Proposal: Creative ways to shed Loui Eriksson contract

[Johnsie19]

The NHL was investigating the Hossa contract as potential cap circumvention in July of 2009. NHL looking into Marian Hossa's 12-year contract with Blackhawks

This was a couple months before Luongo’s circumvention contract was signed in September of 2009. I don’t know the precise date the NHL sent official memos to teams warning them, but it had clearly happened before Kovalchuk in July 2010. Kovalchuk contract latest example of CBA loophole; Averages $583,000 last 6 years

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has warned teams to stop constructing these type of contracts, yet Devils GM Lou Lamoriello, who sat in the room next to Bettman and helped draft this current CBA five years ago, took this loophole to another level. At least the other contracts are masked a tiny bit.

The NHL treated the Luongo contract the same way as Hossa—the teams were informed the league was tentatively approving them, but reserved the right to continue investigating cap circumvention with potential penalties including voiding contracts, fines and forfeited draft picks.

Following the NHL’s arbitration win in voiding the Kovalchuk contract as cap circumvention the PA cut a deal with the NHL. The PA agreed to new contract limits and the NHL in return agreed not to pursue the older cap circumvention contracts like Hossa and Luongo.


I don’t know if a formal memo was sent out before September 2009, or after the Luongo signing. Either way, the NHL had clearly signaled the Hossa deal was problematic before Luongo signed. I would hope by this point GM Mike Gillis was smart enough to know the NHL had an issue with these contracts before signing Luongo to one.

Investigating the Hossa deal and handing out no punishment isn't really suggesting it was circumvention though. The deal went through, if they didn't like it they could have sent it back like they did with Kovalchuk, which was a much more egregious deal. In 2009 Dwayne Roloson was 40 yrs old and a starting goalie, go back a couple yrs to 06/07 Dominik Hasek was 42 and Ed Belfour was 41, both were starting goalies, so it wasn't too much of a stretch to think Luongo could still be playing given how talented he was.

The other thing the makes the penalty completely unfair is that no other team had to pay. They simply LTIR'd their players and it never affected their cap. Luongo took a job with the Panthers front office upon retiring further complicating things.

To punish one team, all these yrs later for a deal that was probably the most legit of the bunch isn't fair.

 

[Johnsie19]

Did the Islanders pay out Dipietro’s contract? Here’s a hint, they did. There’s your example. Provide any examples of teams that benefitted from a situation like Luongo and didn’t pay for it, I’ll wait.

Blackhawks Hossa deal, he became "allergic to hockey gear" and went on LTIR for all his down yrs. You have to remember also the NHL goalies were playing into their 40s regularly at the time.

The point about Dipietro is these deals weren't slam dunk cap circumventions, they were hugely risky venture for the team's, case in point the Dipietro contract.

 

[mouser]

Investigating the Hossa deal and handing out no punishment isn't really suggesting it was circumvention though. The deal went through, if they didn't like it they could have sent it back like they did with Kovalchuk, which was a much more egregious deal. In 2009 Dwayne Roloson was 40 yrs old and a starting goalie, go back a couple yrs to 06/07 Dominik Hasek was 42 and Ed Belfour was 41, both were starting goalies, so it wasn't too much of a stretch to think Luongo could still be playing given how talented he was.

The other thing the makes the penalty completely unfair is that no other team had to pay. They simply LTIR'd their players and it never affected their cap. Luongo took a job with the Panthers front office upon retiring further complicating things.

To punish one team, all these yrs later for a deal that was probably the most legit of the bunch isn't fair.

The NHL didn't close their Hossa investigation until more then a year after the Luongo signing. They closed it the same day they closed the Luongo one after the PA agreement following the Kovalchuk arbitration.

You do know four different teams--including Vancouver--have received Cap Recapture penalties?

 

[Bizzare]

The NHL didn't close their Hossa investigation until more then a year after the Luongo signing. They closed it the same day they closed the Luongo one after the PA agreement following the Kovalchuk arbitration.

You do know four different teams--including Vancouver--have received Cap Recapture penalties?

I know Mike Richards, what are the other examples?

I see the Devils also pay 250k per year *yawn*

 

[mouser]

I know Mike Richards, what are the other examples?

I see the Devils also pay 250k per year *yawn*

New Jersey, Los Angeles, Florida and Vancouver all got Recapture penalties.

 

[StephenPeat]

Blackhawks Hossa deal, he became "allergic to hockey gear" and went on LTIR for all his down yrs. You have to remember also the NHL goalies were playing into their 40s regularly at the time.

