Brooks:NHL's Salary Cap was actually less

[X0ssbar]

Bettman was going around telling everyone that the cap was $42.5 million.It was not.This is the same guy who proposed the trigger offer to the NHLPA knowing that those triggers would be meet as soon as the NHL reopened their doors.The guy is a blinking clown

That's fine but do you honestly think that the PA's cap offer would really cap teams at 49 mil? I sure don't. That is why you hear from both sides that they were really a lot further apart than what the media and fans perceived.

Regardless, the season is toast and that makes both sides clowns in my book.

 

[CGG]

The proposals from both sides are negotiable regardless of what crap both sides spew to the public.

Now that we have the dirty details from the league's offer I would like to see some of the dirty details from the player's offer. We know about section 7 and upwards linkage but I'd also like to know what kinds of things didn't count against the PA's 49 mil cap offer - I would bet signing bonuses didn't.

Both the owners and the players had components in their offers that were needlessly slanted towards their favour. The upward linkage component could have been rectified with one sentence, and this probably would have worked: No increase in the cap unless and until the revenues get back up to pre-lockout numbers (i.e. $2.1 billion)

Signing bonuses, buyouts, achievement bonuses all have to count towards a cap, otherwise there's too many loopholes, and you get the NBA.

 

[FLYLine27*]

Do you not understand the concept of putting things into proposals as bargaining tools?

Um did you not read that Bettman said this was there FINAL offer??

 

[FLYLine27*]

Bettman was going around telling everyone that the cap was $42.5 million.It was not.This is the same guy who proposed the trigger offer to the NHLPA knowing that those triggers would be meet as soon as the NHL reopened their doors.The guy is a blinking clown

Im glad you finally see the light Rangerboy

 

[Munchausen]

Bettman was going around telling everyone that the cap was $42.5 million.It was not.This is the same guy who proposed the trigger offer to the NHLPA knowing that those triggers would be meet as soon as the NHL reopened their doors.The guy is a blinking clown

First of all, the cap is still 42.5M. The fact all salaries are included under any given cap number should come as no surprise. It's the other way, Bob's way, that doesn't make sense.

Second, the $75 000 AHL contract inclusion, although a bad idea, is insignificant. How many AHLers, per team, who have NHL contracts, earn $75 000+ in the minors?

 

[CGG]

IR salaries count towards the cap in every other league. NFL teams reserve $1-2 million cap space so they can bring in replacements. Unless the NHLPA wants to pay the salaries of injured players, they have to count towards the cap. Injuries are part of the game and should have an impact. It also goes to the issue of leveling the playing field and encouraging development. When a key player goes down on a small market team they call someone up from the minors. When one goes down on a large market team, they're able to trade for a player just as good, or better. I think there can be a little flexibility. Perhaps have 2 classes of IR; one temporary and the other permanant (player can't return until next season) and allow the team to exempt the salary of ONE player on permanant IR.

The problem is when 10 guys go down to injury. You can't budget $5 million in cap space just in case you need to bring in 10 mediocre guys from your farm team. But that's what Bettman is trying to do, create a cap that's actually much lower than it looks on paper.

Most teams that do develop well have their top prospects at $1 million on two-way contracts (rookie max, roughly). They will never fit under the cap if you have to bring in 5 guys, so instead you call up the much worse, much cheaper mid-level AHL guys to fill in at their $300k NHL salary due to the cap. This isn't better for anyone.

Even if you bring in 10 guys at the league minimum, that's $3 million total, so you need to stay under $39.5 million, just in case.

 

[CGG]

First of all, the cap is still 42.5M. The fact all salaries are included under any given cap number should come as no surprise. It's the other way, Bob's way, that doesn't make sense.

Second, the $75 000 AHL contract inclusion, although a bad idea, is insignificant. How many AHLers, per team, who have NHL contracts, earn $75 000+ in the minors?

