COVID Seasons

[Charles Barber]

Combine the two COVID compressed seasons, along with shortened off seasons, add the plan to start next season at the normal starting date, it doesn`t leave much recovery time for players such as rest for older players and surgery recovery time for any player that needs it. Now with the pending expansion draft, teams need to make choices who to protect. Which would put them in the position to lose veterans that could cover the injury time of players starting the season on the IR. If a player is out for the season, no need to protect them and it opens a protection slot for a veteran replacement, for those teams who do not have a rookie/sophomore ready to step up

[Jim Bauch]

On Thursday, July 15, 2021 at 8:37:35 AM UTC-7, barberp...@gmail.com wrote:
> Combine the two COVID compressed seasons, along with shortened off seasons, add the plan to start next season at the normal starting date, it doesn`t leave much recovery time for players such as rest for older players and surgery recovery time for any player that needs it. Now with the pending expansion draft, teams need to make choices who to protect. Which would put them in the position to lose veterans that could cover the injury time of players starting the season on the IR. If a player is out for the season, no need to protect them and it opens a protection slot for a veteran replacement, for those teams who do not have a rookie/sophomore ready to step up

The flat salary cap is also creating some thorny issues in terms of filling out rosters. Cap space is even more precious than usual, though I guess the Edmonton Oilers didn't get that memo.

Jim

[Charles Barber]

Wish they would rethink the cap. Figure out a system that makes it easier for a team to resign their own players, while somehow limiting the amount spent to lure players from other teams

[mike]

Maybe its time to rethink the whole idea. Remember when the cap was
first brought in? Bettman, representing the owners, talked about the
need for cost certainty, fairness to all teams, controlling costs?
Remember all that? Then the owners went out and started offering
contracts like Kovalchuk and Weber. The owners became their own worst
enemies. So they had to fix a problem they themselves created. Now you
have a team like Tampa who was $18M over the cap in the playoffs openly
laughing about it - players with tee shirts that say "18M over the cap".
One again, stepping on their own dicks.

Not sure what the solution is but maybe you're on to something with the
ability to re-sign their own players. Perhaps extend the time players
have to spend with their drafting teams? Not sure what the solution is
but as long as owners continue to find creative ways around it, its time
to scrap the whole cap idea and come up with something else.

[Charles Barber]

Not sure if there are any solutions. The underlying problem is there are just not enough premium talent to go around. Look at the entry draft where franchise level talent is only available at the rate of 2 or 3, and often none per year. Those being players who hit the ice as allstars rather then superstars in training. The superstars in training often take longer then their entry level contracts to blossom (or prove to be a flash in the pan). This unfortunately causes teams to offer up large and lengthy contracts to lock the players in, based more on what they hope that player will be then their production up to that point. Two or three years of lottery level picks could jump start a team's core. Teams who stay out of the lottery range are left to draft project players where it is either sitback and hope that over 3 or 4 years, they will strike gold enough with late rounds to jump start their cores. Or they could throw a hefty contract at another team's rising or newly established star. Chances are teams from the middle of the pack, because they invested heavily in the veteran market resulting in having little cap space to sign all of their rising RFA stars. If there is a solution. I doubt one could be found without another lockout. What other employer in the world is forced to pay and retain employees who can no longer perform at the level of competence expected ?

[Jim Bauch]

A solution to what, exactly? I'm struggling to see what the "problem" is. That sometimes players at the end of entry-level deals sign bridge contracts that end up paying them more than you think their performance merits? And it bothers you that an elite athlete who's worked very hard their whole life to have a short career gets a few more of a billionaire's dollars? If it's a question of fairness, then why aren't you complaining about the players on entry-level deals who are underpaid?

It never ceases to amaze me how so many fans reflexively take the side of ownership, and are constantly outraged that somewhere, some athlete is making a few more dollars than the fan thinks they deserve.

>What other employer in the world is forced to pay and retain employees who can no longer perform at the level of competence expected ?

Ha ha ha, you're kidding, right?

I assure you that elite talent in many many industries sign guaranteed contracts. High-ranking corporate officers who get let go for poor performance get paid. Hell, hockey coaches and executives get paid when they're fired -- Claude Julien is still drawing a paycheck from the Habs -- and somehow they never seem to draw the same ire. I would bet large amounts of money that Geoff Molson's employment agreement guarantees a very nice severance at a minimum if he is somehow fired. Ditto for Gary Bettman.

Conversely, how many employers are allowed to claim exclusive rights to people entering their industry? When I graduated law school, there wasn't a draft that determined which firm I had to go work for and which city I had to live in if I wanted to practice law. That would have been an antitrust violation. The only reason the NHL draft isn't an antitrust violation is because it's covered by a collective bargaining agreement. The players have agreed to let the league place all sorts of restrictions on player employment -- draft rights, entry-level contract restrictions, restricted free agency, individual salary limits -- that employers don't "normally" get to band together and impose. In exchange, the players have bargained for some rights, like guaranteed contracts, which you now begrudge them because not every employee gets them. I really don't get it.

NHL owners have done pretty well for themselves. Franchise values continue to rise. In the U.S., they get terrific tax benefits as well; I'm not sure about Canada. Not to mention, they are well-represented and drive a hard bargain with the NHLPA. I'm baffled at how you're shedding a tear for the poor owners who supposedly got shafted with such a terrible deal.

