Some fans refuse to face reality.

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Captain Ron

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Before the free agent bonanza started alot of people said there was no way that GM's would sign players to big contracts because of the cap. Now here we are just 2 weeks later and after a rash of big dollar signings 4 or 5 teams are pushing the upper limits of the cap. I find it funny that when you point it out to the fans of these teams they act like you are attacking them personally and rush to the defense of their teams GM.

You also have people saying "Why do you care about what my team does, worry about your own". Well in the new NHL what one team does will affect the rest. Don't forget the league-wide payroll is what is the issue. If the league goes over the 54% the teams at the cap limit will be the most to blame. This will cause players on other teams to lose money via the escrow account. Why should a player on the Washington Capitals have money taken away just because Clarke wanted to sign Forsberg?

I have nothing personal against any of these teams. But I do think the GM's are being very careless with the way they are spending. If my favorite hockey team had only 14 players signed and only $6 million left to sign the rest I would be upset at the GM.

We really won't know for a while if the strategy being used by these free spending GM's will work or not. But people have to step back and try to take an good look at what their teams are doing.
 
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AM

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so?

Spongebob said:
Before the free agent bonanza started alot of people said there was no way that GM's would sign players to big contracts because of the cap. Now here we are just 2 weeks later and after a rash of big dollar signings 4 or 5 teams are pushing the upper limits of the cap. I find it funny that when you point it out to the fans of these teams they act like you are attacking them personally and rush to the defense of their teams GM.

You also have people saying "Why do you care about what my team does, worry about your own". Well in the new NHL what one team does will affect the rest. Don't forget the league-wide payroll is what is the issue. If the league goes over the 54% the teams at the cap limit will be the most to blame. This will cause players on other teams to lose money via the escrow account. Why should a player on the Washington Capitals have money taken away just because Clarke wanted to sign Forsberg?

I have nothing personal against any of these teams. But I do think the GM's are being very careless with the way they are spending. If my favorite hockey team had only 14 players signed and only $6 million left to sign the rest I would be upset at the GM.

We really won't know for a while if the strategy being used by these free spending GM's will work or not. But people have to step back and try to take an good look at what their teams are doing.

what you're saying is, the players on the Capitols should have been pushing for a lower cap?

I guess they can do that next time!

Who says its only the GMs who need capologists.
 

Captain Ron

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AM said:
what you're saying is, the players on the Capitols should have been pushing for a lower cap?

I guess they can do that next time!

Who says its only the GMs who need capologists.

Because the GM's are the ones signing the contracts. Did you actually read the post? Not only would players on the Capitals lose money. So would players on every team in the league. The cap has nothing to do with it. The average team payroll can only be $30.6 million. After that players start to lose escrow money. I can almost guarantee you the league average will be well over that. Why should player X on the Panthers lose money because of the idiot GM's in Philly, Boston, Anaheim, Vancouver, Toronto etc.
 

Donnie D

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The people who are really going to take it in the shorts are the ones who already took a 24% rollback only to lose another 15 % on top of that.
 

Captain Ron

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Donnie D said:
The people who are really going to take it in the shorts are the ones who already took a 24% rollback only to lose another 15 % on top of that.

It could be alot more than 15%. That was a figure talked about before the CBA was finalized.

From the CBA FAQ.....

ESCROW

How does escrow work?

The determination of the percentage withhold of player salary for purposes of funding the player salary escrow will be determined at four separate points during the season. The percentage withhold will be adjusted as necessary to reflect overall League-wide payroll at the time of the various evaluation points, with the intention being to ensure that sufficient monies will be available at the end of the League Year to repay the League in the event of any overpay on the League-wide Players' Share.


The escrow could mean an additional 20% or 30% or ? in lost wages.
 

AM

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:)

Spongebob said:
Because the GM's are the ones signing the contracts. Did you actually read the post? Not only would players on the Capitals lose money. So would players on every team in the league. The cap has nothing to do with it. The average team payroll can only be $30.6 million. After that players start to lose escrow money. I can almost guarantee you the league average will be well over that. Why should player X on the Panthers lose money because of the idiot GM's in Philly, Boston, Anaheim, Vancouver, Toronto etc.

I think you need a capologist also.

:)

The consequences of agreeing to a higher cap and an escrow of 54% implies that players on teams below the cap will take a pay cut.

Is that something the players didnt take into account when they signed the deal?

