Flyers fan with a legitimate complaint.

I've got a complaint about the format which Gary Bettman has put forth in terms of injury substitution. What is supposed to happen is that if a player sits (while not on the IR) his salary goes against the cap. Now if a player is put on the IR list he is supposably deactivated for some amount of days, and his salary will be wiped from the books until he is reactivated. (Stop me if I'm wrong) There's two seperate scenarios where this could be a horrible position to put a general manager in.

1) You (GM) have a star player, who is making top dollar. Obviously you are not going to want to deactivate him for a lengthy period of time, so he sits. His salary will still count against the cap but now you're left with a rather large hole, one that will ultimately go unfilled, leaving his team hanging on for playoff contention.

2) You (GM) have a player that is injury plagued. He may bring alot to the table so a trade is made to acquire a player that will fill his hole. You put your player on the IR, make a trade, and fill the need temporarily. Now all of a sudden this player comes back and the general manager is expected to unload his newly acquired player for pennies on the dollar, all because of the cap. Because the original player is injury plagued, the general manager may have to repeat this cycle, and thus sacrifice quality players just to make it through the season.

Yea the Flyers are hurting, but this CBA doesn't propose the most sensible solution. Is this cap really fair to the general manager who has his hands tied for 'league stability'? Is it fair to the players who are going to be traded more frequently than ever before? If anyone else has an honest solution to then fill me in, if you want to call me a whiner than go ahead I probably deserve it. Before you do flame me for whining, take a look at what's been going on in Philly. Nearly 300 man games lost to injury in 55 games, we're currently losing seven players a game, and have no logical replacement for our decimated defense. How many other posters wouldn't be on HF trying to think of a more logical solution for another one of Bettman's half baked ideas?

 

everyone goes through injuries. you guys just got a bit worse luck and have lost some more important players. Same happened to the Kings 2 years ago and the habs 3 years ago. Stuff happens.

And also

 

The Kings and Habs didn't have a cap to deal with.

 

cry me a river.

you signed forsberg knowing he'd have injury problems.

 

He's not talking about Forsberg -- we knew that would happen. He's talking about the other guys with crazy injuries, the biggest being the result of a cheap shot, and another it took doctors (not trainers) more than a week to figure out

My personal solution: Dump Therien, Savage and Brashear we'll have call the cap space we need.

 

i don't understand part 1. why would you be sitting your star player?
part 2. don't morgage your year on injury prone players.

 

I'm suprised you knew Forsberg signed with the Flyers. I expected less from a person with the tag "Boo hoo Crosby" and such insightful posts as "Pronger is a worthless piece of ####." Maybe you'd like to throw in some more quality posts, something really awesome like an "Ovechkin>>>>Crosby" line?

 

You sit your best player in case he's hurt, but not seriously. If he is placed on IR then he can't be reactivated for some lengthy amount of time. It's like when Martin Brodeur twisted his knee a while back.

On the other side of the equation you have Patrick Elias who missed a majority of the season recovering from Hepatitis. He missed so much time that Lou signed some pretty hefty contracts to lure an offensive replacement for his star forward. When he reactivated Elias, Alexander Mogilny was forced to clear waivers and return to the minors. For a player who has had so many accomplishments, to be sent down to the minors in a shot at their pride.

 

The IR is only a min. of 10 or 15 days ( I'm not sure which) but it can be extended. The sabres have had somewhere in the mid 200s in man games lost. They survive because they have a lot of speedy, skilled players in their system. The are very deep at forward and goal, so they were able to ride out injuries at those positions. They also don't have alot of money tied up in a few players. That is more of Philly's problem than the injured reserve system. Many teams misjudged the new rules and the cap's effects. They will adjust and be better prepared next season
Another part of Philly's problem is lack of speed on D and quality depth. I was at the game in Buff on thursday their defense struggled with the sabres' speed. Many flyers said after the game that they don't know if they can play that kind of game (speed + attacking)I think if you give Clark 1 or 2 years he will fix this speed and depth problem. That said, I don't think Clark prepared well for the "new" NHL. In that he was relying on a couple of stars to carry the load and signing big but slow D.
Philly is still at the top of the conference so the sky isn't falling. Plus you get to feast on Pitt and the Isles 8x each.

 

Players can be retroactively placed on IR, so if you have Forsberg out for 8 days and it looks like he will be out for another 8, you put him on IR retroactive to 8 days ago. That way when hes ready, you activate him and you also are off the hook for any replacement during those 2 weeks

 

Nothing gets wiped off the books. The provision allows an amount in salary matching the injured player out 10+ games to exceed the cap figure. Witness the Devils pre-Elias' return for an example. Granted, when the guy comes back, the team has to make moves to come back below the cap figure...

As it stands, injury is part of sport. What the Flyers and Leafs have done to scrap savings out of the oddest places has been to re-assign players on off-days for practice. In essence, they save a few thousand dollars, cheap-out on their injury recall guys getting a full week of NHL salary (and ultimately can't be helping their reputations too much).