Jim

[Charles Barber]

Sure many employers sign guaranteed contracts, but how many are guaranteed despite performance? That even if the contract is paid out as per its term, how many are also blocked from hiring a replacement, due to some sort of imposed cap, until that contract is off the books? Not completely blocked, just less cap space to spend on a replacement As for Claude Julien still getting paid. What does it matter since there is no cap on how much coaches, former coaches or GMs are paid. Might piss the owner off having to pay, but unlike players there are no limits created by the size of any former coach or GM still on the books. I have nothing against the players getting all the money they can. What I don`t like is when the team loses cap space to cover the remainder of the contract

[Jim Bauch]

That's basically what "guaranteed" means. (In non-sports contexts, the usual distinction is termination "for cause" vs. "not for cause." But "cause" is typically defined as "you committed fraud, got convicted of a crime, gross negligence, etc.," not simply "we decided that your performance decreased" -- there's kind of no point in negotiating such a deal if the company can just declare that your performance is unsatisfactory and get out of paying you the promised salary or severance.

>That even if the contract is paid out as per its term, how many are also blocked from hiring a replacement, due to some sort of imposed cap, until that contract is off the books? Not completely blocked, just less cap space to spend on a replacement As for Claude Julien still getting paid. What does it matter since there is no cap on how much coaches, former coaches or GMs are paid. Might piss the owner off having to pay, but unlike players there are no limits created by the size of any former coach or GM still on the books. I have nothing against the players getting all the money they can. What I don`t like is when the team loses cap space to cover the remainder of the contract

But why don't you like it?

How does this hurt you as a fan?

The cap is the same for all teams. The talent pool is the same with a cap or without. The number of roster spaces is the same. Tell me which players are not on the ice, whose talents we don't get to watch, because the cap exists. (In the early years of the cap, a rare few such players did exist -- the Dan McGillis and Wade Redden types who were "buried in the minors" because their cap hit was too high even though they could still play at an NHL level. But that got fixed many years ago.)

Cap management is a skill. Some GMs have it, some don't. Some GMs take gambles that pay off, some take gambles that don't pay off, some refuse to gamble on long-term deals for fear of wasting cap space and in doing so risk losing players to free agency sooner than they otherwise would, which is a different sort of gamble.

That's no different than any other area of general managing. Some GMs toss prospects and draft picks around like candy to get some mediocre veteran because "he's a great leader." Some don't. Do you want to get rid of the entry draft, too, because some teams will mismanage it? There's only so much you can do to protect teams from themselves.

I'm just not seeing how any of this is bad for the game as a whole.

Jim

[Charles Barber]

I never said I didn`t like the lack of a cap on what teams can spend on management. I would like to see similar flexibility when it comes to spending money on players. That teams should not be penalized cap space should a player retire with time left on his contract. If some owner pays someone to sit on, such as a fired coach the sidelines, thats fine with me. If a player is no longer active, but getting paid, I don`t think there should be any cap impact

[Jim Bauch]

Well, let's be clear on what the rules are for retired players. A retired player only counts against the salary cap in two situations:
1) He signed a multi-year deal when he was over 35; or
2) There are "cap recapture penalties" because the player's contract was front-loaded.

So if a team signs Johnny Veteran, aged 34, to a seven-year deal that pays him the same amount per year every year, and he retires before the end of that contract, there is no salary cap hit post-retirement.

The exceptions exist to deal with the problem of cap circumvention. Teams would sign players to long-term deals containing "fake" years -- seasons that everybody knew, and in some cases had a wink-wink unwritten agreement, would never be used, the purpose of which was to stretch out the salary and reduce a cap hit. And teams would front-load a deal. So you sign Johnny Veteran to a seven-year deal that pays him $10M, $10M, $10M, $2M, $1M, $1M, $1M, when Johnny really only expects to play for those three $10M seasons. Effectively you're paying him $10M a season for three years, but the cap hit is $35M / 7 = $5M per year for those three years, and then drops off when he retires. (I'm exaggerating the numbers for effect -- I don't think the CBA ever permitted this big a disparity.) But of course you could rarely prove that there was collusion and that the team and player didn't intend for the contract to be fully performed, so it was a headache for the league to deal with circumvention -- the Devils eventually got slapped for going too far. Hence the recapture rules -- they effectively told teams that, if you want to front-load long-term deals, go ahead, but you're taking a risk of getting nailed down the road if the player retires early. The Predators chose to take that risk (as, for that matter, did the Flyers in making the offer sheet).

The CBA has subsequently narrowed the extent to which contracts can be front-loaded, so this tends to be less of an issue now. Weber is just an anomaly because he signed a massively front-loaded deal (a huge signing bonus contained in a Philadelphia offer sheet designed to make it hard for Nashville to match) that wouldn't even be allowed today.

So this really isn't a situation that is likely to recur. Luongo is retired, and Parise and Suter just got bought out. Which, by the way, is another reason why I suspect that the news articles are making a lot of fuss over nothing -- the NHL is not likely to kick up a big fuss about Weber being put on LTIR. He seems legitimately injured, so factually Nashville would have a strong case to make, and I doubt the league is interested in picking a dumb fight with a southern U.S. franchise just to enforce a rule that is not terribly relevant any more.

Jim