How to Run a replacement player NHL!

Here is my plan for How the NHL should run a replacement player league.

1) implement the new Cba after declaring an impasse

2) hold the draft as anticipated but lots of overage euro's get drafted to fill up roster space. These players lost their jobs to NHLer's so why not have them come and take the NHLer's jobs. Boy that would be justice there!

3) adjust the rules as discussed on this board many times:

a) no red line
b) no instiagator
c) shootout
d) no touch icing
e) tag up offside
f) smaller goalie gear
g) no composit sticks( saves teh owners tons of money too)
h) 3 points for a win, 2 for overtime/shoot out win, 1 point for a tie.

4) game player to be 4 on 4 all the time. this will open up teh game big time and lower player compensation costs as teams will only need to carry 16-17 players instead of 22-23. So ech team will need to find less replacement players.

Looks drastic, but it would improve the speed of the game and hey if you go way back there use to be 7 players per side in hockey in the 20's so why no change it now as well. They made the move then to speed up teh game and create more scoring and that is what we need now as well. Who here can say they don't like the exitement of 4on4 hockey? This is a win/win for everyone and the owners have a chance to do it this one time in implementation as the NHLPA would never stand for the loss of this many jobs.

To give an example here is how I think my Oilers replacement team would look.

forwards

Ales Hemsky Jarret stoll
Raffi torres robbie schremp
MA pouliot Tonly salmalainen
Dragan umicevic Brad winchester

jesse ninimaki, Zac Stortini

doug lynch Jeff woywitka
matt greene Mat Roy
roman Tesliuk dan smith

Tom Gilbert

Net minders: Tyler moss or Mike morrison and Jeff Delaurier

The irony is the oilers have enough depth to just have their own current prospects fill up their roster. This isn't counting any Current NHL players from the oil crossing the line. These players are not super stars, but there are enough young players with talent there to provide great entertainment. The prssure would be on as the young players are developing while current NHLers are striking and losing valuble career time.

In all of this rember that when this same thing happend in in the NFL, Dan marino Cross the picket line and he never had any stigma attached to him when he retired!

 

Here is the oilers replacement team in a regular 23 man roster.

Torres Stoll Hemsky ( these three would all cross imo)
Rita Schremp Salmo
umicevic pouliot winchester
Jacques Bishai Stortini

Extra's Ninimakki, Brodziak

Bergeron Semenov( i bet tehy cross)
Lynch Woywitka
Greene Gilbert

Extra Matt roy or dan smith or tesliuk

Morrison/moss/delaurier( only 2 of those 3)


Bear in mind none of these could be coined replacement players either as tehy are all current oiler property.

 

Why do you think the young players that are certain to be future NHLers will cross .. They are still young and have lots of years ahead .. particularly Torres Stoll Hemsky ..

What are Ryan Smyth, Jason Smith , Eric Brewer going to think when they are outside the arena walking Pickett lines and have these young players cross .. ??

What Happens to the Edmonton Road Runners are you folding the AHL team and your NHL team will have no Farm system .. Or do you suggest replacement players for them from the ECHL etc . .???

 

That maybe 1.3 million is still a lot of money and can go up as league revenes go up so maybe they should cross as well?

 

They won't be happy but put thing in perspective these young players haven't got million or even thousands banksed at this point so getting $800-1.2 million is going to be looking pretty good compared to $50k in the AHL. You seem to real underestimate human nature here. SELF INTEREST is a pretty motivating factor in all of this!

 

Can't they just wait a year and support the NHLPA who they are members of on 2-way contracts .. Eventually this will get solved and they can earn their millions then .. Why rush it now going against you teammates ?? That could cause damage forever down the road in team chemistry .. Do you believe Jason Smith is going to come to the aid of one of then young guys if they get in a fight over or are taking abuse from the other team ?? Being considered scab players by your own teammates can not lead to anything good in the long run .. IMO

Also any NHL player that does cross gets thrown out of the NHLPA and his membership suspended .. From that day on for the rest of his playing career he will not be nor have the NHLPA fight on his behalf in any matter with the team .. That could be very very dangerous not to consider .. It would be like driving your car without insurance the rest of your life ..

