that's the equivalent of telling players: take less money and you'll have to pay less escrow.
- RealityChecker

That's exactly how escrow works; the players as a whole are only getting 57% of revenues. Any dollar given to one player comes out of the pockets of every other player; it's a zero-sum game for the NHLPA as a whole. By getting upset about a low-revenue team having Thomas count against the cap so they can hit the cap floor without having to actually spend that much, you're arguing that the vast majority of players in total should be saying, "no - make sure they actually have to pay that $54.3 million floor out in real dollars so we have to pay more in escrow and I can have less of my salary in the end!"

That's exactly how escrow works; the players as a whole are only getting 57% of revenues. Any dollar given to one player comes out of the pockets of every other player; it's a zero-sum game for the NHLPA as a whole. By getting upset about a low-revenue team having Thomas count against the cap so they can hit the cap floor without having to actually spend that much, you're arguing that the vast majority of players in total should be saying, "no - make sure they actually have to pay that $54.3 million floor out in real dollars so we have to pay more in escrow and I can have less of my salary in the end!"
- Irish Blues

so to boil it down, you're telling the players, "the league won't let teams manipulate the CBA to bring their cap total down but it will allow teams to manipulate the CBA to bring their cap total up."

and the logic is "trust us players, we know better what's right for you."

labour loves hearing stuff like that from management.

You're looking at a 1-team example. If most of the league was paying the players less than they incurred against the cap, sure - the PA would be out money ... which they'd get back at the end because the owners would have to write a check to ensure that the players get their 57% share of revenues.

Regardless of whether teams overpay or underpay relative to the cap, the players are still only getting a fixed percentage of revenues in aggregate - which makes it a zero-sum game in aggregate. Where it's not zero-sum is at the individual level; when players have to pay to the owners, those on the lower end are hurt more.
- Irish Blues[Why would the players have to pay to the owners? Hint: it's not because a slew of them are making $1.5 million or less.] When owners pay to the players, those on the lower end benefit more. Either way, the PA as a whole doesn't benefit or get hurt.

If anything, Thomas not getting paid but counting against the cap helps the lower-paid players because they would then receive more than they would have if he was getting paid. If you don't believe me, set up a simple spreadsheet and run numbers with escrow involved and Thomas getting paid, then take Tim's salary out and see whether everyone else is better off or worse off.

it's called precedence.

if you allow one team to take on a contract for the express purpose of inflating their cap, you have to allow all teams. that's where the league got into trouble with all the long term deals. if you ask bettman, i bet he would have challenged the first contract and not have it get all the way to kovalchuk.

if you look it at as a one off, it's not all that bad. but there is no "one off," in loop holes. once one person does it with impunity, others follow suit.

*please note that this is a theoretical discussion. thomas has not been traded nor is it absolutely certain that he won't play. my point is that based on what has been said, if thomas was traded to a team just to get the $5M contract without having to pay the money, the PA will be up in arms.

so to boil it down, you're telling the players, "the league won't let teams manipulate the CBA to bring their cap total down but it will allow teams to manipulate the CBA to bring their cap total up."

and the logic is "trust us players, we know better what's right for you."

labour loves hearing stuff like that from management.
- RealityChecker

You're taking the Kovalchuk incident, where the team was clearly trying to create a contract intended to manipulate the salary cap system, and assuming that the league is enforcing that to all contracts - when history has shown that the league has little problem [in public, via the approval of contracts] with front-loaded contracts that limit the cap number up front.

You're also assuming the league has a problem with letting teams spend more in real dollars than it incurs in cap dollars, when the last 7 years have shown there are teams who do this and the league has no problem with it.

You're also assuming that at no point in the last 7 years has a team ever spent less in real dollars than it incurred in cap dollars, and that suddenly now, because some team just might use the Thomas contract to do that, there's a problem.

That's 3 failed assumptions.

You're taking the Kovalchuk incident, where the team was clearly trying to create a contract intended to manipulate the salary cap system, and assuming that the league is enforcing that to all contracts - when history has shown that the league has little problem
- Irish Blues[in public, via the approval of contracts] with front-loaded contracts that limit the cap number up front.

You're also assuming the league has a problem with letting teams spend more in real dollars than it incurs in cap dollars, when the last 7 years have shown there are teams who do this and the league has no problem with it.

You're also assuming that at no point in the last 7 years has a team ever spent less in real dollars than it incurred in cap dollars, and that suddenly now, because some team just might use the Thomas contract to do that, there's a problem.

