Owners cave again??

[i am dave]

Salaries for 2004:

$20 to $30 Million - 5 Teams; predators, penguins, wild, panthers, thrashers

$30 to $40 Million - 11 Teams; Blackhawks, Sabres, Oilers, Jackets, Lightning, Sharks, Hurricanes, Flames, Coyotes, Senators, Canadians

$40 to $50 Million - 4 Teams; Islanders, Canucks, Bruins, Devils

$50 to $60 Million - 3 Teams; Capitals, Ducks, Kings

$60 to $70 Million - 5 Teams; Leafs, Blues, Avalanche, Flyers, Stars

$70 to $80 Million - 2 Teams; Rangers, Wings

16 of the 30 NHL teams have a salary below $40 Million - many were losing money under the previous CBA. This proposal does nothing to address the current problem facing the majority of NHL teams. A 50 Million hard cap plus a franchise player is comforting for the few "money teams" but not the majority of the NHL. This proposal is affordable for 10 of the 30 NHL teams based on 2004 salaries.

Nothing would change under this proposal - small market teams remain farm teams. When you have disparity in team salaries - Predators $21,932,500 to the Wings $77,856,109 - you have a problem.

How does lowering the salary of Team B stop Team A from losing money? If your answer implies that payroll = performance = playoff run, I ask you to look at the Rangers and Capitals over the past three years.

 

[HockeyCritter]

The Capitals are paying 1/2 of Jagr's salary.I don't want to get into another pissing argument about Jagr and the Rangers and Caps.Hey Teddy Leonsis can spend $50 million.Of course,Teddy found religion after paying Jagr and Robert Lang

The Capitals are required to pay $4-million of Jagr's salary . . . the Rangers are "on the hook" for the enitre $11-million when it comes to cap figures.

 

[dawgbone]

Look. I want hockey to thrive in Canada. And I'd like to preserve NHL hockey in Alberta.
However, the NHL survived just fine for 40 odd years with only Montreal and Toronto.
So let's not be silly.

Yeah... let's not be silly.

Start by pulling your cranial cavity out of your anal one!

It lasted for 40 years in a completely eastern based league with only 6 teams... let's not be completely stupid here... as difficult as that may be.

 

[hockeytown9321]

The rollback I don't believe was rumored, however Chelios, Datsyuk, Schneider and/or replacements for Thomas and Hull would be needed for the wings. Under past salary estimates that would be about probably over $10m right there.

But I agree, heck if the Wings salary WERE down to 36m then no one should be complaining, but that's not how it works I presume.

The rumors I've seen do include the rollback.

They might try and resign Schneider, but other than that, I can't see them doing much. They could use a 2nd or 3rd line RW. Other than that, their roster is pretty much set.

 

[cneely]

Salaries for 2004:

$20 to $30 Million - 5 Teams; predators, penguins, wild, panthers, thrashers

$30 to $40 Million - 11 Teams; Blackhawks, Sabres, Oilers, Jackets, Lightning, Sharks, Hurricanes, Flames, Coyotes, Senators, Canadians

$40 to $50 Million - 4 Teams; Islanders, Canucks, Bruins, Devils

$50 to $60 Million - 3 Teams; Capitals, Ducks, Kings

$60 to $70 Million - 5 Teams; Leafs, Blues, Avalanche, Flyers, Stars

$70 to $80 Million - 2 Teams; Rangers, Wings

16 of the 30 NHL teams have a salary below $40 Million - many were losing money under the previous CBA. This proposal does nothing to address the current problem facing the majority of NHL teams. A 50 Million hard cap plus a franchise player is comforting for the few "money teams" but not the majority of the NHL. This proposal is affordable for 10 of the 30 NHL teams based on 2004 salaries.

Nothing would change under this proposal - small market teams remain farm teams. When you have disparity in team salaries - Predators $21,932,500 to the Wings $77,856,109 - you have a problem.