Call this the "Donald Audette" rule. Montreal couldn't free up $3 million in cap space by sending Audette to Hamilton. I agree, this rule makes sense. Dykhuis and Traverse would also count towards a cap since they were on one-way contracts. Fine.

Most high-paid AHL players would be on AHL only contracts anyway, so they wouldn't count. $75,000 is normal (even high) for the AHL portion of a two-way contract, no matter how good the player is.

 

[Kestrel]

Montreal, Washington, LA have all had upwards of 10 players on injured reserve at some point in the last few seasons. I can understand everything else counting towards a cap, but injured reserve should not. How do you replace 10 guys in your lineup if you've got limited cap space? Only dress 14 players a game?

Plus, some of these weaker teams at $36 million, a guy gets hurt and they have to bring up a replacement who makes $1 million, but pay $1.5 million. This isn't good for anyone. They would bring up players based on how little they make, not how good they are.

Not quite true. I'm not saying I agree with the injury reserve counting against the salary cap, but a player with a $1 million NHL contract isn't going to cost a team $1.5 million in a callup. I BELIEVE NHL players are paid 10 months a year, but I'm not sure - but we'll use that number for argument's sake. If a player gets called up for a month, and puts the team over the luxury cap, that means he will cost the team 50k in luxury tax, as the luxury cap is not actually violated for the whole season. That's hardly as damaging as people are making it sound.

 

[Buffaloed]

The problem is when 10 guys go down to injury. You can't budget $5 million in cap space just in case you need to bring in 10 mediocre guys from your farm team. But that's what Bettman is trying to do, create a cap that's actually much lower than it looks on paper.

That's the breaks. If 10 guys go down with injuries, your team isn't going to win anything anyways. Maybe they should invest some money in a better training staff and improving the ice surface. A cap that reflects all salaries paid by the club is fair. It costs the owner real money to pay players on IR. The notion that those salaries shouldn't count circumvents the purpose of a cap.

Most teams that do develop well have their top prospects at $1 million on two-way contracts (rookie max, roughly). They will never fit under the cap if you have to bring in 5 guys, so instead you call up the much worse, much cheaper mid-level AHL guys to fill in at their $300k NHL salary due to the cap. This isn't better for anyone.

Salaries as they're applied to a cap are pro-rated. Only the salary paid while the player is called up applies. If a guy making a $1 million NHL salary is called up for 20 games, it's a $250K cap hit. If a guy making $3 million is traded for at midseason, it's a $1.5 million cap hit. Furthermore if the AHL ($60-85K) salary the NHL club had been paying the player also counts against the cap as it should, the club is only taking a $165-190K net cap charge for those 20 games. I would expect all salaries to be lower, particularly entry level ones under a new CBA. A well managed team shouldn't have much difficulty dealing with injuries in a typical season.

 

[AlexGodynyuk]

Signing bonuses, buyouts, achievement bonuses all have to count towards a cap, otherwise there's too many loopholes, and you get the NBA.

All those things count towards the cap in the NBA. The NBA has a soft cap that allows you to go over only to resign your own players which is where the NHL really should go.
Set a soft cap at $36 million. Teams can only sign FAs to the league minimum if their team payroll is over that. This lets teams like TO, Philly, NY spend all they want on their players while stopping them from going out and raiding other teams.

 

[CGG]

That's the breaks. If 10 guys go down with injuries, your team isn't going to win anything anyways. Maybe they should invest some money in a better training staff and improving the ice surface. A cap that reflects all salaries paid by the club is fair. It costs the owner real money to pay players on IR. The notion that those salaries shouldn't count circumvents the purpose of a cap.



Salaries as they're applied to a cap are pro-rated. Only the salary paid while the player is called up applies. If a guy making a $1 million NHL salary is called up for 20 games, it's a $250K cap hit. If a guy making $3 million is traded for at midseason, it's a $1.5 million cap hit. Furthermore if the AHL ($60-85K) salary the NHL club had been paying the player also counts against the cap as it should, the club is only taking a $165-190K net cap charge for those 20 games. I would expect all salaries to be lower, particularly entry level ones under a new CBA. A well managed team shouldn't have much difficulty dealing with injuries in a typical season.

