Can we talk for a second about the unfairness of the Luongo penalty.

[y2kcanucks]

Yes that's why these sorts of things usually get 'grandfathered' in, not retroactively punished. And rather severely at that.

Usually what happens in life. Especially in the absence of a CBA or any form of recourse. But some people don't understand that.

 

[iceburg]

Usually what happens in life. Especially in the absence of a CBA or any form of recourse. But some people don't understand that.

And some people don't understand that this was a negotiated point between the NHL and NHLPA and not a penalty imposed by the NHL.

 

[y2kcanucks]

And some people don't understand that this was a negotiated point between the NHL and NHLPA and not a penalty imposed by the NHL.

It was a penalty imposed by the NHL that the NHLPA agreed to have included in the CBA. It's quite confusing that they would do this, but the NHL had an agenda and the NHLPA didn't contest it.

 

[iceburg]

It was a penalty imposed by the NHL that the NHLPA agreed to have included in the CBA. It's quite confusing that they would do this, but the NHL had an agenda and the NHLPA didn't contest it.

The NHLPA accepted the terms in negotiations because they knew it was a loophole that violated the spirit of the original CBA and it would be a hard argument to win and keep a straight face doing so.

 

[y2kcanucks]

The NHLPA accepted the terms in negotiations because they knew it was a loophole that violated the spirit of the original CBA and it would be a hard argument to win and keep a straight face doing so.

Wrong.

They accepted the terms in negotiations because this was "the hill that [the NHL] will die on" and they had no other choice.

 

[iceburg]

Wrong.

They accepted the terms in negotiations because this was "the hill that [the NHL] will die on" and they had no other choice.

There is always a choice in negotiations....otherwise it wouldn't be call "negotiations". The "hill that we will die on" was simply rhetoric. There is no such thing. As an extreme example, if the NHLPA said they would accept a $20M salary cap then the league would have easily given up that hill to die on.

 

[y2kcanucks]

There is always a choice in negotiations....otherwise it wouldn't be call "negotiations". The "hill that we will die on" was simply rhetoric. There is no such thing. As an extreme example, if the NHLPA said they would accept a $20M salary cap then the league would have easily given up that hill to die on.

 

[Proto]

The NHLPA accepted it because it won't have much of an affect on player salaries. Sure, a few teams will carry cap recapture penalties that will preclude them from spending to the ceiling, but that will be overridden by whatever other salary gains the NHLPA made in negotiations/teams using the LTIR to get around it when necessary. It's a drop in the bucket for the players. The NHLPA managed to keep the cap going up and didn't really suffer any salary rollbacks to speak of, outside of a static cap situation for a couple years. That's a big win for Fehr and his team.

Besides, the length of some of these deals could easily allow the penalties to be revisited in another 3-4 years when Brian Burke retires

 

[604]

Yet the NHL and very likely Bill Daly APPROVED the contract that Gillis and the Canucks submit. When a contract went to far past the warning, as it did with Kovalchuk, the Devils were rejected and fined a first round pick (which they appealed and won because of course they did).

Using this insane ruling to bash Gillis is idiotic. In a league where the Philadelphia Flyers get to avoid paying a cap hit for Chris Pronger for YEARS by not retiring and the NHL laughs in the face of their rule and hires him...you gotta hope that if Lu gives it a solid run and just retires at age 40 or 41 due to injuries or fatigue that someone makes an equity ruling.

The worst part is due to the recapture, the Canucks have already paid the penalty which was a huge decrease in Luongo's trade value, which is pretty much what did Gillis in.

 

[racerjoe]

Actually many GM's were supportive of this - as noted in the previous article I cited. Again with the legality - it's a CBA, they can change it however they want. Legal bearing, outside of contractual law in the general sense, means sweet **** all.

The fact that you keep bringing this up, and seem so bothered by this, indicates a gross misunderstanding on your behalf of this issue.

You realize law changes all the time too right? It's what happens. "Rules" will always change.

This is a legal document. If it is broken, it would go to you guessed it a court of law.

Of course they had to approve it, that doesn't mean they wanted to, or that they weren't going to look for ways to overturn it.

I think you are mistaking approve in the contractually binding sense, or being obliged to do something, vs approve as in positively ratify or want to do something.

They didn't have to approve it, and we know this with the Kovy deal that has been brought up a few times in this very thread. They had the chance to punish it the moment it was subbmitted to the league, they chose not to. Thus they approved it.

 

[iceburg]

Good counterpoint. Sorry, but you're just wrong on this one.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Good counterpoint. Sorry, but you're just wrong on this one.

No, I'm not wrong in this one. The NHLPA's biggest issue was the % of revenues that they would receive. The NHL tried bullying them as they did in 05, and once again it more or less worked. The NHL pretty much got everything they wanted.