The point about Dipietro is these deals weren't slam dunk cap circumventions, they were hugely risky venture for the team's, case in point the Dipietro contract.

If they were so risky and even had the appearance of Cap Circumvention (which any and every one knew was Cap Circumvention so stop deluding yourself) why would the Canucks take such a risk? Oh so they could pay a veteran player a much Lower AAV than he was factually being paid. The Canucks took the risk and it blew up in their faces. If the Canucks had never had the intention of circumventing the Cap they wouldn’t have had to have paid for it in the end.

 

[DFF]

Only creative thing you can do is loser for loser...aka Neal for lucic

 

[Bizzare]

If they were so risky and even had the appearance of Cap Circumvention (which any and every one knew was Cap Circumvention so stop deluding yourself) why would the Canucks take such a risk? Oh so they could pay a veteran player a much Lower AAV than he was factually being paid. The Canucks took the risk and it blew up in their faces. If the Canucks had never had the intention of circumventing the Cap they wouldn’t have had to have paid for it in the end.

Glad to see you avoided my latest response to you after realizing you couldn’t read.

The Canucks are paying for it yes, but Luongo retired because of injuries. If the Panthers wanted him on LTIR he would be, instead they gave him a job in their office and get to keep his caphit.

It is what it is, it’s just comical to see teams “circumvent” the cap a second time with the same contract and get no punishment for it.

 

[Johnsie19]

If they were so risky and even had the appearance of Cap Circumvention (which any and every one knew was Cap Circumvention so stop deluding yourself) why would the Canucks take such a risk? Oh so they could pay a veteran player a much Lower AAV than he was factually being paid. The Canucks took the risk and it blew up in their faces. If the Canucks had never had the intention of circumventing the Cap they wouldn’t have had to have paid for it in the end.

It was a way to save cap no doubt. Why wasn't it done more? Not because team's knew it was cap circumvention and were going to get punished later but because it was a huge outlay of money and only a few teams and with the right player could even try it. It was dumb luck that all 30 teams didn't sign a similar deal. Stop pretending this was some silly deal everyone knew was circumvention and were expecting the league to come down retroactively on. As I mention before it wasn't unreasonable to think Luongo would play till 42 considering numerous goalies had played into their 40s at the time. The deal worked out and Lu was a good player for almost all of that contract. Somehow he was cut because he had bad hips and given a job in the front office for Florida. Do you think they'd have done that if the recapture was going to go on them? clearly not. That another reason it is completely unfair.

 

[Johnsie19]

The NHL didn't close their Hossa investigation until more then a year after the Luongo signing. They closed it the same day they closed the Luongo one after the PA agreement following the Kovalchuk arbitration.

You do know four different teams--including Vancouver--have received Cap Recapture penalties?

I did not know that. Which deals were they on?

Still I keep my point that it was not fair to change the rules retroactively and then let most of them off the hook.

 

[mouser]

I did not know that. Which deals were they on?

Still I keep my point that it was not fair to change the rules retroactively and then let most of them off the hook.

Florida - Luongo
Los Angeles - Mike Richards
New Jersey - Kovalchuk
Vancouver - Luongo

 

[Johnsie19]

Florida - Luongo
Los Angeles - Mike Richards
New Jersey - Kovalchuk
Vancouver - Luongo

Richards was a unique situation and the recapture is hardly problematic at 250k.
Kovalchuk contract always seemed unrealistic.
So ya they are punishing the Lu deal which actually made sense and was legal at the time. It's just tom foolery from the league.

 

[mouser]

Richards was a unique situation and the recapture is hardly problematic at 250k.
Kovalchuk contract always seemed unrealistic.
So ya they are punishing the Lu deal which actually made sense and was legal at the time. It's just tom foolery from the league.

Richards recapture was $6.6m spread over 5 years.

Either way, the amount each team was penalized is beside the point. The NHL didn't assign penalty $'s based on how egregious they thought the contract was. There was a simple formula to calculate the penalty based on the contract.

 

[SI]

I believe the angle here maybe to enter the season without a top 6 upgrade - play out contracts Sutter, Baertschi, and LE.

Sutter, Ferland, and Baertschi have an injury history making them susceptible to an injury during the season that could take them to LTIR.

