Icelevel
During these difficult times...
- Sep 9, 2009
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Condra just scored his first goal with Tampa.
Scored in his first preseason game too I think.
Worked on his shot now a 30 goal scorer.
Eventual Stamkos replacement
Around the NHL XX: I guess it isn't the offseason anymore continuing edition
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Scored in his first preseason game too I think.
Worked on his shot now a 30 goal scorer.
Eventual Stamkos replacement
Sens of Anarchy
Registered User
- Jul 9, 2013
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I am really happy for him. Good Player that could play on just about every team and make a contribution some how. Too bad we lost him.
Do Make Say Think
& Yet & Yet
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DrEasy
Out rumptackling
Two games played and the Oilers have yet to shoot the puck into the opposing team's net. They have had someone else do it for them, and they've tried to get away with kicking it in.
I'm sad to say I sat through both of those games. At least they were both during Sens games so I didn't waste too much of my life on them.
I'm sad to say I sat through both of those games. At least they were both during Sens games so I didn't waste too much of my life on them.
I know it won't last, but I too am taking a certain dgree of pleasure from watching that Edmonton offense stumble.
Offense starts in the back end when you're able to exit the zone or recover the puck. It comes from winning faceoffs. It comes from turnovers, it comes from transition, from smart defensive plays. It doesn't come from a team full of skilled puck movers who can score.
The only time Edmonton seems to score is when they win a foot chase or their defense gets a clean possession and a puck carrier makes a play. They forecheck alright, and they show lots of effort, but they also turn the puck over a **** ton too. The team is just not built "right".
Offense starts in the back end when you're able to exit the zone or recover the puck. It comes from winning faceoffs. It comes from turnovers, it comes from transition, from smart defensive plays. It doesn't come from a team full of skilled puck movers who can score.
The only time Edmonton seems to score is when they win a foot chase or their defense gets a clean possession and a puck carrier makes a play. They forecheck alright, and they show lots of effort, but they also turn the puck over a **** ton too. The team is just not built "right".
BonkTastic
ಠ_ಠ
Escrow raised to 16% this season, with the possibility of it being raised further if need be.
I have no idea why the players voted for the cap escalator.
I have no idea why the players voted for the cap escalator.
DrunkUncleDenis
Condra Fan
- Mar 27, 2012
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Can you please Colin Greening this for me? The concept of escrow is something I've just avoided for a while.
BonkTastic
ಠ_ಠ
Escrow is a percentage of a player's salary that the league withholds for the season as a measure to ensure that league profits are split evenly between the players and the teams.
Since the salary cap is tied to revenue, the league takes part of the players salary in case league-wide revenues are down.
So, the agreement in the CBA is that the players and the teams split all revenue 50-50. Let's hypothetically say that the league is expecting to make a billion dollars in profit (which is very wrong, but it's a round number and easier to use in an example). So using the estimated "One Billion Dollars" (insert Dr. Evil gif here), that would mean the players get 500mil and the league gets 500mil. So the cap is set at 500mil across the league, or 500mil divided by 30 teams, which is 16.6mil cap ceiling per team (yes, it's more than that, but this is an example)... but what happens if the league revenues are down, and they only make 900million, instead of the billion they had forecasted? That means the players earned 500mil of 900mil revenues, which is 55% of all hockey revenues, not the 50% agreed upon in the CBA.
So what the league does at the beginning of every year is keep a certain percentage of players salary aside, in case league revenues are lower than expected, and the players are required to "give back" their overage. This is called "escrow". This year, the escrow is 16%, which is HUGE. If the league meets it's revenue goals, the players get that 16% back at the end of the year, with interest. If not though, if league revenues don't meet projected levels, it means the players only get SOME of that money back. Last year, I think the players only got back about 5%, and paid in 15%. Every NHL player essentially earned 10% less than their contracts stated, because league revenues did not match projected levels.
It's far more complicated than that, because some teams don't spend to the cap, etc... but for the purposes of explaining escrow, it's a good model. Escrow is just the money the league holds from the players to make sure that at the end of they year, no one gets short-changed on the 50/50 revenue split between the two parties. It's far easier to withold money from players and pay it to them at the end of the year, than it is to try and get that money BACK from the players in case the NHLPA received a larger share than they were due.
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The cap is based on projected league revenues. But what happens if the league doesn't meet projections?
Owners fought hard for cost-certainty. They are willing to lose SOME money, but there's no point in a cap without having a hard % of league revenues going to players. So what happens. Players are only guaranteed a certain percentage of league revenues in salary, not a penny more. This is the cost certainty behind the lockouts.
Escrow is a rather ingenious way for both sides to get their money. The league and players generally agree to set the cap based on "high" projections and players set 16% of their salary aside to a third party. As long as the league meets projections, the players get their money back. If the league does poorly, they would get paid back by the players.
If the players accepted a lower cap and league revenues were high, there's a chance they'd miss out on money, or, some player would get cut and there would be a lot of roster issues. The escrow system helps keep the cap high and keeps up player movement and contracts as well as spreading out the risk to the entire players union.
This is a very common refrain amongst fans, but there does seem a certain logic to it for me. I’ve never quite grasped why it is so often seen as so puzzling. I think part of the issue might be the very term “escalator†which maybe biases the perspective of what it really is a little. It has a connotation of something unwarranted, as if they set the cap, and then the NHLPA went and escalated it for no reason.