 

[iceburg]

No, I'm not wrong in this one. The NHLPA's biggest issue was the % of revenues that they would receive. The NHL tried bullying them as they did in 05, and once again it more or less worked. The NHL pretty much got everything they wanted.

Because the NHL has more leverage in negotiations. The NHLPA is in way better shape than under Eagleson but they still have to deal with the reality that players are under tremendous pressure to agree to terms because their careers are relatively short. It's just the way it is....but they get a whole lot more than the average worker in multibillion $ corporations because they are willing to use what leverage they have. Again, this is simply negotiations and the specifics are unique to the NHL. It isn't a parameter they had to agree to, it was agreed to because other parameters were more important to them.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Because the NHL has more leverage in negotiations. The NHLPA is in way better shape than under Eagleson but they still have to deal with the reality that players are under tremendous pressure to agree to terms because their careers are relatively short. It's just the way it is....but they get a whole lot more than the average worker in multibillion $ corporations because they are willing to use what leverage they have. Again, this is simply negotiations and the specifics are unique to the NHL. It isn't a parameter they had to agree to, it was agreed to because other parameters were more important to them.

Still doesn't change the fact that it's a very strange thing to do, and in almost anywhere else these issues would be grandfathered. Never have I seen something that was approved and legal end up being penalized several years after the fact.

 

[iceburg]

Still doesn't change the fact that it's a very strange thing to do, and in almost anywhere else these issues would be grandfathered. Never have I seen something that was approved and legal end up being penalized several years after the fact.

I actually agree that it was a strange thing to do, and, to a certain extent, leaves a bad taste. My point is just that it was part of negotiations that the NHLPA could have pushed back on more strongly if they really felt it was that important.

 

[Jyrki21]

I think you are mistaking approve in the contractually binding sense, or being obliged to do something, vs approve as in positively ratify or want to do something.

No, every deal (trade, contract, whatever) is famously subject to league approval. They always have to say "yes" for it to be registered at all, otherwise no deal. There is no presumption of validity until they block it, like some kind of enforcement agency.

 

[RandV]

I actually agree that it was a strange thing to do, and, to a certain extent, leaves a bad taste. My point is just that it was part of negotiations that the NHLPA could have pushed back on more strongly if they really felt it was that important.

Personally I've always felt it was in the NHLPA's best interest to do away with this loophole. By the time these big contracts play out it will be a huge haul for the few individual players that received them, but the rest of the PA is going to be left holding the bag for two reasons: cost certainty and escrow.

Think about it for a minute. The loophole creates an excess of salary vs cap hit allowing teams to pay more in actual dollars than the allowed salary cap, but any excess the individual player makes the burden is passed onto the rest of the players through escrow. This should balance out at the very end of the long term contract where now you have a higher cap hit vs actual salary so the escrow will go back to the players... but guess what that guy just retired early! His balancing years are no longer on the books.

In a way it's sort of like privatizing profit and socializing cost. I mean I'm only speculating here but I would think for the sake of negotiation it's in the PA's best interest to pretend they want it so they can extract some value from the NHL when they give it up, but I doubt it was really a big concern for them. So more like a 'hey we have this thing we don't really need but they really want, let's pretend we really need it' thing.

 

[Street Hawk]

It was a penalty imposed by the NHL that the NHLPA agreed to have included in the CBA. It's quite confusing that they would do this, but the NHL had an agenda and the NHLPA didn't contest it.

NHLPA has to balance impact to the overall association.

How many of these back diving deals were signed? I will only include deals where the player would turn at least 38 by the end of the contract, thus will leave out Mike Richards 12 year deal he signed after his ELC and Jeff Carter's 10 year deal after his bridge contract. Ovechkin and Backstrom signed deals after their ELC that take them to mid and early 30's respectively.

Going division by division
Pacific - None left
Central - Hossa and Keith (though both appear to be physically capable of playing to the end of their deals. Keith would only be maybe 38 when his deal expires, so the Hawks got a great deal for him)
Parise and Suter with Minnesota (Going to cost the Wild $6 million each in dead cap space if they retire early)
Weber - RFA deal matched from Philly
North - Erhroff - got the compliance buyout so no impact on Buffalo
Franzen and Zetterberg - Franzen on LTIR due to concussions. Zetterberg is definitely slowing down.
Savard - LTIR for Boston, and subsequently traded
Atlantic - B. Richards - compliance buyout from NY Rangers, so no impact to them
Kovalchuk - penalty paid by the Devils, first team to incur the recapture penalties. But, it is a six figure yearly penalty
Luongo - penalty will mostly be born by the Canucks. Panthers will not mind the "dead cap space" charges since their are not a ceiling team.
Pronger/Bryz- Pronger on LTIR and his rights were traded out of Philly. Bryz got the compliance buyout
Crosby - would be a $5 million plus/yr penalty should he retire early

No reason for the PA to argue too hard for maybe 15 players. PA was able to get a compliance buyout clause, so the Rangers, Flyers,and Sabres exercised them and thus avoided the penalties.

