Goodenow refuses to admit he's lost--Simmons

[Sammy*]

thats kinda ironic don't you think?

Thats why in the middle of your post I corrected that abomination.

 

[mr gib]

Thats why in the middle of your post I corrected that abomination.

no worries - hope trev brings this home -

 

[GSC2k2*]

Thanks for picking me up, Icon. The original post was so fundamentally flawed it required a lengthy response, and I was so worn out form work and kids this week that I just could not summon the energy.

Well done.

 

[LeBlanc]

Nice job Bob!

The players have lost miserably in this lockout. Not going through the book 17 months ago was a mistake. Ultimately the biggest mistake will prove to be the December 9th 24% giveback. Goodenow is a complete fool. Last August he could have secured a $45M cap with no linkage. He'll end up with (if he's lucky) $35M with linkage...and revenues will be brutal in year one.

 

[nyr7andcounting]

Ok i understand what you are saying now.

But I still think that they should of taken the time to go over what defines hockey revenue with the NHL. The NHL said publically theywre willing. The league was claiming they couldn't afford to pay the players what they are paying them now b/c there revenues just didn't justify it. The players said they are liars and that they can afford it otherwise they woudln't of paid.

But if the players sat down and with the NHL and discussed what NHL revenues are and then find out exactly what the owners can/cannot afford then they would of had a better position to stand on and they woud of recieved tons more fan support.

But the fact they are argueing that the NHL could afford what they were doing but not goign out and proving it was really just shooting themselves int he foot. I wanted to suport the players but they just didn't say anything on there side except the Owners are liars and we want our fair share. Love to take them on there word but the NHL was at least trying to show some evidence that they couldn't and the PA did nothing to say other wise except call them liars.

I understand they were saying they didn't need to look over the numbers b/c they wanted there version of a free market which woudl be dictated by the industries revenues.

Either way i hope this gets done soon. I dont care who wins or who loses as long as every team has a fair shot at winning in this league. It woudl be nice if the players were paid fairly according to what the NHL as awhole can afford and not jsut what 3 billionair owners are willing to pay.

And what makes you think the owners would go through the long process of arguing over defined revenues if the PA wasn't accepting linkage, they just wanted to try and prove the owners wrong? Sure, it would be nice if there were no problems with revenues and maybe the two sides would trust each other a little more...but did either side really want to take the time to do all that if the PA wasn't on linkage anyway? Seems like it would have hurt the process at the time more than it could help.

But I agree with your last paragraph. Once they settle this revenue ****, which it seems like they did on Friday, they should be making a deal no matter what in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Tawnos]

What a horrible example. You dont "win" dick squat if you sell your bushel for less than what the market will pay for it.

Umm... wtf are you talking about? We're talking about two party negotiations, not multiple buyers to one seller. The "market" in this case is the single buyer who wanted to pay $30, not all the buyers, some of whom might pay more.

 

[Tawnos]

100% qualification is an inflator? How so? It's a statement of status quo. It doesn't even give the player a COLA, so by rights the player falls behind on the inflation curve alone. If the teams use the 100% qualifier as it should be utilized, then it is not an inflationary mechanism. The only way it can become an inflationary mechanism if someone allows it by choosing to pay someone beyond the qualification level. The qualification level itself is not inflationary.

Such fundamental misunderstanding on qualifying offers is disturbing. Qualifying offers represent the lowest a team can pay for a restricted free agent without him going on the open market. If he is qualified, very rarely will a player sign for less than the amount he was qualified for (I'm not sure it's even happened). Often during negotiations, the player agent will high-ball an offer to the GM. The two sides then meet somewhere in between the high-ball and the qualifying offer. There are only two ways that a team can go from a qualifying offer at 100%. Either straight level, or up. That constitutes an inflator.

Atually you are dead wrong. You have not thought it through and considered the concept or the way arbitration can now be utilized and in what context the mechanism can be used in concert with the other mechanisms to create the drag. The players have given on the rookie salaries and their big buy back is free agency at 28. So we will use those two parameters to outline how a GM worth his salt would use his single arbitration hearing that he can use with a player during that player's career to hold the salaries in check.

A player is drafted at 18/19 and need not be signed for a year to two years. So by rights a player does not get signed until he is 20. That contract is a four year deal and has a maximum level on it of less than a million per. When that contract is up the team need only qualify the player at 110% to retain the rights to said player. That still leaves the contract at under a million per. Unless the player has been lighting it up (at which point the team would pay anyways) the player would be forced to accept the offer and perform well enough to gain arbitration rights. If the player has played well the team gives him a good one year contract. If the player does not perform again the team uses arbitration and gets the player under contract one way or another at a price they like and guarantee they retain his rights to the year before he becomes a UFA. At that point they are in a position to make what ever long term offer they like or allow the player to go free and attempt to sign him at a cheaper price. And all of this is set up because the NHLPA guaranteed the NHL teams a single arbitration against a player during his career and also pushed the rookies under the bus, giving the teams the entry level contracts that set the whole premise up. Will all contracts follow this road map? No, but it is a damn good template to put every player on and guarantee you only pay for success. In short, the BIG wins the NHLPA extracted from the NHL (lesser of what they had previously) has actually played into the hands of a GM with the slightest clue.

There's a little something called contract negotiation that you fail to take into account. A player is not forced to accept a qualifying offer, and then the two sides negotiate. Some players will accept the qualifier because they didn't perform to potential. Every other player is going to attempt to negotiate their contract up. Some will succeed, some will not. This is the nature of this kind of thing, as I stated above. You act like the owners/GMs are really going to be able to stand up to the players/agents in most instances and we all know from experience that's not true. It will be curtailed by the cap, but the nature of NHL contract negotiations isn't going to change drastically.