Tell that to the LA Kings. "Sorry about your luck, but you have 10 guys and $25 million on the IR, so now put together a full team with the $17 million you have left, but leave a few million just in case more guys get hurt. What a wonderful way of maintaining competitive balance. Instead of complaining, what you should do is go back in time and hire a more expensive strength coach so that Jason Allison doesn't get a concussion."

Okay, so total payroll for the year can't exceed $42.5 million? Is that the only rule? If you used a crap team with a $20 million payroll for the first half of the season, can you then sign up an all-star $65 million team for the second half and playoffs? Total would be $42.5 million, is that okay?

 

[AlexGodynyuk]

The owners proposal was a joke (as was the PAs counter).
I still do not see how you can have a hard cap with guaranteed contracts and buy-outs counting against the cap.
The reason the NFL (the only other league with a hard cap) works is because of non-guaranteed contracts. This is what allows teams to re-tool on the fly.
Way too many holes in the owners proposal. Think of situations like Lindros or Bure. These guys signed at big money, get hurt, that's killing your cap for the life of the contract with no way around it.

 

[AlexGodynyuk]

Okay, so total payroll for the year can't exceed $42.5 million? Is that the only rule? If you used a crap team with a $20 million payroll for the first half of the season, can you then sign up an all-star $65 million team for the second half and playoffs? Total would be $42.5 million, is that okay?

Never thought of that. Good idea.

 

[Ola]

IR salaries count towards the cap in every other league. NFL teams reserve $1-2 million cap space so they can bring in replacements. Unless the NHLPA wants to pay the salaries of injured players, they have to count towards the cap. Injuries are part of the game and should have an impact. It also goes to the issue of leveling the playing field and encouraging development. When a key player goes down on a small market team they call someone up from the minors. When one goes down on a large market team, they're able to trade for a player just as good, or better. I think there can be a little flexibility. Perhaps have 2 classes of IR; one temporary and the other permanant (player can't return until next season) and allow the team to exempt the salary of ONE player on permanant IR.

That would never work. Lets say a team has a 6 million goalie and he pull a groin and is out for the year. They put him in cathegory 2 and replace him. What happens next year if they can't buyout players? Sure they can waive one goalie but if nobody is picked up on waivers they are stuck with three goalies ect.

Seriously there is a reason why there isn't a league in the world with a hardcap and gauranteed contracts. And with the conditions NHL had in their last offer anything more then a 25-30 million NHL roster salary would be really risky...

If the NHLPA would have accepted that offer from the NHL it would have ment serious consequences for it memebers. What team would have been willing to give a injury prone player a chance?

 

[Ola]

The owners proposal was a joke (as was the PAs counter).
I still do not see how you can have a hard cap with guaranteed contracts and buy-outs counting against the cap.
The reason the NFL (the only other league with a hard cap) works is because of non-guaranteed contracts. This is what allows teams to re-tool on the fly.
Way too many holes in the owners proposal. Think of situations like Lindros or Bure. These guys signed at big money, get hurt, that's killing your cap for the life of the contract with no way around it.

I agree with you, it makes me laugh. Go to http://wfan.com/chrismikeaudio/ and listen to Gary Bettman. Time after time he says "the only conclusion I can come up with is that the PA set us up"! Its almost to funny to be true but... Especially with his "we were honest in out attempt bla bla"...

 

[AlexGodynyuk]

That would never work. Lets say a team has a 6 million goalie and he pull a groin and is out for the year. They put him in cathegory 2 and replace him. What happens next year if they can't buyout players? Sure they can waive one goalie but if nobody is picked up on waivers they are stuck with three goalies ect.