That's 3 failed assumptions.

if you don't see the kovalchuk fiasco as the league clamping down on long term contracts a la luongo, hossa, et al, you're being very naive. as i said in my previous post, i'm sure that bettman would have challenged the first one if he knew the issue would explode like it did. you need to know that front loaded deals and long term retirement deals are not necessarily the same thing. it's an important distinction that you seem to have missed.

secondly, i don't know where you got that i said that the league has a problem "letting teams spend more in real dollars than it incurs in cap dollars." i'm saying that the league has a problem with contracts that manipulate the CBA to provide an artificially lower cap hit.

your third point is out of left field. i'm not saying that teams cannot spend less than the actual cap floor (NYI has done it previously due to buyouts). what i'm saying is that the PA will go ape sh!t if a team takes on the contract of a player that they know won't play and are doing so for the express purpose of inflating their cap $5M.

with CBA negotiations taking place (or about to take place) don't you think that the PA's antennae might be up? don't you think that the PA is still smarting over their arbitration loss last year and would love to shove it to the league? manipulation of the cap up or down is still contrary to the CBA.

you assume that labour negotiations are based on calm, reasoned responses. that's a major logic fail.

if you don't see the kovalchuk fiasco as the league clamping down on long term contracts a la luongo, hossa, et al, you're being very naive. as i said in my previous post, i'm sure that bettman would have challenged the first one if he knew the issue would explode like it did. you need to know that front loaded deals and long term retirement deals are not necessarily the same thing. it's an important distinction that you seem to have missed.

secondly, i don't know where you got that i said that the league has a problem "letting teams spend more in real dollars than it incurs in cap dollars." i'm saying that the league has a problem with contracts that manipulate the CBA to provide an artificially lower cap hit.

your third point is out of left field. i'm not saying that teams cannot spend less than the actual cap floor (NYI has done it previously due to buyouts). what i'm saying is that the PA will go ape sh!t if a team takes on the contract of a player that they know won't play and are doing so for the express purpose of inflating their cap $5M.

with CBA negotiations taking place (or about to take place) don't you think that the PA's antennae might be up? don't you think that the PA is still smarting over their arbitration loss last year and would love to shove it to the league? manipulation of the cap up or down is still contrary to the CBA.

you assume that labour negotiations are based on calm, reasoned responses. that's a major logic fail.
- RealityChecker

San Jose did your 3rd point already when they made a trade with NJ before the 05/06 season.

if you ask bettman, i bet he would have challenged the first contract and not have it get all the way to kovalchuk.
- RealityChecker

In reality, he should have. I called for them to be challenged when the first one was filed. Why it didn't happen, I don't know - you'll have to ask Bettman. That said, with perfect hindsight the 2005 CBA would have had a mechanism to require that teams pay back the cap savings realized on a front-loaded contract even if the player wasn't in the NHL [through retirement, being assigned outside the NHL, or whatever].

*please note that this is a theoretical discussion. thomas has not been traded nor is it absolutely certain that he won't play. my point is that based on what has been said, if thomas was traded to a team just to get the $5M contract without having to pay the money, the PA will be up in arms.
- RealityChecker

The more I read this, the more I wonder if you're trying to argue that not only should teams be constrained in cap dollars between the floor and the ceiling, their actually spending should be forced to be at least the amount of the cap floor - which then says that their actual spending should be forced to be no more than the cap ceiling. Such a system would in fact make the cap system even harder; if needed, I can explain this pretty quickly.

Still, I'll repeat: the players are only getting a certain percentage of revenues whether Thomas gets paid or not. The only question is how that pie gets divided among the players; a dollar not paid to Thomas is a dollar that goes to everyone else - and if Thomas not getting paid reduces the amount of escrow the players have to pay, that's that much more the players in aggregate receive. I don't see the "problem" with a team paying out less in real dollars than it incurs in cap dollars; that's part of the way the cap system is intended to work - sometimes a team can spend more than it incurs, sometimes a team can spend less than it incurs.

if you don't see the kovalchuk fiasco as the league clamping down on long term contracts a la luongo, hossa, et al, you're being very naive.
I never argued otherwise. I'm saying it's not the problem as some allege provided that if Kovalchuk stops playing in the NHL at any point, the Devils have to incur a cap hit to pay back the cap savings they're currently realizing. Right now, nothing in the CBA requires that - and for me, that's a problem.