In that case, Canucks could be active at the trade deadline, which could be a buyer’s market (which works to their advantage).

this may give Jake one more shot to play top 6 minutes with boys like Kole Lind and Adam Gaudette (Sutter moving to C) waiting in the Wings as internal options or a top 6 at the deadline, like Kyle Palmieri or Dadanov

1-2 more bottom pair d to sign at league minimum and roll with that

 

[North Cole]

I thought it said shred. I was think a wood chipper would be creative... for the contract of course...

 

[Djp]

I know Mike Richards, what are the other examples?

I see the Devils also pay 250k per year *yawn*

Richards was a unique situation and the recapture is hardly problematic at 250k.
Kovalchuk contract always seemed unrealistic.
So ya they are punishing the Lu deal which actually made sense and was legal at the time. It's just tom foolery from the league.

There are a few other recaptures out there.....

Shea Weber
Jeff Carter
Parisr
Suter

Come to mind

 

[Bizzare]

There are a few other recaptures out there.....

Shea Weber
Jeff Carter
Parisr
Suter

Come to mind

Yup! We’ll see how many of those circumvent the cap and become allergic to their equipment etc. With no punishment of course.

 

[CascadiaPuck]

Richards recapture was $6.6m spread over 5 years.

Either way, the amount each team was penalized is beside the point. The NHL didn't assign penalty $'s based on how egregious they thought the contract was. There was a simple formula to calculate the penalty based on the contract.

The simple formula was pretty messed up though. I mean, the closer the player came to fulfilling the whole contract, the bigger the penalty.

 

[FerrisRox]

You asked for an example, I provided one...

Actually, all you did was prove that you don't understand how LTIR or insured contracts work by citing a silly conspiracy theory.

 

[mouser]

The simple formula was pretty messed up though. I mean, the closer the player came to fulfilling the whole contract, the bigger the penalty.

I agree with you partially—the formula lends itself to big cap penalties at the end. At the same time, the entire reason teams were tacking on phantom years at the end of the retirement contracts neither team or player expected to ever play was to reduce the AAV for a cap advantage that was exploited for years and years after the contract was signed.

Vancouver should have signed Luongo to a 8 year contract with a $7.15m AAV. And that’s probably the foundation of the contract if you examine the numbers. Instead Gillis added 4 phantom years to reduce the AAV to $5.3m. There were media reports discussing this at the time.

Vancouver benefited by having an extra $1.85m in cap space during a competitive window, under a lower cap for many years. A recapture penalty of ~$3m for a few years under a higher cap seems like a reasonable tradeoff?

 

[Bounces R Way]

Maybe they could just pretend they've never heard of him and burn all the evidence of any contract existing. He shows up for camp and says he's a pro hockey player and they just chortle incredulously. "You? Cmon really now. Are ya taking the piss? Beat it buddy."

 

[Bizzare]

Actually, all you did was prove that you don't understand how LTIR or insured contracts work by citing a silly conspiracy theory.

Swing and a miss.

 

[RogerRoger]

I agree with you partially—the formula lends itself to big cap penalties at the end. At the same time, the entire reason teams were tacking on phantom years at the end of the retirement contracts neither team or player expected to ever play was to reduce the AAV for a cap advantage that was exploited for years and years after the contract was signed.

Vancouver should have signed Luongo to a 8 year contract with a $7.15m AAV. And that’s probably the foundation of the contract if you examine the numbers. Instead Gillis added 4 phantom years to reduce the AAV to $5.3m. There were media reports discussing this at the time.

Vancouver benefited by having an extra $1.85m in cap space during a competitive window, under a lower cap for many years. A recapture penalty of ~$3m for a few years under a higher cap seems like a reasonable tradeoff?

The problem is if there is only a few years left, the Weber recapture would be 8M, 12M, or 24M. That's a bit crazy. The current formula is simple and elegant, but it might have benefited from being a bit more convoluted. Something like "the years where the salary is less than half the caphit, if the player doesn't play these years, the recapture is half the cap hit for these years +1". Luongo's recapture for all his non-played years +1 would have been $2.65M, Weber would be 3.9M. It's punishing, but not crippling.

 

[Johnsie19]

There are a few other recaptures out there.....

Shea Weber
Jeff Carter
Parisr
Suter

Come to mind

You wait, they'll all get on LTIR before they retire. The recapture on Parise and Suter would sink the Minnesota franchise. No way they pay it.

 

[Johnsie19]

Richards recapture was $6.6m spread over 5 years.

Either way, the amount each team was penalized is beside the point. The NHL didn't assign penalty $'s based on how egregious they thought the contract was. There was a simple formula to calculate the penalty based on the contract.

Thats why it's been such an unfair penalty for Vancouver to take.