Low free agency age actually works FOR the owners in one way

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Egil

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Mar 6, 2002
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The UFA age is going to be lowered. However, I hope that they keep tru UFA to 31+, but introduce a different FA for the group between 27 (or 29) and 31. Players in this age group would be RFA's with no compensation. IE, their team would have the right to match any other offers for that player, BUT, should the player sign elsewhere and the team not match, no compensation would be given.

This allows the player to earn their UFA salary, BUT, at the same time, allows that players team to hold onto the player, if they want too.
 

Master Shake*

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The Iconoclast said:
Here's why free agency at the age suggested does not work. Player development costs. Teams that actually develop players, and invest time in money into that aspect of the game, will not see any payoff for their investment. Teams will stop making the effort to develop players and the talent level will continue to erode. You need to have player development as a key component to the game and reward the teams that develop their own talent IMO. If you don't the rich will always be better than the poor.


Id rather see Free Agency erradicated from the game. That wont happen though so I will settle for no lower then 30 as my opinion goes.
 

Guest

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Feb 12, 2003
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Thunderstruck said:
Why would the league consider player movement a bad thing?

The problem is not that free agents move around, but that the same fat hogs were always first at the trough in the old system.

Teams with the most cap room will be able to offer UFA's more money. Frankly, it will be refreshing to see the top free agents spread around the league.
I threw out some numbers on another thread that showed the payrolls for the top 10 payroll teams for the 2003-2004 season and how much of that payroll was spent on free agents on the roster. Dallas, Toronto, Detroit and the Rangers were the top 4 teams by a 2 to 1 margin of the 5th highest team and down. I said that essentially, those 4 teams were setting the market for free agents. I believe that if you lowered the UFA age and put a cap in place for the amount of money you could spent on free agents on your roster, you would see it all balance out. By lowering the free agent age, you aren't going to have as many issues that would require arbitration and qualifying offers. For example, if you set it so everyone could become UFA after 6 years of NHL service, many of the great young players would get UFA at 24 years old or slightly after, but many of the other players wouldn't get UFA until they were 27 or after. By having a free agent cap, it would give teams the advantage to retain their free agents because everyone else in the league couldn't just throw money at every major free agent.

I think there is something to work with there.
 

txpd

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bcrt2000 said:
under the old system i know younger free agency would definately mean the rangers, leafs & red wings could become the yankees & red sox of hockey, under a cap though, as long as the cap is reasonable i guess it will ensure a faster development cycle

That is certainly important. the current 5 to 7 year rebuilding time is brutal.
 

thinkwild

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Jul 29, 2003
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egil said:
I hope that they keep tru UFA to 31+, but introduce a different FA for the group between 27 (or 29) and 31. Players in this age group would be RFA's with no compensation. IE, their team would have the right to match any other offers for that player, BUT, should the player sign elsewhere and the team not match, no compensation would be given.

This allows the player to earn their UFA salary, BUT, at the same time, allows that players team to hold onto the player, if they want too.

With a cap, the UFA salary part if UFA is not so U. Id think the more important part becomes the compensation allowing us to hold onto our players and get good trade return to maintain the team. Im not sure what you are suggesting does. Right now Iginla can only sign with Calgary, and the compensation required to give him an offer sheet is steep which sets the trade value very high. Lowering the UFA age, lowers the trade value of all your player assets in their prime.

Wouldnt this make team building harder? With every player becoming a UFA early, the most you could expect in compensation for Iginla would be what you could expect at a trade deadline deal several months before he turns 31 and gets UFA for the 1st time. As an RFA, you get much higher return.

And in a capped world, would your highest salary come as a UFA?


converse said:
For example, if you set it so everyone could become UFA after 6 years of NHL service, many of the great young players would get UFA at 24 years old or slightly after, but many of the other players wouldn't get UFA until they were 27 or after. By having a free agent cap, it would give teams the advantage to retain their free agents because everyone else in the league couldn't just throw money at every major free agent.
Im not sure about this idea that you can design a system where there will be no demand. Even if they cant sign more free agents, they can still let one go and sign yours. Right now a team with a retired star would have to make a heck of an offer to get Iginla at 27 when he is RFA. As as UFA, you lose him for much less compensation. Sure there will be more UFAs around. But thats not the point to me.



txpd said:
That is certainly important. the current 5 to 7 year rebuilding time is brutal.
This really is worthy of a thread. I dont think people thought that, when there were no money problems. I think we have to learn to accept this. It is natural. If you do things naturally and properly, this should happen. It just makes sense. Equally, if you develop a great team like Tampa and win a Cup, you would expect to keep them for 5 years and always be great in that time, since its the same team you are keeping together. I think this 5 to 7 years is a very fair rebuilding time.