The Flyers have had some unbelieveably bad luck and they also have a star player who has a lengthy injury history. But at the same time, Clarke has the same CBA to operate under that everyone else does. It was his decision to spend Comcast's money to near the salary cap limit. If anyone has a problem with the Flyers trying to either improve their current hobbled roster or to point fingers at what is "wrong" with the current situation need only look to the top of their organization and wonder why Clarke did what he did. As it stands, they're still one of the best teams in the East, despite their injury woes. As they heal up, I'm sure they'll be right back in the thick of things (as if being tied for 4th in the conference and a point off their division lead isn't actually in the thick of it already).

 

Not true. The team is able to replace the salary over and above the cap limit after the player has missed ten games but they then have to make a move or moves to come back under the limit upon the players return. Nothing comes off the books.

 

I'm one of the more knowledgeable people on this board. Just because I come across like a jackass doesn't mean I'm off-base.

 

If a player is injured, his salary does not come off the books. It always counts against the team's cap.

If a team is at $34 million and a player making $4 million gets hurt, the team does not get to exceed the salary cap by $4 million automatically, nor do they get a $4 million injury allowance. The injury allowance only comes into play if the addition of a replacement player(s) would put the team over $39 million.

From there, it gets murky. My understanding of how this works: If a team is at $38 million and a player making $2 million gets hurt, the team could get up to $1 million in injury allowance (the first $1 million gets them to the upper limit, the other $1 million is the actual injury exemption amount). If they sign/call-up/acquire replacement player(s) adding to $1.5 million, the team would only get $500,000 in injury "relief", not the full $1 million.

Also keep in mind: all of this is pro-rated depending on how many days the injured player is out. If the injured player is out 49 days this year, the team would get $125,000 in "relief" in the above scenario, not $500,000 or $2 million. However...if you've been at $36 million up until the trade deadline, you can load up on salaries and carry $48 million for the final 40 days and still make it under $39 million.

 

The Sabres have overcome injuries but not nearly as many and for as long as the Flyers. Its wasn't that long ago everybody was commenting on how the Flyers depth was allowing them to overcome all the injuries. Depth players are depth players for a reason. There comes a time when you are using too many depth guys, using them for too long, or are too deep into the depth chart. In addition the remaining starters are playing more minutes and rolls they normally wouldn't be so they are warring down. I am not too sure the Sabres D would look all that great with Teppo & Mckee logging the 25 most important mins every game for 2 months with an AHL call up who was 10th on the depth chart as their partner and Fitzpatrick & Jillson filling out the top 6. The Flyers would look a lot better with 100 less man games lost to injury.

 

The Sabres have about 230-250 man games lost to injury.To many of our top 6 forwards (Briere 6-8weeks,Dumont 7wks and Connolly6-8wks). We also lost our best player Miller for a long stretch. As for our defense, Fitzpatrick has played over half of the sabres games in the top 6. Also Teppo and Mckee do play important minutes. Teppo is on the PP and Mckee#3 in league blocked shots) is on a PK pair with Teppo. Kalinin our potential #1 Dman has been out most of the year with various injuries. The guys I refered to as struggling in the game up here were Hatcher, Rathje and Therien. None of whom are 10th on your depth chart. Maybe Clarke didn't believe they would enforce the new rules. Why would Clarke tie up so much money in an injury prone player (Forsberg). I know he is one of the best players in the league when healthy. But he hasn't played a full season in years.

 

How can a Flyer fan be complaining about the CBA when they have such a luxury around it. They can send their players up / down to the Phantoms between every game to save money and not have to worry about jet lag / travel costs seeing as the Spectrum is down the street.

 

Thats the risk the Flyers took when they took on so much salary...now they have to deal with it.

 

It has benefitted our team but it sucks for any other team. I don't think it's a good loophole seeing as how it favors franchises with their affiliates located near by. Furthermore I think this is going to negatively affect the AHL. Some franchises are undoubtably going to move their affiliates to a closer location, anything to give them an edge in this "New NHL".

 

Just because a team sends a player to the minors doesn't mean that they actually leave the team. They can send them to the minors and have them practice with the big league team for those days.

 

No they cannot. If the team says "Joe Peabody has been sent to the minors," then Joe Peabody must report to the minor league club on the day he is assigned and may not have contact with the parent club until he is recalled. The NHL monitors this very closely to prevent things like the scenario described above from happening.

 

If the Flyers would have invested in "ice quality", at least, they would have Radivojevic by now, and I don't think "rink facilities" is included in the cap.

What's the point in signing Forsberg AND Primeau, anyways?

 

Legitimate Complaint?

It's not really good etiquette to both make a complaint and declare that it is legitimate. That should really be for others to decide.

 

Oh noes, somebody call the waaaaaaaaahmbulance! (Sorry, had to break that one out. Again.)

Gary Bettman is the last person to blame for the Flyers' injury problems.

 

Not quite. The team does not have to wait the 10 games.

When a team declares that a player has a bone fide longterm injury (10 games and 24 days or longer), the team may immediately use the injured players salary exception to temporarily exceed the cap - there is no waiting period.