15 years since the NHL cancelled the 04/05 Season

[daver]

That the Stanley Cup wasn't awarded that year was a travesty. Should have been some sort of competition to declare a winner as the NHL could not get it's shit together.

 

[EvilDead]

I remember being 10 when the announcement was official that the season was cancelled. I was heartbroken and made me for a brief while not like hockey, not gonna lie.

 

[Brodeur]

Dumb question: What happened to players contracts that were set to expire in after the 04-05 season. Were they pushed back until the end of the 05-06 season? Did the contracts still expire? Also, did players still get paid?

Players weren't being paid by the teams during the lockout. Found this snippet on the NHLPA player fund: Ray sues NHLPA for lockout compensation

In the lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court in Buffalo, Ray is seeking to receive full compensation after the NHLPA began paying its players up to $10,000 a month last month.

Ray is a 15-year NHL veteran who is an unrestricted free agent after finishing last season with Ottawa. He said he was notified early last month that an NHLPA committee ruled that he wasn't eligible for compensation.

The players with contracts for 2004-05 had those years expire. Up until September 2004, it was business as usual (sorta). Scott Niedermayer and the Devils went to arbitration and he got a 1 year deal for 7 million: https://nypost.com/2004/08/14/niedermayer-to-receive-7m/

Niedermayer became a UFA after the lockout was lifted in July 2005.

Part of the resolution was a 24% rollback on any existing deals that were signed prior to 2005. So that took a chunk from guys like Sergei Fedorov who signed multiyear deals in 2003.

 

[Big Phil]

It is a stain on this league even to this day and will always be a stain on the legacies of Bettman, Goodenow, Daly, Saskin and others. Trevor Linden made it possible to actually loathe him since all we were doing was seeing clips of him and Goodenow walking from meeting to meeting. No one had a solution for the good of the game, they even ignored a public letter Bobby Orr wrote to come to terms for a deal. If people think this was a good thing in the long term just remember the same thing happened 8 years later for half a season and the same thing will happen in 2022 for who knows how long.

I never liked Bryan McCabe after this either ("We'll sit out the rest of our lives before we agree to a cap")

Couldn't stand the owners either. I have never watched so many "chick flicks" in my life during the 2004-'05 season. Any other fellas with me on this one? Not that my wife isn't a hockey fan too, but without it all of the sudden there were more movies to watch, and not always good ones. I saw Titanic for the first time in my life during the lockout. So I guess that was pretty good.

Yeah, was just utterly disgusted with what both sides were doing to our game, and still are, and still will. Nothing has changed either.

 

[c9777666]

It was tough to go nearly an entire year with no NHL hockey, but in retrospect, the NHL had been such a stagnant game for years that needed a shakeup- boring on-ice play (decreasing offensive numbers- in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004, not one player reached 100 points) and salary cap instability (at one point in 2004, the Rangers had a $79 million payroll).

Losing a whole year was ridiculous, but I don't know if we would have been better off if we had another run of the mill year with ties and boring on-ice play.

What ultimately happened? Team payrolls are not as ridiculous as they once were and necessary rule changes were made (shootouts, clamping down on clutching/grabbing, getting rid of two line pass rule, etc.)

 

[quoipourquoi]

I watched so many Plymouth Whalers games. Obviously I was following the wrong OHL team, because when I think 2004-05, I think London Knights.

But there was a good few years after where I would get excited when one of the Whalers would land in the NHL.

 

[Pominville Knows]

For me the lockout was a great thing. The Frölunda Indians came to win the championship with Alfredsson breaking the all-time seasonal playoff goal record, and we also had names like Påhlsson, Sami Salo, Christian Bäckman and Axelsson. Lundqvist was also in his last year here and dominated.
We beat Färjestad in the final who had Chara, Souray and Gerber.

 

[CharlestownChiefsESC]

It is a stain on this league even to this day and will always be a stain on the legacies of Bettman, Goodenow, Daly, Saskin and others. Trevor Linden made it possible to actually loathe him since all we were doing was seeing clips of him and Goodenow walking from meeting to meeting. No one had a solution for the good of the game, they even ignored a public letter Bobby Orr wrote to come to terms for a deal. If people think this was a good thing in the long term just remember the same thing happened 8 years later for half a season and the same thing will happen in 2022 for who knows how long.

I never liked Bryan McCabe after this either ("We'll sit out the rest of our lives before we agree to a cap")

Couldn't stand the owners either. I have never watched so many "chick flicks" in my life during the 2004-'05 season. Any other fellas with me on this one? Not that my wife isn't a hockey fan too, but without it all of the sudden there were more movies to watch, and not always good ones. I saw Titanic for the first time in my life during the lockout. So I guess that was pretty good.