I look at a team like Washington now, with all their prospects, and see a natural 5 years. Florida and Atlanta are in tail ends of that. Vancouver took about that. Ottawa as an expansion franchise had a 10 year plan. I've thought, it was a pretty fun ride so far. We improved every year until we signed with 3 UFAs one summer. That was the first time we got worse.
 

Guest

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thinkwild said:
Im not sure about this idea that you can design a system where there will be no demand. Even if they cant sign more free agents, they can still let one go and sign yours. Right now a team with a retired star would have to make a heck of an offer to get Iginla at 27 when he is RFA. As as UFA, you lose him for much less compensation. Sure there will be more UFAs around. But thats not the point to me.

It's not that there is no demand, but there is equal demand across the league. The way things were, you had a few select teams who could and would load up on free agents every offseason, grabbing the prime players available. The prices paid to these free agents were driven up as many of the top paying teams were after these players and had to outbid each other.

If you lowered the UFA age, you would increase to flux into the market of potential free agents. That would lower the overall demand, because if you don't get player A or player B, you might be able to get player C. If you limit the number of free agents every team can have by monetary value, you are taking some of the big spenders out of the market if they spend all their money alloted, which decreases the effect of them driving up the salaries. Furthermore, teams don't totally lose on the younger UFA age, because they have the advantage to re-sign their players since they are not impacted by the free agent cap.

Example: Kovalchuk is an UFA at age 24 under my proposal, and can enter the free agent market and seek upwards of $8-9 million. Now, say Toronto, Dallas, New York, Detroit, etc. are pretty much near their free agent cap, and can only offer Kovalchuk $4 million at most. If Kovalchuk signs for $4 million, it doesn't drive up salaries for one. Odds are Kovalchuk would look elsewhere and try to sign for at least $6-7 million somewhere, even if it is below market value. At that point, the teams offering $6-7 million may pose no more real opportunity than Kovalchuk has with Atlanta, who could offer more as well. Nothing stops the teams who have free agent cap room from offering what they can afford for Kovalchuk, but you generally don't see the large offers coming from everyone in the league, just a few of the richer teams. It should at that point be easier for Atlanta to retain Kovalchuk, as they would not have to factor his salary in the free agent cap, just team payroll.

A big part of any proposal is agreeing on a number as well. If I said that every teams free agent cap was $30 million, it wouldn't do much of anything. Just the same, if I said it was $5 million, you wouldn't see any movement in the league at all. I think that the free agent cap should be a fluid number based on the following forumla.

Total Salary of signed UFA eligible players in league divided by 30 teams.

So for instance, if there is $360 million in current salaries that are going towards players who would be UFA eligible if they were free agents, then each team would have $12 million to spend on their free agent pool. Not $12 million per season, but $12 million total for all players that were signed as free agents on their roster (free agent = signed away from another NHL team).
 

Monty

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Aug 31, 2004
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Two problems come to mind with a lower UFA age:

First, there appears to be a general assumption in many of the posts that the only issue driving a UFA's decision as to which team to sign with is money, and therefore, with a salary cap the high-spending teams of the past will not be able to corner the market on the top-tier or above average free agent market. I think that was true when certain teams could offer certain players so much more money that the player would have been "financially-stupid" not to sign with the team offering so much more loot.

However, what a salary cap and lower UFA age will do is change the player's decision matrix on which team to sign with. It is likely that the offers to many players will be so comparable, that the player's decision will not be strictly about money, but also about which city would he prefer, which team would he prefer, or which teammates would be prefer. Now some may reply, "What's wrong with that. Finally we are getting away from money being the only thing that matters to players." True to a point, but I can see a circumstance where the hoped-for parity goes out the window because players will flock to certain teams, if the money difference is not that great. For example, if Heatley can play for Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Atlanta or Carolina for about the same amount, give or take a million, who do you think he will more likely want to play for or least want to play for?