Players can still walk away from arbitration. Add that to the fact that the team-elected arbitration isn't going to happen as often as the player-elected arbitration and most of what you said is out the window because of different sets of reasons for arbitration. Remember, if both sides has precisely the same rights, then I wouldn't be saying it's a win for the NHLPA, I'd be saying it's a tie.

 

[dolfanar]

Such fundamental misunderstanding on qualifying offers is disturbing. Qualifying offers represent the lowest a team can pay for a restricted free agent without him going on the open market. If he is qualified, very rarely will a player sign for less than the amount he was qualified for (I'm not sure it's even happened). Often during negotiations, the player agent will high-ball an offer to the GM. The two sides then meet somewhere in between the high-ball and the qualifying offer. There are only two ways that a team can go from a qualifying offer at 100%. Either straight level, or up. That constitutes an inflator.

Wouldn't inflation, by definition mean paying more today for something that cost less yesterday?

In hockey terms, paying 10% raise in 2006 for a player who scored 20 goals in 2006 and 2005 would be inflationary. maintaining the same level wouldn't be. Assuming the arbitrators rulings are consistent (and that is a HUGE if), and GM's don't ngeotiate themselves to death, a 100% qualifying offer should be sufficient. It isn't a salary drag, but neither is it inherantly inflationary.

 

[Tawnos]

In theory, you're absolutely right. That's exactly how it should work. But in practice... it never works like that.

 

[Lanny MacDonald*]

Such fundamental misunderstanding on qualifying offers is disturbing. Qualifying offers represent the lowest a team can pay for a restricted free agent without him going on the open market. If he is qualified, very rarely will a player sign for less than the amount he was qualified for (I'm not sure it's even happened). Often during negotiations, the player agent will high-ball an offer to the GM. The two sides then meet somewhere in between the high-ball and the qualifying offer. There are only two ways that a team can go from a qualifying offer at 100%. Either straight level, or up. That constitutes an inflator.

No, the way the NHL worked over the last 10 years was that way. In the past a player had to earn his raise. Over the past decade slugs who didn't play well were given the raise just to retain their rights. We'll see if that changes or if players actually have to earn their keep. In the new economic system I suspect that players will have to actually perform to get their raise. Since every penny will count you see teams only pay those that are worth the bump, iotherwise they will find themselves in an economic pickle quite quickly.

There's a little something called contract negotiation that you fail to take into account. A player is not forced to accept a qualifying offer, and then the two sides negotiate. Some players will accept the qualifier because they didn't perform to potential. Every other player is going to attempt to negotiate their contract up. Some will succeed, some will not. This is the nature of this kind of thing, as I stated above. You act like the owners/GMs are really going to be able to stand up to the players/agents in most instances and we all know from experience that's not true. It will be curtailed by the cap, but the nature of NHL contract negotiations isn't going to change drastically.

Players can still walk away from arbitration. Add that to the fact that the team-elected arbitration isn't going to happen as often as the player-elected arbitration and most of what you said is out the window because of different sets of reasons for arbitration. Remember, if both sides has precisely the same rights, then I wouldn't be saying it's a win for the NHLPA, I'd be saying it's a tie.

Yup, and part of negotiation is take it or leave it. If a GM makes the decision that he's given the best he can then it will be all over but the crying for the player in question. Lots of players over the last decade have had to take what the team wanted to pay and to go out and prove they deserve more. Wow, consider players actually earning their raises? What a novel concept.

You don't understand what the players have agreed to. They have agreed to allowing the teams to take them to arbitration only ONCE during their career. Well with the increase of the rookie contracts to four years and the drop of free agency to 28 that means teams will have a four year window to execute arbitration that one time. That's all its going to take to completely control what they pay the player.

Hey, I'll make this really easy for you to understand. Prior to this deal the owners had NO arbitration rights. Now they do. Prior to this deal EVERY player making under league average had to be qualified at 110%. Now they don't. Seems like the NHL made out better than they did in the last CBA. Last time I checked, that's a victory there Sparky. When you get more than you had, that's a good thing, and the league appears to be getting a lot of a good thing in this negotiation.

 

[Marconius]

yes a 100% qualifying offer (or a 0% raise as mentioned above) is inflationary.

Think about it.

It means a bad season will get you the same salary as last year. A good season will get you a raise. So Salary totals can technicaly stay the same... but some players will always get a raise. It has always hapenned. So Payrolls can only go up.

If you follow that logic, you could just as easily say a -20% offer would be inflationary in the face of a player coming off a -30% subpar year. It's not inflationary because it maintains the status quo, nothing changes. If the player had a bad year, the owners are free not to make the offer. If the player maintained his performance from the year before, the owners can offer him the same salary to retain his services.

If anything one could argue it's a deflator seeing as how it doesn't account for inflation, meaning even if the player put in the same performance and was offered the same salary, it wouldn't buy as much.

 

[VinnyVinnyVici]

Maybe it's just me, but....

....how can 100% QO's be deemed "inflationary" in an economic environment where everyone now is going to be constrained by a hard cap on salaries?

There aren't going to be any more NYRs or TOs out there with unlimited budgets that can reset the salary scale for every other team in the league any more.

That's the huge difference.

 

[GSC2k2*]

....how can 100% QO's be deemed "inflationary" in an economic environment where everyone now is going to be constrained by a hard cap on salaries?

They can when you are a pro-PA poster madly spinning around looking for ways in which to declare victory for a strategy that was as misconceived and tactics that were as incompetently and clumsily executed as those of the PA.