1) Obviously, under this system, you wouldn't have any more 77 million dollar payrolls, and salaries will adjust for this fact. If Lidstrom was worth 10 million, he is now worth 50/77 x 10 million, or 6.5 million.

2) A lot of those low payroll teams are not low payroll because they are losing money, but because they are young. The Kovalchuks, Nashs, Timmonens, and Gaboriks haven't hit their peak earning years.

3) With 14 teams over 40 million, there would be at least 60 million in luxury taxes to spread out amongst the other 16 teams, or 3.75 million a piece. Add in some revenue sharing, and possibly up to 6 million would be dispersed to the lower market teams. Remember, a guy making 3 million under the new system is a guy who would have made approximatly 4.5 under the old system, so basically, you could take Edmonton, as competitive as they are, and add two 4.5 million dollar players, and you have a Stanley Cup contender.

4) The disparity would not remain at 22 vs 77. Add 10 to the Preds, and subtract 27 from the Wings. 32 to 50. A hell of a lot closer, and a team like the Preds will see increased revenues as they become more competitive.

 

[BrownWonder]

The owners will never cave in people, you need to realize that ****. THe owners will win this war. **** the players.

 

[Greschner4]

The rumors I've seen do include the rollback.

They might try and resign Schneider, but other than that, I can't see them doing much. They could use a 2nd or 3rd line RW. Other than that, their roster is pretty much set.

Any rumor that has the rollback still in AND the players caving on a cap is either bogus or has Goodenow in the position of being the absolute worst labor negotiator in the history of labor.

The rollback was offered as an alternative to having to accept a cap, not part of a cap system.

 

[dawgbone]

1) Obviously, under this system, you wouldn't have any more 77 million dollar payrolls, and salaries will adjust for this fact. If Lidstrom was worth 10 million, he is now worth 50/77 x 10 million, or 6.5 million.

2) A lot of those low payroll teams are not low payroll because they are losing money, but because they are young. The Kovalchuks, Nashs, Timmonens, and Gaboriks haven't hit their peak earning years.

3) With 14 teams over 40 million, there would be at least 60 million in luxury taxes to spread out amongst the other 16 teams, or 3.75 million a piece. Add in some revenue sharing, and possibly up to 6 million would be dispersed to the lower market teams. Remember, a guy making 3 million under the new system is a guy who would have made approximatly 4.5 under the old system, so basically, you could take Edmonton, as competitive as they are, and add two 4.5 million dollar players, and you have a Stanley Cup contender.

4) The disparity would not remain at 22 vs 77. Add 10 to the Preds, and subtract 27 from the Wings. 32 to 50. A hell of a lot closer, and a team like the Preds will see increased revenues as they become more competitive.

You seem to be ignoring the franchise player tag... which allows you to have a $60+ mil payroll, while the cap is at $50 mil.

 

[bhawk24bob]

You start moving teams out of Canada and you can kiss the NHL goodbye. The game will never survive with one team in Canada and the rest in the states. Because the Flames, Montreal, and even Ottawa and Vancouver aren't in the greatest positions financially. Say bye bye to the sport, and let it die a miserable death in front of 6000 fans at the Blackhawks game.

you're so off base it's laughable. do you actually think that anybody would miss edmonton, calgary, or ottowa outside of those cities? could the nhl exist without them? easily, in fact it would be better for it. vancouver's a different story because seattle is so close. could the nhl exist without teams in l.a., chicago, new york, or any other big city out east? absolutely not. i think you need to take a hard look in the mirror and realize edmonton's place in this. sure it would suck to be an oilers fan, but this lockout isn't for the oilers; it's for the nhl.

you can laugh all you want about the hawks attendance over the last 4 years. i bet if you take an average over the last 10 years, the hawks still have better attendance than the oilers. over the course of the oilers existance? i guarantee the hawks are still higher.

 

[txpd]

Wow. So colorado gets to keep Forsberg, Sakic and Blake.
Oh, the injustice.