Moreover, once you start making a third of the league free agents every year, particularly the above average players - which is likely the result of UFA at 27 and most above average players playing until 38 or older, then a group of players could practically collude to play for the same team, either because they want to win a Cup, want to play for a winner, like the town or like to live and play a certain somewhere. Selanne and Kariya pulled that off. I could see such a situation becoming even more prevalent with so much of the league becoming free agents every July 1.

Second, opinions vary on this issue, but I am not in favor of the system in the NFL and MLB where it seems like a number of teams change a third of their personnel every year. Sure, you root for the team, and there is always some player turnover, but in those leagues you see few players stay with their teams for a decade or more. It was nice the way some players would be drafted by their team, develop with the same team, become a good or great player, and retire with that team. Sure that can still happen, but it is much less likely now with very low UFA eligibility. In fact, in many instances in the NFL or MLB, the team has to let go of the player, even if they would prefer not to, because of salary cap concerns or because they can't match another team's offer. These days the jerseys may stay the same in the NFL or MLB, but the players wearing the jerseys change so often, it's not quite the same or as good.
 

MacDaddy TLC*

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Monty said:
Two problems come to mind with a lower UFA age:

First, there appears to be a general assumption in many of the posts that the only issue driving a UFA's decision as to which team to sign with is money, and therefore, with a salary cap the high-spending teams of the past will not be able to corner the market on the top-tier or above average free agent market. I think that was true when certain teams could offer certain players so much more money that the player would have been "financially-stupid" not to sign with the team offering so much more loot.
Of course it is going to be money when they have been told where they have to work and have their destiny controlled for the first 13 years of their careers.


Monty said:
However, what a salary cap and lower UFA age will do is change the player's decision matrix on which team to sign with. It is likely that the offers to many players will be so comparable, that the player's decision will not be strictly about money, but also about which city would he prefer, which team would he prefer, or which teammates would be prefer. Now some may reply, "What's wrong with that. Finally we are getting away from money being the only thing that matters to players." True to a point, but I can see a circumstance where the hoped-for parity goes out the window because players will flock to certain teams, if the money difference is not that great. For example, if Heatley can play for Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Atlanta or Carolina for about the same amount, give or take a million, who do you think he will more likely want to play for or least want to play for?
Why is it a problem? Why shouldn't players be able to choose their location of employment? I have problems with the draft and the reserve list and restricted Free agency because they determine where the players have to ply their trade. We live in a free market society, but NHL players and other pro sport leagues are like communism. I will excuse the draft. Ok to enter into employment, you have to go work in Siberia North America, but after a probation period (ie the length of an entry level agreement) you should be able to choose where you live and work. This puts the onus on the clubs to treat their employees well and offer them compensation to entice them.


Monty said:
Moreover, once you start making a third of the league free agents every year, particularly the above average players - which is likely the result of UFA at 27 and most above average players playing until 38 or older, then a group of players could practically collude to play for the same team, either because they want to win a Cup, want to play for a winner, like the town or like to live and play a certain somewhere. Selanne and Kariya pulled that off. I could see such a situation becoming even more prevalent with so much of the league becoming free agents every July 1.
I really don't see the problem or likelihood here. Teams won't neccessarily have the cap room or roster spaces to pull it off on a grand scale, but if they do, all the power to them. Getting the two for one Kariya/Selanne deal you mention didn't help the Avalanche very much did it? I hardly find it relevant. If agents could sell their players in two for one deals, salaries will come down and that is what benefits the league.

Monty said:
Second, opinions vary on this issue, but I am not in favor of the system in the NFL and MLB where it seems like a number of teams change a third of their personnel every year. Sure, you root for the team, and there is always some player turnover, but in those leagues you see few players stay with their teams for a decade or more. It was nice the way some players would be drafted by their team, develop with the same team, become a good or great player, and retire with that team. Sure that can still happen, but it is much less likely now with very low UFA eligibility. In fact, in many instances in the NFL or MLB, the team has to let go of the player, even if they would prefer not to, because of salary cap concerns or because they can't match another team's offer. These days the jerseys may stay the same in the NFL or MLB, but the players wearing the jerseys change so often, it's not quite the same or as good.
Like I said before, there is no loyalty to the team like there was in the past (the Original six era), but pride in one team and loyalty to one team is long dead. Players are loyal to one team: the NHLPA, not the NHL clubs.
 

