Gord Miller of TSN broke the story yesterday that the contract agreed to between the Flyers and Max Talbot violated the rules of the NHL salary cap, and would have to be changed before it would be accepted by the league.

In this case, the violation is a rather minor one. Talbot's five-year contract calls for him to receive $2.5 million in his first season, $2.25 million in seasons two and three and $1 million in the final two years.

How is this decidedly modest contract (by the crazy standards of this offseason) a violation? Under the rules, a salary cannot decrease from one year to the next by more than 50 percent of the value of year one or two -- whichever is lower. The dropoff from year three to four is the issue with the Talbot contract.

It will be relatively easy to fix, according to Miller. If the Flyers bump up year three from $1 million to $1.125 million, it's a legal contract. With Talbot's agreement, they can also keep the same cap hit by dropping another year by $125,000 to balance it off. The NHL is unlikely to impose any cap penalties against the Flyers for such a minor violation -- even though it shouldn't have happened.

The situation will quickly be corrected and forgotten. What seems ridiculous to me is that this deal is the one that will get flagged for a cap violation and yet blatant circumvention of the cap on huge money, long term deals is still allowed so long as it doesn't go quite to the extremes of last year's Ilya Kovalchuk contract.

The Flyers just gave Ilya Bryzgalov an extremely front-loaded contract extended until he is age 39 with low salaries at the end in order to mitigate the cap hit. Or look at what the New York Rangers just did with the Brad Richards contract: $12M, $12M, $9M, $8.5M, $8.5M, $7M, $1M, $1M, $1M.

Look at the drop between years 6 and 7 of Richards' contract, with not one, not two, but three years of "low" salaries that exist only to reduce his cap hit to $6.67 million. But the contract is legal (barely) under the rules because it never drops by more than the maximum ($6 million in this case) in any year and the contract ends after nine years when the player could conceivably still be playing.

So you tell me, which new contract is a true end-around on the salary cap: Talbot's or Richards'? Talbot's or Bryzgalov's? The answer is obvious.

Join the Discussion: » Comments » Post New Comment

» Lightning Strike Takes Down Jets

» Practice Day, Ersson, Jay Greenberg, A Personal Note

» Flyers Gameday: Game 12 vs. BOS

» Wrap: Brink Lifts Flyers over Blues, 2-1

» Game 11 Preview: Flyers vs. STL