Seriously there is a reason why there isn't a league in the world with a hardcap and gauranteed contracts. And with the conditions NHL had in their last offer anything more then a 25-30 million NHL roster salary would be really risky...

If the NHLPA would have accepted that offer from the NHL it would have ment serious consequences for it memebers. What team would have been willing to give a injury prone player a chance?

Thank you, I've been trying to say this from the beginning. The owner's have not presented a "workable" solution to this point, all their offers have had too many holes and things left unanswered (not that any of the players offers have addressed the problems facing the league either).

 

[Buffaloed]

Tell that to the LA Kings. "Sorry about your luck, but you have 10 guys and $25 million on the IR, so now put together a full team with the $17 million you have left, but leave a few million just in case more guys get hurt. What a wonderful way of maintaining competitive balance. Instead of complaining, what you should do is go back in time and hire a more expensive strength coach so that Jason Allison doesn't get a concussion."

Like I said, that's the breaks. Injuries are a part of the game. The Kings didn't wow anyone last season when there was no cap. Who were these great replacements they brought in to replace their injured players? Owners are only going to spend so much regardless of the CBA. There's alway going to be 2-3 teams that suffer an inordinate amount of injuries. It's not worth destroying the integrity and purpose of a salary cap over. One exemption for a player on permanant IR as I outlined, and exemptions for player's salaries that are being paid by insurance adequately addresses this issue.

Okay, so total payroll for the year can't exceed $42.5 million? Is that the only rule? If you used a crap team with a $20 million payroll for the first half of the season, can you then sign up an all-star $65 million team for the second half and playoffs? Total would be $42.5 million, is that okay?

The total spent on salaries for the season can't exceed $42.5 million. If there's no salary floor they could do as you propose with prorated salaries. Considering a team with a $20 million payroll wouldn't be in sniffing distance of a playoff spot at midseason, and the availability of top players during the season would be extremely limited under a cap, it strikes me as an assinine idea.

 

[Ola]

Like I said, that's the breaks. Injuries are a part of the game. The Kings didn't wow anyone last season when there was no cap. Who were these great replacements they brought in to replace their injured players? Owners are only going to spend so much regardless of the CBA. There's alway going to be 2-3 teams that suffer an inordinate amount of injuries. It's not worth destroying the integrity and purpose of a salary cap over. One exemption for a player on permanant IR as I outlined, and exemptions for player's salaries that are being paid by insurance adequately addresses this issue.

Its one thing if one season goes south because of injurys. Another if you end up having a player with a hefty salary count against your cap for 2-3 without him playing a minute because of concussion problems, right? That would have affects in the other end, it wouldn't be a "bad break" for the teams it would be a "bad break" for the players, teams wouldn't sign players to multi year contracts anymore. Teams would never give a guy like Gary Roberts a chance by offering him a decent contract. Sorry Mr. Roberts you played 14 years to get a chance to UFA but now you have a bad back so we will give you a 3 month contract...

 

[RangerBoy]

Im glad you finally see the light Rangerboy

Excuse me but the other guy is a clueless moron with no exit strategy.DUMB and DUMBER

 

[CGG]

Like I said, that's the breaks. Injuries are a part of the game. The Kings didn't wow anyone last season when there was no cap. Who were these great replacements they brought in to replace their injured players? Owners are only going to spend so much regardless of the CBA. There's alway going to be 2-3 teams that suffer an inordinate amount of injuries. It's not worth destroying the integrity and purpose of a salary cap over. One exemption for a player on permanant IR as I outlined, and exemptions for player's salaries that are being paid by insurance adequately addresses this issue.



The total spent on salaries for the season can't exceed $42.5 million. If there's no salary floor they could do as you propose with prorated salaries. Considering a team with a $20 million payroll wouldn't be in sniffing distance of a playoff spot at midseason, and the availability of top players during the season would be extremely limited under a cap, it strikes me as an assinine idea.

