go over, you simply cannot do the transaction.

Right now there are adjustment periods that allow teams to go crazy with Free Agent Big Bucks. This would nip this nicely in the bud.

If not, then compensation of two 1st round picks and the difference in salary over the entire course of the stolen RFA players contract.

[30ranfordfan]

I think there are better ways to transfer money from team-to-team (affecting the cap) without actually trading space.

I used this example in another post a while back:

Edmonton decides they need an up-and-comming stud blueliner. They think OEL in Phoenix would be the perfect guy. The problem is that the only way they could trade assets and come up with a fair deal, would be trading either an unpalatable amount of draft picks, or a player they don't want to give up. Phoenix certainly isn't looking to move him.

What they do instead (the Oilers) is re-sign Linus Omark to a 2 year, 14 million dollar contract. Then trade him for OEL. The catch? Front load the deal, so it comes with a 12 million signing bonus.

The Oilers eat $12m in real cash, and get the player they want. Phoenix gets a player that will cost them $1m for each of the next two season, but eats $7m in cap space each year. They save the $12m that the Oilers spent on the bonus.


This is a crazy, over-the-top, way of dealing with it..... but the NHL's objections to front loaded deals (you hear groans from the league office anytime a star player will be making $500k in the last couple of years of their deal) are foolish. Front loading a contract, and then shipping the player off to a poorer team during the cheap years is EXACTLY how you make this system work.

[30ranfordfan]

The problem with how stupid salaries are getting isn't that Philly or the Rangers are spending crazy money trying to lure star players to town - it's that the Cap floor is so high, that Columbus & Florida (in recent years, they're the two that come to mind) have been forced to throw stupid money at mediocre talent, just to reach the cap floor.

There is nothing wrong with a system that rewards stars like Parise, Suter, or Weber the money they get. These are the guys that people pay to see, they're the ones that win games for their clubs. But when you force low-budget teams (the ones that were never in the running for real stars to being with) to spending 4, 5, or 6 million on a player that scores 20 goals, or plays solid second-pairing minutes on the blueline..... that's what's unsustainable, and that's what will kill teams.

[mugatu471]

The problem with how stupid salaries are getting isn't that Philly or the Rangers are spending crazy money trying to lure star players to town - it's that the Cap floor is so high, that Columbus & Florida (in recent years, they're the two that come to mind) have been forced to throw stupid money at mediocre talent, just to reach the cap floor.

There is nothing wrong with a system that rewards stars like Parise, Suter, or Weber the money they get. These are the guys that people pay to see, they're the ones that win games for their clubs. But when you force low-budget teams (the ones that were never in the running for real stars to being with) to spending 4, 5, or 6 million on a player that scores 20 goals, or plays solid second-pairing minutes on the blueline..... that's what's unsustainable, and that's what will kill teams.

This. The cap floor and its intent to help with parity and reward players forces the value of players up much higher than they should be. The rate for a quality d-man is way too high because of these types of signings.

[centrehice]

You cannot talk about having No Salary Cap in place as the cause of the previous lockout, then proceed to have a false Salary Cap that keeps on increasing.

Idiotic behaviour. Have a Collective Bargaining Agreement that last for 6 years with one cost of living/inflationary rise based on Economics.......period.

This false cap extending and broadening eventually knocks the little franchises into the ditch with no Tow Truck available.

[30ranfordfan]

Well, I wouldn't say that the way it raises is 'false'. The players were given 57% of hockey related revenues, so the cap needs to increase year-over-year if revenues also increase. If the event that they drop, the cap would also drop.

Revenues have been going up big each year, so the player's take has jumped with it.

Remove (or at least drop) the floor. It would mean owners need to kick into a pool of money, similar to the players & the escrow payments they may (a mechinisim to pay out bonuses at the end of the year - to top player salaries up to the correct share of revenues).

I'd also suggest letting teams go over, but with a luxury tax penalty (and a stiff one). $2 in tax for every $1 they go over. If the cap is $60 million, and the Rangers want to spen $80 million.... let them. That would just mean they'd have to kick in $40 million to the tax pool. You can pull money from that pool first, to top up player salaries, if the floor was removed and that sort of thing was needed (then teams would be able to get some, most, or all of their 'escrow' back) and if there's anything left, add it to the revenue sharing pot.

There's a lot of ways that the NHL can spread the money around. The NHL brought in $3.3 billion in revenue last year. Even with the players taking 57% of that (and I will assume that in the next deal, their share will go down - closer to a 50-50 split, which would be in line with other leagues) there is a ton of money to go around. I don't think the Leafs, Habs, Flyers, etc should be forced to accept the same cashflow as the Panthers, Coyotes, or Blue Jackets..... but if the whole point of the Cap was "cost certainty" and/or "parity" then this agreement has failed. The big market teams are more profitable than ever (the Leafs are protected from spending outrageous amounts of money on players, by the Salary Cap) and the small market teams are losing more money than they ever were.

If the owners can't figure out a more equitable way to split their pot amoungst themselves, I have a really hard time showing them much sympathy when negotiating with the players.

[xelloss1012]

They definitely need to do away with the cap floor as it's killing financially-challenged teams and a mediocre player will be overpaid and become untradable.