Yeah, was just utterly disgusted with what both sides were doing to our game, and still are, and still will. Nothing has changed either.

Was a terrible year as a 16-17 year old travel hockey player I figured oh well I ll worry about my travel and high school games. Wrong 3 games in I broke my abkle had to have reconstructive surgery and my season as a player was effectively over. Like you said I never watched so many movies in my life that year. Growing up in the NY/North-Central NJ area there wasn't much to get your fix. Every now and then MSG would show Hartford Wolfpack games and you'd see a college game on every weekend too but that was it. I also did follow the Trenton Titans ECHL team, who actually won the Kelly Cup that year, but still it was terrible. I even remember saying when they locked out oh well the Rangers are gonna be historically bad so Id rather not watch then watch em be bad. Until the dead of winter rolled around and I actually missed the losses. I wish I was in a Canadian junior town or in Europe that year. At least you had seasons with players who normally wouldnt be there. I still think had they played that year Crosby wouldn't have been in Pittsburgh, I really think he may have been in NY in Ranger blue.

 

[Big Phil]

Was a terrible year as a 16-17 year old travel hockey player I figured oh well I ll worry about my travel and high school games. Wrong 3 games in I broke my abkle had to have reconstructive surgery and my season as a player was effectively over. Like you said I never watched so many movies in my life that year. Growing up in the NY/North-Central NJ area there wasn't much to get your fix. Every now and then MSG would show Hartford Wolfpack games and you'd see a college game on every weekend too but that was it. I also did follow the Trenton Titans ECHL team, who actually won the Kelly Cup that year, but still it was terrible. I even remember saying when they locked out oh well the Rangers are gonna be historically bad so Id rather not watch then watch em be bad. Until the dead of winter rolled around and I actually missed the losses. I wish I was in a Canadian junior town or in Europe that year. At least you had seasons with players who normally wouldnt be there. I still think had they played that year Crosby wouldn't have been in Pittsburgh, I really think he may have been in NY in Ranger blue.

The 2005 World Juniors is the consolation prize for a cancelled NHL season. This is without a doubt the best WJC team in history. Beating Slovakia 7-3 was perhaps their weakest game. Unreal. Plus it focused on Crosby's season a lot more in the QMJHL and the London Knights that year were historically elite. But all of that could exist and we still have the NHL (minus the stacked WJC team). Rule changes, the removal of stubbornness on both sides and just an overall respect of the history of the game could have all happened without a cancelled season. It enraged me.

 

[The Panther]

Having an entire season wiped out is the ultimate stain on the pro-sport and the League in general, and it should have spelled the end not only of Goodenow but Bettman as well. Just utter insanity to piss away those tens of millions of dollars of revenue (not to mention pissing off hundreds of thousands of fans). Mass incompetence.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

It is a stain on this league even to this day and will always be a stain on the legacies of Bettman, Goodenow, Daly, Saskin and others. Trevor Linden made it possible to actually loathe him since all we were doing was seeing clips of him and Goodenow walking from meeting to meeting. No one had a solution for the good of the game, they even ignored a public letter Bobby Orr wrote to come to terms for a deal. If people think this was a good thing in the long term just remember the same thing happened 8 years later for half a season and the same thing will happen in 2022 for who knows how long.

I never liked Bryan McCabe after this either ("We'll sit out the rest of our lives before we agree to a cap")

Couldn't stand the owners either. I have never watched so many "chick flicks" in my life during the 2004-'05 season. Any other fellas with me on this one? Not that my wife isn't a hockey fan too, but without it all of the sudden there were more movies to watch, and not always good ones. I saw Titanic for the first time in my life during the lockout. So I guess that was pretty good.

Yeah, was just utterly disgusted with what both sides were doing to our game, and still are, and still will. Nothing has changed either.

Having an entire season wiped out is the ultimate stain on the pro-sport and the League in general, and it should have spelled the end not only of Goodenow but Bettman as well. Just utter insanity to piss away those tens of millions of dollars of revenue (not to mention pissing off hundreds of thousands of fans). Mass incompetence.

Truth be told, losing 2005 is not the end of the world in my eyes if it was what it took to get a cap in place. I still think the hard cap is unnecessary and does more to hurt the league than help it, but if the owners will not play ball without it, what can ya do.

But 2012-13? absolutely inexcusable that there was any stoppage after losing a full year, let alone one to browbeat the players into rolling back contracts that were signed days before in good faith.

 

[Big Phil]

Truth be told, losing 2005 is not the end of the world in my eyes if it was what it took to get a cap in place. I still think the hard cap is unnecessary and does more to hurt the league than help it, but if the owners will not play ball without it, what can ya do.

But 2012-13? absolutely inexcusable that there was any stoppage after losing a full year, let alone one to browbeat the players into rolling back contracts that were signed days before in good faith.