Seriously, though. Forsberg, Sakic and Blake eat up $30 million.
That leaves precious little to sign the konowalchuks, Skrastins, Barnabys, not to mention the Footes, Hejduks and Tanguays.
This deal will drastically reduce spending by the Detroits and Colorados.

Actually with the Franchise player tag only those 3 only eat up $20m. That leaves $30m for your Foote's, Hejduk's and Tanguay's. Kono's and Barnaby's shouldnt be more than $1m anyway.

 

[i am dave]

Again, I'm really starting to see fundamental differences in what people had been hoping for over the past few months, now as the dust begins to settle. I've always been in favor of some sort of cap, but have always maintained that a cap in the $30-40 million range wasn't a viable solution.

Look, there are 30 teams here, all of them have rosters, all of them have payroll. Just because the lowest common denominator is having problems, doesn't mean the entire League has to adjust to their level - you compromise.

First of all, when you're complaining that disparity exists between two teams - one with a $22M payroll, one with a $77M payroll - and they both made the playoffs last year, then there is a problem going on in your logic.

Second, and I'll say it again, it sounds more and more like a lot of you were expecting a low cap not to just level the payroll across the league, but to pick up some high priced talent along the way.

Third, if you were fine with a $38M hard cap, but now are not fine with a $50M hard cap (minus one player) because you think teams won't be able to compete with a $12M payroll disparity, then you need to rethink what kind of league you're looking for. I think the NLL might be more up your alley. But then again, the NLL contracts and moves teams all the time when their market can't support it. Hmm, what an interesting concept.......

 

[cneely]

You seem to be ignoring the franchise player tag... which allows you to have a $60+ mil payroll, while the cap is at $50 mil.

I ignored it for the time being. Assuming that the franchise player's salary is taxed, the same scenario applies. The rich teams will pay more taxes to distribute to the small market teams.

 

[Balk]

So then why is Edmonton having revenue problems? For all intents and purposes, most NHL arenas are around the same size. Why do the Oilers have trouble generating the revenue that Philadelphia does?

Because they don't have the corporate support that philadelphia has. They don't have companies buying tickets and boxes and rediculous prices and letting the tax-payers pay for half those seats. They also don't get the government support because north of the border we care about health-care and education. Things that get lost south of the border.

 

[i am dave]

You seem to be ignoring the franchise player tag... which allows you to have a $60+ mil payroll, while the cap is at $50 mil.

Forget about the franchise player already. You're talking about ONE player. That still means 24 players have to fit in under $50M maximum. I say maximum because you're assuming every team will go willy-nilly over the $40M soft cap. But in any case, that averages out to just over $2M per player. When you consider how inflated salaries became over the past 10 years, and the current average salary is $1.8M, and assuming this CBA lasts in the vicinity of another 10 years, a $200K inflation of average salary over 10 years isn't all that shabby. I should hope that the small-market teams could make this up.

 

[Bruwinz37]

I doubt this will be the deal. The owners lose this if that is the case.

I think the deal could be something similar to this, but the 50m cap + having a non eligible franchise salary seems too much.

I think the best compromise would be a 40m soft cap with a dollar for dollar luxury tax to 50m. That way if teams like the Rangers feel they need to overspend then they have to pay a premium to do so. A dollar for dollar tax would certainly make teams think twice before signing a guy to big money if they are already at the cap. Example-Pavol Demitra would be a guy a lot of people would have interest in at ~4m but for teams over the cap he is actually an 8m player.

The only part about this whole idea I dont like is the franchise tag, otherwise this would be a nice deal for both sides.

 

[NorthOiler]

you're so off base it's laughable. do you actually think that anybody would miss edmonton, calgary, or ottowa outside of those cities? could the nhl exist without them? easily, in fact it would be better for it. vancouver's a different story because seattle is so close. could the nhl exist without teams in l.a., chicago, new york, or any other big city out east? absolutely not. i think you need to take a hard look in the mirror and realize edmonton's place in this. sure it would suck to be an oilers fan, but this lockout isn't for the oilers; it's for the nhl.

you can laugh all you want about the hawks attendance over the last 4 years. i bet if you take an average over the last 10 years, the hawks still have better attendance than the oilers. over the course of the oilers existance? i guarantee the hawks are still higher.