So long as there's some kind of wiggle room for extreme cases, whether it's insurance or long-term IR guys that don't count towards a cap.

I think the better way of doing it is just not allowing the roster to be over the cap number at any point in time. If it's a lower number but IR players don't count, then fine. But this wouldn't allow a team to load up for the playoffs. If they just go with the total figure, teams that are $10 million under a cap could literally add $40 million in salary at the trade deadline since most of that $40 million has already been paid. That ain't right.

 

[Buffaloed]

Its one thing if one season goes south because of injurys. Another if you end up having a player with a hefty salary count against your cap for 2-3 without him playing a minute because of concussion problems, right?

It's another thing if you can't be bothered to acknowledge what you quoted, so I'll repeat it:

One exemption for a player on permanant IR as I outlined, and exemptions for player's salaries that are being paid by insurance adequately addresses this issue.

Teams are required to insure their 3 highest paid players, and most insure quite a few others. Insurance covers the player's salary after he misses 20 consecutive games, unless it's a really small market team that opts for the 40 game deductible. When insurance pays the salary, the players cap space is available, until the player returns. Alternatively the team can place the player on permanant IR and has the option of exempting one player's salary on this list from their cap. There's no way a team gets stuck with an injured player's salary on their cap for 2-3 years under my proposal.

 

[AlexGodynyuk]

Why has no one from the NHL side addressed the issue of how a hard cap will work with guaranteed contracts?
Example. Ottawa is gearing up for a run to the cup. They are close to the cap. Come the offseason, Redden and Chara both go to arbitration and get raises. Now they can't fit both players under the cap. Because everyone else has guaranteed contracts, they will have to walk away from one of these 2.
In the NFL teams would cut a couple of over-priced veterans, and keep their young core intact.

 

[AM]

reply

That would never work. Lets say a team has a 6 million goalie and he pull a groin and is out for the year. They put him in cathegory 2 and replace him. What happens next year if they can't buyout players? Sure they can waive one goalie but if nobody is picked up on waivers they are stuck with three goalies ect.

Seriously there is a reason why there isn't a league in the world with a hardcap and gauranteed contracts. And with the conditions NHL had in their last offer anything more then a 25-30 million NHL roster salary would be really risky...

If the NHLPA would have accepted that offer from the NHL it would have ment serious consequences for it memebers. What team would have been willing to give a injury prone player a chance?

A team that wants to take a chance and has cap space...

What team who intends to spend up to the cap would give this guy a chance?

None...

Remember there are 30 teams in the league, not just 6.

 

[Drury_Sakic]

Looking at puting the IR contract under the cap is stupid...as the team in most cases ends up not paying a majority, if any of that players contract, the insurance company that the team uses does... So, why not make whatever part of the IR contract the TEAM is paying count towards the cap, but not what the insurance company pays? The Kings would have fallen apart under the leagues proposal unless they left cap space.. Martin Straka plus a few other deals made the season liveable for Kings fans..whithout cap forgiveness in case of long term injurys, you would leave a team open not just to sucking, but also remove fan interest and desire to go to games, thus incuring profit loss..

As for minor league contracts, I have no problem with 2 way contracts counting against the cap, but call-ups should only be made to count if the player plays over a certain number of games...

But again, all this could have been debated and counteroffered untill fair deal is done..

Both sides simply think that the other will just give them a "fair" deal, that won't happen.. you work off an unfair deal to make it fair..thats how it works when 2 sides hate each other..

 

[Chili]

Its one thing if one season goes south because of injurys. Another if you end up having a player with a hefty salary count against your cap for 2-3 without him playing a minute because of concussion problems, right?

Exactly. You have a $7 million player on the IR before the season starts? You'd already be at disadvantage missing that player and unable to go out and replace him. Don't like that one, unless there would be exemptions for players missing at least X number of games to injury(i.e. 25-40 games).