But of course, as you explained well, when forecasting the revenues that they will ultimately be splitting with the owners for the year, and thus determining the cap from, they have to decide what those revenues will actually be. And generally, experience shows, those revenues will be 5-7% higher than the previous years’ revenues. So rather than cap escalator, it might better be termed a cap “projector.â€
When players negotiate their contracts, there is an implicit understanding that it is sort of ‘percentage of the cap’ based, not an absolute value, Because of cost certainty there will be a final adjustment, up or down, to their actual negotiated contract depending on the final revenue numbers that come in for that year. Escrow was a key lever for this cba to ensure cost certainty. No player wants to lose the escrow money, but it was negotiated for, understood, and planned for, not some surprise they have to fight to get rid of.
The problem of course is that players want to get their fair value, not what is left for them to claim. This means the total spent on contracts will come in over the cap amount. That is natural, expected, and accommodated for. Through escrow, all that overpayment the players got is clawed back evenly across the board rather than making the few forced to fight for the remaining dollars to absorb all the pain. From a union perspective, that is pretty understandable strategy.
I guess the suggestion is, similar to telling people that you want them to be at your place at 6:15, when you are really hoping they will be there at 6:30, but by lying maybe you can trick them into being on time, that if the owners and players pretended that revenues will come in 5% lower than all forecasts suggest, and they artificially pretend the cap is lower than what they know it will eventually be, that they then will negotiate lower salaries for that years contracts and thus have little or no escrow. But that achievement creates unfairness, not a better result, and given the trade-offs it entails, it is dubious whether it could actually be seen as an achievement from the players perspective.
Also, by having the teams overspend and clawing the overpayments back through escrow, that clawed back money from the escrow is used for one of the rounds of revenue sharing. The more they overspend, the more revenue sharing for poor teams who were attracted to the other magnet - the spending ceiling that qualifies you for full revenue sharing, is available.
So the escalator is an attempt at properly projecting the actual revenues they will be splitting, allows overpayments to be clawed back across the board evenly, and allows for more revenue sharing to poor teams.
BonkTastic
ಠ_ಠ
In theory, if league revenues exceed projections, then yes, players would not only receive all of their escrow payments back (with interest), they would also get a bonus at the end of the season.
As far as I know, this has never happened under the current revenue-split CBA system, though.
Haha, thanks for this. I'm definitely keeping track. After I got those Oiler fans all stirred up and they made a poll I bet two of my Oiler buddy's 20 bucks that Stone would out score Hall this year. Only 2 games in but off to a good start
I think it did happen once in one of the early years. The players actually got all their escrow and then some back.
I think the more common reason for the escrow being returned is because of the total of the contracts negotiated for, not because revenues didnt turn out as good as hoped for. Usually they are pretty bang on for revenue projections, which they adjust regularly throughout the season.
And it always adjusted to be very high to be on the safe side, the thinking being it is easier to just not give it all back rather than to say, oops we gave you back too much can you return some please.
The revenues are known, and the salary envelope is pretty much known, but salaries are negotiated as individual values, not as how much is left for me to get. Once they agreed to cost certainty which requires escrow, the only way there wont be any escrow is if revenues really grew unexpectedly.
A possible interesting long run effect of that might be to see that salaries start to converge much more around the mean, which perhaps could also be seen as something unions would be ok with.
Very Stable Genius
#WeLostOurKarlssons
#Sabres Coach Bylsma says Lehner has a high-ankle sprain, roughly timeline for recovery is 6-10 weeks.
BonkTastic
ಠ_ಠ
#Sabres Coach Bylsma says Lehner has a high-ankle sprain, roughly timeline for recovery is 6-10 weeks.
He's a Sabre, that's their problem now.
Micklebot
Moderator
- Apr 27, 2010
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They got something like 8% back during the lockout. Nice way to start of your strike, with a 80-800k paycheck.
BonkTastic
ಠ_ಠ
I couldn't find stats for before 2009, but these are the numbers TSN was running on their story about the 16% escrow for this year:
[table="head;width=500]SEASON|WITHHELD|REFUNDED|SALARY LOST
2009-10|4.10%|3.03%|1.07%
2010-11|12.40%|10.04%|2.36%
2011-12|8.50%|7.98%|0.52%
2012-13|16.26%|1.60%|14.66%
2013-14|14.00%|3.76%|10.24%
2014-15|15%|TBD|???
2015-16|16%|TBD|???
[/table]
(Source: Gavin Management Group)
tony d
Registered User
Whats up with Crosby this year? 2 games in and no points and no shots on goal, not good for the best player in the league.
HavlatMach9
streamable 3rah1
2 games is a short sample. He's still a prolific scorer. Penguin's last game was against against the Coyotes and the yotes were the better team.
He's probably not as dominant as he once was though. He had made himself into goal scorer scoring 50 goals one season and now it's down to around 30. Someone on the Pens board mentioned that he was one of the best at the faceoffs and now isn't.
I thought Malkin looked against the yotes. However, he himself hasn't scored in the past 12 games.
He's probably not as dominant as he once was though. He had made himself into goal scorer scoring 50 goals one season and now it's down to around 30. Someone on the Pens board mentioned that he was one of the best at the faceoffs and now isn't.
I thought Malkin looked against the yotes. However, he himself hasn't scored in the past 12 games.
DrunkUncleDenis
Condra Fan
- Mar 27, 2012
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