I know it was obvious to me, you think the union negotiators didnt take it into account?
 

NotJT

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Spongebob said:
Before the free agent bonanza started alot of people said there was no way that GM's would sign players to big contracts because of the cap. Now here we are just 2 weeks later and after a rash of big dollar signings 4 or 5 teams are pushing the upper limits of the cap. I find it funny that when you point it out to the fans of these teams they act like you are attacking them personally and rush to the defense of their teams GM.

You also have people saying "Why do you care about what my team does, worry about your own". Well in the new NHL what one team does will affect the rest. Don't forget the league-wide payroll is what is the issue. If the league goes over the 54% the teams at the cap limit will be the most to blame. This will cause players on other teams to lose money via the escrow account. Why should a player on the Washington Capitals have money taken away just because Clarke wanted to sign Forsberg?

I have nothing personal against any of these teams. But I do think the GM's are being very careless with the way they are spending. If my favorite hockey team had only 14 players signed and only $6 million left to sign the rest I would be upset at the GM.

We really won't know for a while if the strategy being used by these free spending GM's will work or not. But people have to step back and try to take an good look at what their teams are doing.

Why is it the GM's being careless? You could equally make an argument that the players are demanding too much. Each individual player (or player agent) is trying to maximize his salary and damn the rest.

What is funny is this is exactly (both sides) the thing that the cap was designed to fix, one could argue it is working admirably. The GM's know they can spend spend spend (up to a point) and worse case scenario they get a rebate.
 

AM

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working as billed.....

NotJT said:
Why is it the GM's being careless? You could equally make an argument that the players are demanding too much. Each individual player (or player agent) is trying to maximize his salary and damn the rest.

What is funny is this is exactly (both sides) the thing that the cap was designed to fix, one could argue it is working admirably. The GM's know they can spend spend spend (up to a point) and worse case scenario they get a rebate.


so far so good!
 

Captain Ron

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NotJT said:
Why is it the GM's being careless? You could equally make an argument that the players are demanding too much. Each individual player (or player agent) is trying to maximize his salary and damn the rest.

No one is forcing the GM's to sign these contracts. Have they ever heard of the word no?

What is funny is this is exactly (both sides) the thing that the cap was designed to fix, one could argue it is working admirably. The GM's know they can spend spend spend (up to a point) and worse case scenario they get a rebate.

Except that the players on teams that don't spend spend spend have to lose money because of the teams that do.
 

NotJT

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Spongebob said:
No one is forcing the GM's to sign these contracts. Have they ever heard of the word no?

What is really funny about this quote is that this is the exact thing Goodenow was saying before the lockout. But now it is being said for the opposite reason.



Spongebob said:
Except that the players on teams that don't spend spend spend have to lose money because of the teams that do.

The players really should control their salary demands better...


But seriously, how you can only put this on the GM's is really indefensible.
 

BruinsGirl

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Spongebob said:
Because the GM's are the ones signing the contracts. Did you actually read the post? Not only would players on the Capitals lose money. So would players on every team in the league. The cap has nothing to do with it. The average team payroll can only be $30.6 million. After that players start to lose escrow money. I can almost guarantee you the league average will be well over that. Why should player X on the Panthers lose money because of the idiot GM's in Philly, Boston, Anaheim, Vancouver, Toronto etc.

Are you LA fan?

Didn't LA signe Allison (our former franchise player) to the huge contract B's couldn't offer?

Why do you call MOC an idiot? He wanted to lock Thornton (our franchise player btw) to the longer contract instead of deal with him as UFA next year.

IMHO .. as long as a team can stay under the cap (and I am sure B's don't have major problem with this) it can sign players to the big contracts .
 

Captain Ron

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NotJT said:
The players really should control their salary demands better...


But seriously, how you can only put this on the GM's is really indefensible.


Explain to me something......

How is Milan Hejduk to blame for what Joe Thornton signs for?

How is Kim Johnsson to blame for what Scott Niedermayer signed for ? In the end the GM's are responsible for the money handed out.
 

NotJT

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Spongebob said:
Explain to me something......

How is Milan Hejduk to blame for what Joe Thornton signs for?

How is Kim Johnsson to blame for what Scott Niedermayer signed for ?

Joe Thornton is to blame for what Joe Thornton signed for.. which is the point.. Joe (demands) signs a big contract, Iginla (demands) signs a big contract, Do you think at any time when they made these demands that they cared about how it would affect their union members?