Lots of complications in this and crossing a picket line is a serious issue that could have many long-term consequenses..

 

Actually they already did a poll of the Roadrunners and 18 of the 23 players said they would cross the line...

 

18 of these players?

2 Rocky Thompson D 6'2" 200 08-08-77 Calgary, Alberta
5 Jeff Woywitka D 6"3" 215 09-01-83 Vermillion, Alberta
6 Dan Smith D 6'3" 215 10-19-76 Fernie, BC
7 Doug Lynch D 6'3" 210 04-04-83 N. Vancouver, BC
8 Tony Salmelainen RW 5'9" 185 08-08-81 Espoo, Finland
10 Brad Winchester RW 6"5" 230 03-01-81 Madison, Wisconson
13 Nate DiCasmirro LW 5"11" 208 09-27-78 Burnsville, Minnesota
14 Raffi Torres LW 6'0" 210 10-08-81 Toronto, Ontario
15 Dan Baum C 6'1" 194 06-04-83 Biggar, Saskatchewan
16 Jarret Stoll C 6'1" 209 06-24-82 Melville, Saskatchewan
18 Martin St. Pierre C 5'9" 185 11-08-83 Embrum, Ontario
20 Toby Peterson LW 5'10" 196 10-27-78 Minneapolis, Minnesota
21 Kyle Brodziak C 6'2" 194 05-25-84 St. Paul, Alberta
22 Rick Mrozik D 6'2" 218 01-02-75 Duluth, Minnesota
23 Eric Beaudoin LW 6'5" 220 05-03-80 Ottawa, Ontario
24 Jamie Wright LW 6"0" 199 04-05-83 Kitchener, Ontario
25 J.J. Hunter C 6'1" 196 07-06-80 Shaunavon, Saskatchewan
28 Jason Platt D 6'1" 210 04-29-81 San Franscisco, California
36 Mathieu Roy D 6'2" 214 08-10-83 St-Georges, Quebec
37 Sean McAslan RW 6'1" 192 01-12-80 Okotoks, Alberta
38 Mike Bishai C 6'0" 185 05-30-79 Edmonton, Alberta
43 Brent Henley D 6'7" 254 08-30-80 Coquitlam, BC
44 Jesse Niinimaki C 6'2" 187 08-19-83 Tampere, Finland

NO GOALTENDER POS HGT WGT BIRTHDATE BIRTHPLACE
29 Tyler Moss G 6'0" 206 06-29-75 Ottawa, Ontario
30 Mike Morrison G 6'3" 203 07-11-79 Medford, Ma
40 Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers G 6"4" 192 05-15-84 St-Jean-Richelieu, Quebec

The exceptions couldn't be Woywika, Stoll, Torres, Deslauriers and Niinimaki could it?

 

Problem is, anyone with a future (i.e. the five players who wouldn't cross) will not cross, so the talent will be seriously limited. The bigger problem is, out of the people who will voluntarily cross, they can only do so if they are Canadian due to immigration and labour laws. The NHLPA will argue (possibly successfully) that anyone in the AHL this year would be a replament, i.e. a scab, and not a player under contract who chooses to cross the picket line. The even bigger problem is for the American teams, who I'm sure employ very few Americans per AHL team.

If you're lucky, the Replacement Oilers might look like a mix between the upscale ECHL prospects and lower-ranked AHL prospects.

 

Canadians only. Even Schremp can't be a replacement for you. And I doubt Torres, Stoll or Hemsky cross...but I'll give you Stoll. The other two wait for a deal because they know they have a long NHL career ahead of them.

 

Take out shootouts and put in 5 on 5 and I'd go watch it.