you need to know that front loaded deals and long term retirement deals are not necessarily the same thing. it's an important distinction that you seem to have missed.
- RealityChecker

I'm quite familiar with how the salary cap works. I'm also quite familar with why teams are structuring 12-year contracts to be front-loaded; it's not because they just want to be incredibly generous to the players at the present time.

secondly, i don't know where you got that i said that the league has a problem "letting teams spend more in real dollars than it incurs in cap dollars." i'm saying that the league has a problem with contracts that manipulate the CBA to provide an artificially lower cap hit.
- RealityChecker

I said nothing about the league having a problem - but you're certainly arguing that the NHLPA would have a problem with it. I clearly stated the league does not have a problem with teams overspending the cap in real dollars; the league does have a problem with teams structuring contracts that are clearly intended to circumvent the cap by extending longer than one would reasonably expect a player to be playing - which is far different from "they don't want anyone spending over the cap in real dollars."

Hence, the fight over the original Kovalchuk contract, and the investigation [later dropped as part of the Kovalchuk settlement] into the Savard, Pronger, Hossa and Luongo contracts.

your third point is out of left field. i'm not saying that teams cannot spend less than the actual cap floor (NYI has done it previously due to buyouts). what i'm saying is that the PA will go ape sh!t if a team takes on the contract of a player that they know won't play and are doing so for the express purpose of inflating their cap $5M.
- RealityChecker

You keep saying this, and I keep explaining that it doesn't matter because this still doesn't change how much the players in aggregate are going to get - it only changes how those dollars are split up. If every team carried $20 million in dead cap space, the players in aggregate would still be guaranteed a percentage of revenues - they might have to wait until the end of the season to collect it all [with interest], but they'd be in the same position as if every team spent to the cap. Individually, some players may be better or worse off one way as opposed to the other ... but that's a different discussion.

with CBA negotiations taking place (or about to take place) don't you think that the PA's antennae might be up? don't you think that the PA is still smarting over their arbitration loss last year and would love to shove it to the league? manipulation of the cap up or down is still contrary to the CBA.
- RealityChecker[/QUOTE]
Define "manipulation of the cap" and then argue whether a team spending $70 million when the cap is only $64.3 million is manipulation - and whether the NHLPA would similarly have a problem with it. [Hint: the midpoint would be $56.3 million, representing approximately 57% of projected league revenues; when everyone spends above that level, do the players as a whole gain money or lose money in the process?]

you assume that labour negotiations are based on calm, reasoned responses. that's a major logic fail.
- RealityChecker

I assume that no matter how the negotiations go, the rank and file are going to have to vote to approve the final deal ... and they're not going to vote for anything that works against the vast majority of them - especially if it's something that they can never benefit from and is much more likely to hurt them if implemented. Circling back to the original topic, that's why any "franchise tag" or "homegrown discount" plan is dead before it's launched - because the vast majority of the NHLPA can never benefit from it, and putting it in would come at their expense.

I like the thought of being able to limit another teams ability to poach top players, but these uber long term deals are a problem too, but I think there are better ways to deal with it. I dont want to see the NHL with an NBA structure, with a bunch of different exemptions and taxes for overages. Maybe some sort of 10% discount towards the cap for a player with ten years in the system or something to that affect, allowing teams to pay more for their own players, but still alowing what free agency gives the players.

It's already in existence. It's called Long-Term Injured Reserve; a player who is unable to play because of a career-ending injury can be designated for LTIR if necessary, and the team can replace up to the amount of the injured's player salary
- Irish Blues[depending on how close they are to the cap at the time LTIR is invoked]. If the player ever comes off LTIR, he comes back on at full value at that point.

but not if they are over 35, right? I thought if a player is over 35, he's on the cap no matter what.

Yes, a team cap only $ to get above the floor is theoretically hurting players. Otherwise the team would have to pay real $ to other PA members to accomplish the same thing. ie Thomas cap hit with no real $ is taking away from other players who otherwise would receive the money.
- Double_A

unless your only hope of hitting the floor is to pay 1 million dollar player 3 mil, which has ripple effects for the other 1 mil players who now think they also should get 3.

Is this really broken? I think they finally have something that works, players are making money, owners have a fixed cost system, we lost a year of hockey just a couple of years ago to have this, (2 years for Boston fans if you consider Sindens and O'Connells handling of the new system). Its never gonna be perfect, but what we have now is pretty good.