Why cant the players say no?
 

Captain Ron

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BruinsGirl said:
Are you LA fan?

Didn't LA signe Allison (our former franchise player) to the huge contract B's couldn't offer?

Why do you call MOC an idiot? He wanted to lock Thornton (our franchise player btw) to the longer contract instead of deal with him as UFA next year.

IMHO .. as long as a team can stay under the cap (and I am sure B's don't have major problem with this) it can sign players to the big contracts .

I am not talking about 4 years ago. Things are alot different in todays NHL.

Do I think that MOC is an idiot for signing Thornton? Not necessarily. Do I think that he is an idiot for signing someone like Leetch for $4 million dollars knowing that it would potentially put his team in cap trouble? Yes.

As I said before the average league payroll can only be $30.6 million. For every team that hits the salary cap it takes away $300k from every other team. What is so hard to understand about that? Right now about 4 or 5 teams are almost at the cap. That means every other team loses (figuratively speaking) between $1.2 and $1.5 million to spend on their team. If the rest of the teams don't cut back their payrolls based on the adjusted average. Then their players lose additional salary.
 

Captain Ron

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NotJT said:
Joe Thornton is to blame for what Joe Thornton signed for.. which is the point.. Joe (demands) signs a big contract, Iginla (demands) signs a big contract, Do you think at any time when they made these demands that they cared about how it would affect their union members?

Why cant the players say no?

I could go to my boss tomorrow and say "If you don't give me more money then I am out of here". What do you think he will do? Bend over and kiss my a**? I don't think so. Players can ask for the sun and moon for all I care. That does not mean they will get it. Supposedly the league was united in locking out the players. If they were united now nobody would get big pay increases.

Bottom line... The GM's control how much money players can get. Stupid GM's will continue to give bad contracts out regardless of the cap. Until the owners realize they are careless with their money and fire them.
 

AM

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whats important.....

Spongebob said:
Explain to me something......

How is Milan Hejduk to blame for what Joe Thornton signs for?

How is Kim Johnsson to blame for what Scott Niedermayer signed for ? In the end the GM's are responsible for the money handed out.

in a capped world they will be accountable!

In my opinion, you should be contenadly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Whereas the GMs are waiting for their brilliant signings to shine!

Who eats crow at the end of the day is still to be seen.
 

NotJT

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Spongebob said:
I could go to my boss tomorrow and say "If you don't give me more money then I am out of here". What do you think he will do? Bend over and kiss my a**? I don't think so. Players can ask for the sun and moon for all I care. That does not mean they will get it. Supposedly the league was united in locking out the players. If they were united now nobody would get big pay increases.

Bottom line... The GM's control how much money players can get. Stupid GM's will continue to give bad contracts out regardless of the cap. Until the owners realize they are careless with their money and fire them.

If I am THE guy at my company that makes things happen, gets all the work done, etc, and I make a demand on my boss to give me money or im walking. He has to give me money (or replace me with comparable) for his company to survive ("remain competitive"). If you are nothing at the company and make that demand, you are gone. But someone VITAL to the company would get what they demanded. A worker can put a boss in an untenable position.

The big name players are demanding and getting big contracts. They know they are hard/impossible to replace and are asking for big bucks to play. What is Boston to do? Not sign Thornton and let him walk away? That is their choice. How about Iginla?

It is BOTH the GMs and players responsibility to control spending now. To say it is just one or the other is just "refusing to face reality".
 

Captain Ron

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NotJT said:
If I am THE guy at my company that makes things happen, gets all the work done, etc, and I make a demand on my boss to give me money or im walking. He has to give me money (or replace me with comparable) for his company to survive ("remain competitive"). If you are nothing at the company and make that demand, you are gone. But someone VITAL to the company would get what they demanded. A worker can put a boss in an untenable position.

The big name players are demanding and getting big contracts. They know they are hard/impossible to replace and are asking for big bucks to play. What is Boston to do? Not sign Thornton and let him walk away? That is their choice. How about Iginla?

It is BOTH the GMs and players responsibility to control spending now. To say it is just one or the other is just "refusing to face reality".