 

I don't like 4 on 4 hockey, it sucks. So do shootouts and points for an OTL. I can never fugure out why true hockey would want shootouts. It's a terrible way to decide a game. Can you imagine if baseball did something similar? After 9 innings you drops a couple of fielders from each team, if it's still tied after an extra inning you have a horerun derby to see who wins? It's just plain stupid.

 

you are all wasting your time, there will be no replacements...nhl can't do it...will not win over NLRB when both have a hard cap...on the other hand can't afford to pay replacements the floor of linkage if they chose to go back to it...they wont even try for an impasse cause they will probbaly not get it when they both have a hard cap, if they try and fail, it only breaks the league

 

No "Euros" allowed. You cannot have any player on the Oilers who is not a Canadian citizen or legally landed immigrant. No Europeans and no US citizens. Immigration law in Canada (and the US) prohibits work permits being issued during a labour dispute.

 

4 on 4 ?????????? No Way!!!!!!!!!!!!
If the premier league plays 4on4 whats the point of youth hockey being 5on5? should we cut those rosters too?
Call me old
Call me a traditionalist,
But 4on4 makes it a new game that I wont be as interested in.

 

The Dreamworld where some really good AHL players dress up as replacement players with a bunch of NHLers who cross the picket lines has been shot down time and again. It just ain't gonna happen. To give you an idea, check out today's Toronto Star article (I'm sure there's a link somewhere to the on-line edition). They surveyed St John's and Hamilton and a whole 4 out of 37 players said they would cross and be replacements for $500,000 a year. 8 were undecided, 25 against (including Leafs hero Kyle Wellwood).

The only player who went on record saying he would cross is Phillippe Plante. Aside from the obvious such as immigration laws and NLRB rulings that would have to be circumvented, you better start looking at the ECHL instead of the AHL for replacement players. If borderline AHL players are saying no, how many actual NHL players do you think will be crossing?

 

Actually these players were all oiler players prior to the lockout so are currently edmonton oilers. This is where it will get messy as the teams will contend that these players were members of the team prior to the implementation and as such are just employees who chose to cross the picket line!

 

Well that would be so nice if the other NHL teams had good young talent and the leafs had to live with ECHL talent. Man seeing the leafs blown out ever night would be worht paying to see!

 

Good grief. Line combinations for replacement players in a 4-on-4 NHL???

Based on what I've read on this board, I'm starting to think that the world's collective IQ increases just a bit each time an Oiler fan dies..

 

The sad part of this post is that you even know any of the above names.

 

You post here and don't know your AHL teams players? That's pretty sad. I assume most people here are 'hockey people'. Thanks for letting me know your level of hockey knowledge.

 

Why do you find that sad?

 

I think they probably won't need any replacement players.........I'm sure there's alot NHLers who are ready to cross that line and walk out on the NHLPA and play for their respective teams next season..........especially after the way talks broke down...........the NHLPA stated they would never agree to a salary cap but then at the last second they said they would go for it.........they caved in..........the owners have already won........most of the fans are also on the owners side here as well..........the players have gotten alot of bad advice from people like Linden, Damphousse and most of all Goodenow.

Cheers!

 

I agree -- I think people will be surpised how many players would cross the picket line. What the public fails to see is that the "average" player doesn't play for more than 3-4 years in the NHL. Most players wont sit around and watch a SECOND season pass them by to fight a winless battle. True -- most of the "superstars" wont cross (notice: MOST) but the players that do cross could still be enough to sell the game at a reduced price.

That being said -- I don't think it's going to come to that. My prediction is that the NHL will try and declare an impasse as yet another bargaining ploy. They'll get together with the NHLPA and hammer out a deal just in time (or a few weeks into) training camp. The NHLPA knowing full well that almost half their membership COULD cross the picket line -- and the NHL knowing full well that they won't be able to sell crap on ice to the American public.

 

Actually Tyler Moss already said he wouldn't cross.