Unhinging the salary cap from the revenue would be an excellent idea. The NHLPA mentioning the cap increases for 2% in first, 4% in second, and 6% in third is actually a much lower cap increase than the 10% each year due to revenue. The 2005-06 cap was about 40M, now it's 70M which is too huge of a jump. Now why do you think salaries have increased so much?

Giving extra draft picks to financial-struggling teams is okay to an extent since ticket and merchandise sales are the moneymakers for a team. At the same time, I think there should be a caveat to not permit any team to win draft lottery more than two in a row. I wonder how well Phoenix and Columbus would be in such a situation. Phoenix has been bleeding red ink to the tune of 25-30M for about the past 4-5 seasons minimum while Columbus is going to nosedive quite a bit with the departure of Rick Nash.

The owners wanting to drop the cap to 50.8M is not even close feasible as it would be disaster to a majority of teams and a great headache for most GMs. They should have never tied the salary cap to revenue in the first place. The one thing that can be feasibly be done currently is to freeze the salary cap. This is one topic of concern that should have direct input from the GMs. If they permitted that cap drop, I think the KHL would have a field day on picking clean all of the free agents since most teams will have no cap space. Note that in the long past before the NHLPA was established, how the owners exploited the players by greatly underpaying them (ie.: Norris, dollar-bill Wirtz, and Pockington). A fine balance of compromise has to be settled and stubbornness must be set aside as a lockout would hurt the owners more than the players at this point.

Bettman needs to step down from the NHL commissioner position as he is well-hated by fans in almost every city. Having a reputation for locking out players three times during your tenure will definitely hurt the NHL as a whole. Also, since team revenues are so ticket-driven, a lockout would be detrimental to the sunbelt teams as it is.

Remembered when the MLB had their lockout in the 90's. Before the lockout, the Blue Jays were able to sellout or fill most of their seat in the then Skydome (now Rogers Centre). After the lockout, they were lucky to fill 15K of those seats on the best day.. This is evident in the NHL sunbelt teams as hockey is not a big market in those areas. I just have a feeling a few teams may fold at the current rate.

[MatsSundin13Rocks]

They definitely need to do away with the cap floor as it's killing financially-challenged teams and a mediocre player will be overpaid and become untradable.

Unhinging the salary cap from the revenue would be an excellent idea. The NHLPA mentioning the cap increases for 2% in first, 4% in second, and 6% in third is actually a much lower cap increase than the 10% each year due to revenue. The 2005-06 cap was about 40M, now it's 70M which is too huge of a jump. Now why do you think salaries have increased so much?

Giving extra draft picks to financial-struggling teams is okay to an extent since ticket and merchandise sales are the moneymakers for a team. At the same time, I think there should be a caveat to not permit any team to win draft lottery more than two in a row. I wonder how well Phoenix and Columbus would be in such a situation. Phoenix has been bleeding red ink to the tune of 25-30M for about the past 4-5 seasons minimum while Columbus is going to nosedive quite a bit with the departure of Rick Nash.

The owners wanting to drop the cap to 50.8M is not even close feasible as it would be disaster to a majority of teams and a great headache for most GMs. They should have never tied the salary cap to revenue in the first place. The one thing that can be feasibly be done currently is to freeze the salary cap. This is one topic of concern that should have direct input from the GMs. If they permitted that cap drop, I think the KHL would have a field day on picking clean all of the free agents since most teams will have no cap space. Note that in the long past before the NHLPA was established, how the owners exploited the players by greatly underpaying them (ie.: Norris, dollar-bill Wirtz, and Pockington). A fine balance of compromise has to be settled and stubbornness must be set aside as a lockout would hurt the owners more than the players at this point.

Bettman needs to step down from the NHL commissioner position as he is well-hated by fans in almost every city. Having a reputation for locking out players three times during your tenure will definitely hurt the NHL as a whole. Also, since team revenues are so ticket-driven, a lockout would be detrimental to the sunbelt teams as it is.

Remembered when the MLB had their lockout in the 90's. Before the lockout, the Blue Jays were able to sellout or fill most of their seat in the then Skydome (now Rogers Centre). After the lockout, they were lucky to fill 15K of those seats on the best day.. This is evident in the NHL sunbelt teams as hockey is not a big market in those areas. I just have a feeling a few teams may fold at the current rate.

But remember that the owners want a 24% rollback of salaries which would then lower the players cap hits as well. They wouldn't handicap their teams with a reduction of $70 mil to $51 mil with the current salaries and cap hits.

The minimum should be $30 million with a max of $70 million and have it frozen like that for the next 5 years in a new CBA. However they should also increase revenue sharing and add in a luxury tax that would allow teams to go to $80 million but have to pay dollar for dollar the extra amount they spend and that money would go to struggling teams who keep their payroll under $45 million.

[RGM81]

Remembered when the MLB had their lockout in the 90's. Before the lockout, the Blue Jays were able to sellout or fill most of their seat in the then Skydome (now Rogers Centre). After the lockout, they were lucky to fill 15K of those seats on the best day.. This is evident in the NHL sunbelt teams as hockey is not a big market in those areas. I just have a feeling a few teams may fold at the current rate.

More importantly than that, the 1994 strike killed the Expos. They were the best team in baseball that year, they likely would have gone to the World Series. But after the strike, it was a fire sale and then a slow, agonizing death.