Guest

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Monty said:
Two problems come to mind with a lower UFA age:

First, there appears to be a general assumption in many of the posts that the only issue driving a UFA's decision as to which team to sign with is money, and therefore, with a salary cap the high-spending teams of the past will not be able to corner the market on the top-tier or above average free agent market. I think that was true when certain teams could offer certain players so much more money that the player would have been "financially-stupid" not to sign with the team offering so much more loot.

However, what a salary cap and lower UFA age will do is change the player's decision matrix on which team to sign with. It is likely that the offers to many players will be so comparable, that the player's decision will not be strictly about money, but also about which city would he prefer, which team would he prefer, or which teammates would be prefer. Now some may reply, "What's wrong with that. Finally we are getting away from money being the only thing that matters to players." True to a point, but I can see a circumstance where the hoped-for parity goes out the window because players will flock to certain teams, if the money difference is not that great. For example, if Heatley can play for Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Atlanta or Carolina for about the same amount, give or take a million, who do you think he will more likely want to play for or least want to play for?

Moreover, once you start making a third of the league free agents every year, particularly the above average players - which is likely the result of UFA at 27 and most above average players playing until 38 or older, then a group of players could practically collude to play for the same team, either because they want to win a Cup, want to play for a winner, like the town or like to live and play a certain somewhere. Selanne and Kariya pulled that off. I could see such a situation becoming even more prevalent with so much of the league becoming free agents every July 1.
Does it really matter which team a free agent decides to sign with as long as it is financially viable for the league as a whole? I think you would have to see the stars align to get a situation as exaggerated as you suggest with players flocking to a single team, who would be willing to take a pay cut so they could all fit under the free agent cap, on a team who has that much room for free agents on the cap as well as on the roster. If you think about it, nothing stops that type of scenario from occurring now, so why would it all of a sudden be a rash epidemic? I believe more players will end up with better offers to stay with their team’s than the majority of offers they will get on free agency. It will still allow for the odd team to throw the money at a player if they wish to waste it all, but it won’t allow every team to do it on a consistent basis.

Monty said:
Second, opinions vary on this issue, but I am not in favor of the system in the NFL and MLB where it seems like a number of teams change a third of their personnel every year. Sure, you root for the team, and there is always some player turnover, but in those leagues you see few players stay with their teams for a decade or more. It was nice the way some players would be drafted by their team, develop with the same team, become a good or great player, and retire with that team. Sure that can still happen, but it is much less likely now with very low UFA eligibility. In fact, in many instances in the NFL or MLB, the team has to let go of the player, even if they would prefer not to, because of salary cap concerns or because they can't match another team's offer. These days the jerseys may stay the same in the NFL or MLB, but the players wearing the jerseys change so often, it's not quite the same or as good.
Under my proposal, who’s to say that teams will be changing over 1/3 of their roster every season? I think you have taken an extreme look at things, and maybe not a long term look. There is the initial rush of UFA’s, but there would still be the same number of free agents on a yearly basis if you count up RFA’s and UFA’s, only under my proposal you will see a larger majority that are UFA than RFA. I actually think by having the free agent cap, you would see teams retain their players more than you’d think, because they would have the advantage of not worrying about the free agent cap. The free agents will mostly just leave to fill the holes in the teams considered the have-not’s, if they are willing to spend any money to improve their team. Also, keep in mind, times are changing, and the NHL will not come back the way you last saw it.

I’ve yet to see a legit argument from you on this subject, with all due respect. We may have two differing opinions, but nothing you’ve cited concerns me as a real threat.
 

MacDaddy TLC*

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There is no basis for suggesting 1/3 of rosters will be changing. We will have one crazy period of signing when the league resumes. Players may sign long-term deals with teams if they are happy to play in that location. Others may want shorter terms in an attempt to get the opportunity to move somewhere they would rather be the next season. It is impossible to say how it would shake down.
 
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