This is one of the silliest posts I have read on this site ... the NHL could survive without the oilers but the NHL needs the blackhawks.

I would like to think the NHL needs all 30 teams in order to survive.

 

[i am dave]

Because they don't have the corporate support that philadelphia has. They don't have companies buying tickets and boxes and rediculous prices and letting the tax-payers pay for half those seats. They also don't get the government support because north of the border we care about health-care and education. Things that get lost south of the border.

First of all, let's talk about corporate support. The Flyers are owned by Comcast, yes. I made a post several pages back in reply to a comment about "what if Bill Gates owned all the teams" which I'll repeat here. It's not about how much money you have as much as how much revenue you generate. Corporate support is nice, but if the Flyers didn't generate money, it that corporate support wouldn't mean squat.

Second, what government support do the Flyers have?

Third, I'll brush aside the low-blow implication that Americans don't care about healthcare and education. I will only point out that it is far easier to afford healthcare and education for 30 million people than it is for 300 million people. I will also decline the opportunity to discuss just how effective the Canadian health system is.

 

[Reilly311]

The only part about this whole idea I dont like is the franchise tag, otherwise this would be a nice deal for both sides.

The Franchise tag can work if done right. I think it would be better (and we'll find out details if this is true) if you could only "tag" one player if you drafted him (or traded for him before they signed their first NHL contract or something), that way a team like Calgary won't have to trade Iginla because they'll be over the cap with is salary (for example). It also allows the big market teams to keep their players (Lidstrom and Forsberg for example).


Example:

A team like Atlanta with many young stars who will all hit their prime at the same time (aka, big money contracts) will want nice deals. By "tagging" Kovalchuk and signing him, they can still sign Heatey and Lehtonen without worrying about going over.


Again, if it's done right it can work.

 

[Bruwinz37]

Forget about the franchise player already. You're talking about ONE player. That still means 24 players have to fit in under $50M maximum. I say maximum because you're assuming every team will go willy-nilly over the $40M soft cap. But in any case, that averages out to just over $2M per player. When you consider how inflated salaries became over the past 10 years, and the current average salary is $1.8M, and assuming this CBA lasts in the vicinity of another 10 years, a $200K inflation of average salary over 10 years isn't all that shabby. I should hope that the small-market teams could make this up.

Pit-Power, good points, but I think what happens with the franchise player is the one thing that the league was looking to avoid which is spending 10m on one player. I think that a cap/luxury tax that builds to a hard cap would curb this type of spending because it virtually handcuffs what the team can do after they make that type of investment to one guy.

As far as the cap/tax staying static over the term of the CBA, well I just dont see that happening. The players will negotiate an increase in accordance with league revenues/cost of living, etc.

 

[bhawk24bob]

This is one of the silliest posts I have read on this site ... the NHL could survive without the oilers but the NHL needs the blackhawks.

I would like to think the NHL needs all 30 teams in order to survive.

no, i said the nhl needs a team in chicago. whether you like it or not, the nhl needs teams in the biggest markets for a ton of reasons, all going back to money. i'll tell you what, we'll relocate the blackhawks to the quad cities, the bruins to little rock, the islanders to omaha, and we'll see where we're at. do you get the point? all are comparible to the size of edmonton in both population and how much the networks would care.

 

[cneely]

First of all, let's talk about corporate support. The Flyers are owned by Comcast, yes. I made a post several pages back in reply to a comment about "what if Bill Gates owned all the teams" which I'll repeat here. It's not about how much money you have as much as how much revenue you generate. Corporate support is nice, but if the Flyers didn't generate money, it that corporate support wouldn't mean squat.

You miss the point. Teams need corporate support in terms on being able to pony up 15k for a pair of season tickets, or 500k for a luxury suite. Not oo many individuals can afford to do that, so teams need to depend on corporate ticket sales.