I just think it was done in vain. Prior to 2005 there were a ton of things wrong with the game that didn't need an entire cancelled season to cure. The clutching and grabbing for sure, there was actually no "tag up" rule with offsides which if you remember killed the flow of the game a lot because if a player was over the blue line when a shoot-in happened it was blown dead immediately with no chance of him touching up. Goalie equipment was bloated and it took until just a couple of years ago for them to finally fix it and there were teams who just simply were never going to win the Cup regardless because they never had the money to keep players.

Since then we've sort of gone too far the other way. We now have gone extreme with the cap to the point where there is TOO much parity. We got rid of clutching and grabbing, which was good, but it took away too much physicality and rivalries seemed to just drop like a stone after that. We are still in a situation where GMs are overpaying players and players and their agents are demanding way too much money for things. And in 2022 we are in for another lockout again despite losing a year and a half of NHL hockey in the last 15 years. So what exactly did we accomplish? Baseball at least got the labour peace thing right. After 9 work stoppages from 1972 to 1994 with 1981 and 1994 being the big ones they haven't had one in 26 years. NFL since 1987, NBA is the closest to hockey in that they have had a couple in the last 20 years. So what have both sides learned? Nothing. There will still be bickering over things in 2022 that should be solved and dealt with now before we lose 2022-'23 and a rookie like Shane Wright (if he turns out like many think) won't play right away. Or McDavid loses a prime year. It is going to happen, because the owners and the players are too dumb to not let it happen again.

Here is a question to ponder. Do you trust Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr to come together and lead a movement to do what is best for the game? Neither do I.

 

[The Panther]

I just think it was done in vain. Prior to 2005 there were a ton of things wrong with the game that didn't need an entire cancelled season to cure. The clutching and grabbing for sure, there was actually no "tag up" rule with offsides which if you remember killed the flow of the game a lot because if a player was over the blue line when a shoot-in happened it was blown dead immediately with no chance of him touching up. Goalie equipment was bloated and it took until just a couple of years ago for them to finally fix it and there were teams who just simply were never going to win the Cup regardless because they never had the money to keep players.

Since then we've sort of gone too far the other way. We now have gone extreme with the cap to the point where there is TOO much parity. We got rid of clutching and grabbing, which was good, but it took away too much physicality and rivalries seemed to just drop like a stone after that. We are still in a situation where GMs are overpaying players and players and their agents are demanding way too much money for things. And in 2022 we are in for another lockout again despite losing a year and a half of NHL hockey in the last 15 years. So what exactly did we accomplish? Baseball at least got the labour peace thing right. After 9 work stoppages from 1972 to 1994 with 1981 and 1994 being the big ones they haven't had one in 26 years. NFL since 1987, NBA is the closest to hockey in that they have had a couple in the last 20 years. So what have both sides learned? Nothing. There will still be bickering over things in 2022 that should be solved and dealt with now before we lose 2022-'23 and a rookie like Shane Wright (if he turns out like many think) won't play right away. Or McDavid loses a prime year. It is going to happen, because the owners and the players are too dumb to not let it happen again.

Here is a question to ponder. Do you trust Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr to come together and lead a movement to do what is best for the game? Neither do I.

This post encapsulates my feelings exactly.

So, okay, some people are going to argue that Bettman & then his cronies were hired expressly to break the Union's stance on a no-salary cap League, and that Goodenow was appointed to oppose that, and accordingly there was inevitably going to be a lost season or so (I don't buy that, because both sides should have negotiated in earnest earlier, but theoretically...). So, okay, you could argue that way. Just like 1994 in MLB. But, after that...? There was another 1/2 season lost in 2012-13, and there will probably be another in two years. That means, everyone in charge has abysmally failed. You are granted, at most, one chance to cost tens of millions of dollars' damage to get something right... not three or four or five chances.

 

[The Andrew Peeke Fan]

The Bruins came out of that lockout with like no NHL roster. They signed Scatchard, Zhamnov, Leetch, Isbister. Isbister was meant to replace Knuble. What a year. I got to watch Bergeron play on a line with future Blues legend Brad Boyes in Providence that season; they were an 8-seed that went to the conf. final.

 

[HisIceness]

That the Stanley Cup wasn't awarded that year was a travesty. Should have been some sort of competition to declare a winner as the NHL could not get it's shit together.

I remember some popular blogger at the time who was a major hockey fan bought NHL 05, did a simulated season, and wrote about it. IIRC he said the Finals was a 2003 rematch between the Ducks and Devils, with the Devils again winning in 7. Seems legit I suppose.

I did the same thing and somehow got the Stars and Rangers, with the Stars winning in 6. Rangers were the 'cinderella' team as a 6 or 7 seed. Stars were 2nd in the West behind Detroit.