Devils eating a small amount.

Time will tell how much impact Chicago, Vancouver, Nashville, Detroit, Pittsburgh will incur when these players retire.

One factor that impacted the salary cap was when teams like Chicago with Huet and the Capitals with Nylander were allowed to bury these players either in Europe. Plus teams did that by sending players to the AHL (Rangers and Redden).

No re-capture on those. Canucks did that too, like with Reinprecht.

 

[VanJack]

I don't understand....I thought the arrangements on Luongo's contract, including the deferred cap-hit, were negotiated between Florida and the Cancuks, and were part of the Markstrom-Mathias deal?...did the NHL even have anything to say about it, since they'd already ruled the original contact was legal?

 

[Street Hawk]

I don't understand....I thought the arrangements on Luongo's contract, including the deferred cap-hit, were negotiated between Florida and the Cancuks, and were part of the Markstrom-Mathias deal?...did the NHL even have anything to say about it, since they'd already ruled the original contact was legal?

It is a bit confusing.

The Luongo trade back to FLA included the Canucks eating $800K of salary per season.

Because the Panthers are also benefiting from a lower cap hit right now, $6.7 million in salary versus $5.3 million in cap space, they are also subject to recapture.

How that all works out, is kind of difficult to figure out. Not sure if that eating of the $800K now helps the Canucks if Lu retires early.

Flyers have no re-capture penalties because they dealt Richards prior to the current CBA.

 

[thepuckmonster]

IDK when you sign a risky contract you have to deal with the consequences.

The only issue I have with the situation is that we didn't utilize the cap benefit to get a cup. Chicago could probably give less than 2 ****s about the Hossa penalty because they won.

Had we won in 2011 I wouldn't care either but alas we didn't.

 

[Hansen]

Honestly I think if Lu retires early nothing will happen. The league tries to impose these rules or penalties but always gives in at the last second. Look at the deal with the Kovalchuk contract and how NJ had to give up a first, they held out until the last possible year and then the league even granted the damn thing back to them.

Worst case Lu goes on LTIR for the rest of his contract, which is another frequently abused loophole that the league has promoted, even going so far as to grant a player under team payroll, Chris Pronger, to take a job in league front office while still having such affiliations. I won't even address the potential issues of conflict of interest presented, varying upon the role granted

 

[deckercky]

Honestly I think if Lu retires early nothing will happen. The league tries to impose these rules or penalties but always gives in at the last second. Look at the deal with the Kovalchuk contract and how NJ had to give up a first, they held out until the last possible year and then the league even granted the damn thing back to them.

Worst case Lu goes on LTIR for the rest of his contract, which is another frequently abused loophole that the league has promoted, even going so far as to grant a player under team payroll, Chris Pronger, to take a job in league front office while still having such affiliations. I won't even address the potential issues of conflict of interest presented, varying upon the role granted

LA and NJ already are dealing with recapture penalties...

 

[Hit the post]

Had we won in 2011 I wouldn't care either but alas we didn't.

Got to within one game of taking the prize....IMHO worth taking the chance. It just didn't work out. (not saying Gillis didn't bungle handling the goaltending situation afterwards though).

 

[iceburg]

Personally I've always felt it was in the NHLPA's best interest to do away with this loophole. By the time these big contracts play out it will be a huge haul for the few individual players that received them, but the rest of the PA is going to be left holding the bag for two reasons: cost certainty and escrow.

Think about it for a minute. The loophole creates an excess of salary vs cap hit allowing teams to pay more in actual dollars than the allowed salary cap, but any excess the individual player makes the burden is passed onto the rest of the players through escrow. This should balance out at the very end of the long term contract where now you have a higher cap hit vs actual salary so the escrow will go back to the players... but guess what that guy just retired early! His balancing years are no longer on the books.

In a way it's sort of like privatizing profit and socializing cost. I mean I'm only speculating here but I would think for the sake of negotiation it's in the PA's best interest to pretend they want it so they can extract some value from the NHL when they give it up, but I doubt it was really a big concern for them. So more like a 'hey we have this thing we don't really need but they really want, let's pretend we really need it' thing.

Good point about the escrow in the early years. In the later year, however, if the salary isn't on the books wouldn't any overage be reduced and amounts retained from escrow reduced?...not sure how this works exactly.