Still, I'll repeat: the players are only getting a certain percentage of revenues whether Thomas gets paid or not. The only question is how that pie gets divided among the players; a dollar not paid to Thomas is a dollar that goes to everyone else - and if Thomas not getting paid reduces the amount of escrow the players have to pay, that's that much more the players in aggregate receive. I don't see the "problem" with a team paying out less in real dollars than it incurs in cap dollars; that's part of the way the cap system is intended to work - sometimes a team can spend more than it incurs, sometimes a team can spend less than it incurs.
- Irish Blues

my bottom line point, was and still remains, that the PA will have a problem with a team trading for thomas' contract as a means of achieving the cap floor.

you can argue why they shouldn't but should and will do not always co-exist.

but not if they are over 35, right? I thought if a player is over 35, he's on the cap no matter what.
- 77emac77

Yes, but the team can still use LTIR for him. The Devils did this with Mogilny in 2006-07.

my bottom line point, was and still remains, that the PA will have a problem with a team trading for thomas' contract as a means of achieving the cap floor.

you can argue why they shouldn't but should and will do not always co-exist.
- RealityChecker

So, the NHLPA's argument will go something like this:

---

NHLPA: It's not fair that a team can spend less than the cap - that's dollars we could be getting paid! What an injustice! We demand you force every team to spend to the cap floor in real dollars!

NHL: You're already paying 5% in escrow because you're being contracted to get paid 60% of revenues; if we force teams to spend even more, you'll just have to pay it all back in escrow so you're really not gaining anything.

NHLPA: Who cares - that's money you're cheating us out of, and we deserve to get paid!

NHL: Um ... you're still only getting 57% of revenues. If we force everyone not currently spending to the cap floor to do so, you'll be contracted to get paid 61% of revenues and so you'll have to pay 6.56% back in escrow. In fact, every one of your guys who currently has a contract will get even less money to pay for anyone who now gets a contract just to force some team to spend more money.

NHLPA: Yeah, well we want our 61% damn it!

NHL: Except that you're never going to get 61%, you're only going to get 57% because everything over you have to pay back to us.

NHLPA: But we can say we're getting everything we can!

NHL: Seriously, do you not get that above 57% of revenues for every dollar I pay you, you just have to hand it right back - and, everyone else gets less as a result?

NHLPA: We're invincible!

---
If the NHLPA really wants to have that fight to get someone else a few more dollars to the detriment of everyone else who's already got a contract and would lose money as a result, let them have at it - but to anyone taking an objective look at this, it's quite silly [not to mention that it suggests the NHLPA can dictate how much any one team spends, which runs completely contrary to Article 5 of the CBA which clearly spells out management has the sole right to dictate how a team is run, provided it doesn't run afoul of league rules]. The NHLPA has bigger issues it could [and should] fight over than whether a team should be able to underspend the cap floor in real dollars.

Too many lawyers here for me.

i think it's an awesome idea, but not feasible in the current NHL financial world. there are too many teams struggle to break even while holding the salary floor. so having a contract that doesn't hit your cap but does hit your bottom line and could potentially keep you in the red is not something less income markets would take advantage of.
unless something is done to address the financial issues that have some teams (even new jersey as rumored lately) struggling to get in the black, this is not a league wide benefital change. but i still like the idea.

best solution to cap circumventing etc:

put a max value on total value of the comtract (30-35million max).
this can be ten year deals, 3m/y, 3 year deals of 10m/y, always taking into account the max annual caphit.
this works for the vast volume of the players, since the 'worst paid players' are better protected under this system (possibly earning longer contracts) and the 'big fish' still receiving 3-4y max deals. better for trading, and better for team management as well since no bad contracts for 5-7 years..
problem solved.

best solution to cap circumventing etc:

put a max value on total value of the comtract (30-35million max).
this can be ten year deals, 3m/y, 3 year deals of 10m/y, always taking into account the max annual caphit.
this works for the vast volume of the players, since the 'worst paid players' are better protected under this system (possibly earning longer contracts) and the 'big fish' still receiving 3-4y max deals. better for trading, and better for team management as well since no bad contracts for 5-7 years..
problem solved.
- MaximusAurelius

The part in bold is a solution designed to save GM's from their own incompetence. Let GM's be able to sign a player to an 11-year deal, but make him have to pay for it if/when it blows up in his face. Besides, this doesn't fix problem contracts already on the books or signed going forward, since there's still no mechanism to force cap savings that have been realized early on in a contract to ever be paid back if the player retires early.