If all the GM's were on the same page this would not be an issue. If a player said "Pay me $6 million or I walk". Then let him walk. Any other "responsible" GM is going to look at that player and laugh. Eventually he will have no other option than to take what he is given. The problem is that their are not too many responsible GM's out there. There will always be somebody stupid enough to fork up the money. They are the ones that are ruining it for the rest.
 

Timmy

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Spongebob said:
If all the GM's were on the same page this would not be an issue. If a player said "Pay me $6 million or I walk". Then let him walk. Any other "responsible" GM is going to look at that player and laugh. Eventually he will have no other option than to take what he is given. The problem is that their are not too many responsible GM's out there. There will always be somebody stupid enough to fork up the money. They are the ones that are ruining it for the rest.

Not really.

They may be ruining their own team, but this should all shake out over the course of the season and next offseason, where some GMs are handcuffed by decisions made these last two weeks. The semi-intelligent ones will endeavour not to get burned twice, if they still have a job...
 

NotJT

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Look at it from another point of view, what if the GMs spent up to 30.6 million and no further. So you have a bunch of GMs at the league minimum, not giving out money. That is money lost by the players as well (every dollars left under the 54% is a dollar the players dont get). Are those GMs irresponsible?
 

Resolute

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Spongebob said:
No one is forcing the GM's to sign these contracts. Have they ever heard of the word no?

No one forced the union to sign the CBA. They could have said no.

Personally, I do not find it useful to feel sorry for people that don't deserve pity or sympathy. Especially when they knowingly accepted the consequences of the deal.
 

Resolute

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Spongebob said:
If all the GM's were on the same page this would not be an issue. If a player said "Pay me $6 million or I walk". Then let him walk. Any other "responsible" GM is going to look at that player and laugh. Eventually he will have no other option than to take what he is given. The problem is that their are not too many responsible GM's out there. There will always be somebody stupid enough to fork up the money. They are the ones that are ruining it for the rest.

You realize you are arguing collusion, right?

There is no possible way 30 different individuals with different needs, different budgets and different goals value a player exactly the same without coming to a consensus on what that value is.

Nice to know your only solution is illegal. :shakehead
 

SJeasy

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NotJT said:
Look at it from another point of view, what if the GMs spent up to 30.6 million and no further. So you have a bunch of GMs at the league minimum, not giving out money. That is money lost by the players as well (every dollars left under the 54% is a dollar the players dont get). Are those GMs irresponsible?

Part of the CBA FAQ makes the point that the 54% works in reverse. If as an aggregate teams are below the 30.6 figure and revenues are as projected, the league must pay out to the players. The total payout from the league MUST be 54% and is corrected either way at the end of the year.

It is a new economic world for hockey GM's and we will see the business ethics and demands of this world evolve as the year passes.
 

Captain Ron

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Resolute said:
You realize you are arguing collusion, right?

There is no possible way 30 different individuals with different needs, different budgets and different goals value a player exactly the same without coming to a consensus on what that value is.

Nice to know your only solution is illegal. :shakehead


It's funny how quickly everybody forgets why we had a lockout in the first place. Players salaries were getting out of hand. How is what is going on now any different?

And to argue to reference to collusion. TSN.ca had an article 2 or 3 weeks ago where an "unnamed source" said there would be an "unwritten" cap of about $5 million on players. This was probably stated because some GM's saw how having free reign to sign guys to outrageuos contracts could cause problems real quick.
 

kdb209

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Spongebob said:
As I said before the average league payroll can only be $30.6 million. For every team that hits the salary cap it takes away $300k from every other team. What is so hard to understand about that? Right now about 4 or 5 teams are almost at the cap. That means every other team loses (figuratively speaking) between $1.2 and $1.5 million to spend on their team. If the rest of the teams don't cut back their payrolls based on the adjusted average. Then their players lose additional salary.

No, a team signing to the cap does absolutely nothing to any other teams (other than acting to drive up salaries). The 54% is a league wide number enforced at the end of the year. Every team can legally sign up to the $39M cap max, independent of what any other teams have or haven't spent. If too many teams do, though, the players get screwed with an accross the board pay cut through escrow.

And actually the league wide cap of total player costs includes the ~$2.2M per team in benefits, all the league paid bonuses, money paid to IR replacement players, and probably more, so thet average payroll before escrow has to kick in (based on the $1.7B estimate) isn't $30.6M - it's more like $28.4M or less.

I think many teams are signing contracts up to or close to the cap, fully expecting to get $3M or $4M back as an escrow rebate.
 
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