Second, what government support do the Flyers have?

I'll gaurantee you they pay far less property tax than any of the Canadian teams do.

 

[Bruwinz37]

The Franchise tag can work if done right. I think it would be better (and we'll find out details if this is true) if you could only "tag" one player if you drafted him (or traded for him before they signed their first NHL contract or something), that way a team like Calgary won't have to trade Iginla because they'll be over the cap with is salary (for example). It also allows the big market teams to keep their players (Lidstrom and Forsberg for example).


Example:

A team like Atlanta with many young stars who will all hit their prime at the same time (aka, big money contracts) will want nice deals. By "tagging" Kovalchuk and signing him, they can still sign Heatey and Lehtonen without worrying about going over.


Again, if it's done right it can work.

Absolutely can. I think there also has to be a limit on how many times you can change the franchise tag. That is if you franchise a guy you have to keep him as your franchise player until he is either: traded, bought out, or his contract expires. That way you have some controls.

The one thing that this system will help is teams having 3-4 guys in the 7-10m dollar range. That type of stuff just wont happen anymore. I just would like to see the caps a little bit tighter. The players may not realize this, but this would be a clear win for them.

 

[dawgbone]

Forget about the franchise player already. You're talking about ONE player. That still means 24 players have to fit in under $50M maximum. I say maximum because you're assuming every team will go willy-nilly over the $40M soft cap. But in any case, that averages out to just over $2M per player. When you consider how inflated salaries became over the past 10 years, and the current average salary is $1.8M, and assuming this CBA lasts in the vicinity of another 10 years, a $200K inflation of average salary over 10 years isn't all that shabby. I should hope that the small-market teams could make this up.

That's a lovely thought... until you factor in the fact that NHL player rosters consist of 23 players, not 25. And I realize that not every team is going to go over $40 mil. Not every team goes over that now... that doesn't change the fact that league economics are screwed up.

And I doubt you'll see a 10 year agreement... the old CBA was extended 2 times, and this kind of deal might not be extended depending on how the league's economic situation changes. If popularity continues to dwindle, the league is going to want to re-negotiate... likewise if it booms, the players are going to want to renegotiate.

So while it kind of works out in your little world... it may not work that way in real life. And I am not forgetting about the franchise player tag, because that matters. It's still a $60+ mil payroll, regardless of what the cap is, and that franchise player will still be a comparable for arbitration (if applicable) or a UFA contract. I don't think this changes much league-wide.

 

[i am dave]

Pit-Power, good points, but I think what happens with the franchise player is the one thing that the league was looking to avoid which is spending 10m on one player. I think that a cap/luxury tax that builds to a hard cap would curb this type of spending because it virtually handcuffs what the team can do after they make that type of investment to one guy.

As far as the cap/tax staying static over the term of the CBA, well I just dont see that happening. The players will negotiate an increase in accordance with league revenues/cost of living, etc.

You're right, and I thought of that after I posted. Plus, there would probably be a renewal period after 5 years, and that's probably on the high end. I would tend to think, however, that with a cap already in place, the League has the upper hand already in place when it comes to cap increase. Or perhaps the increase would be written into this CBA.

As far as the franchise player goes, I speculated the following way back on page 4:

If every team has their franchise player making X million dollars, and all 30 teams are within X million dollars of the cap, the franchise player has no bargaining power, no ability to reset the market, and no way to move to another team.

Just food for thought...

 

[Bruwinz37]

no, i said the nhl needs a team in chicago. whether you like it or not, the nhl needs teams in the biggest markets for a ton of reasons, all going back to money. i'll tell you what, we'll relocate the blackhawks to the quad cities, the bruins to little rock, the islanders to omaha, and we'll see where we're at. do you get the point? all are comparible to the size of edmonton in both population and how much the networks would care.

I dont think you consider all of the possible effects of moving teams out of Canadian cities. Canadian kids grow up watching these teams play. Taking them out of Canada would do a huge disservice to the league and the fan base.