Idea: Teams are allowed to terminate one contract a year. No payout, no cap-hit.

[vanarchy]

No. The salary cap exists for a reason.

And I say this as a fan of a team that would need these yearly because of our GM.

 

[Pyrophorus]

It can be with give and take, between the 2 parties.

A buyout, for the Olympics

 

[Deegee]

No, not simple. The cap is in place for the good of the league. Keep it there.

No. The cap is there to provide cost certainty to the owners. The parity we see is a side-affect, but it wasn't why owners fought for a salary cap.

The salary cap hasn't helped any small market teams.

Agreed, the salary cap did not help teams like the Predators who were absolute NHL juggernauts prior to the lockout. Right?

I had to stop reading the responses. I get fans of teams like the Leafs, the Wings, and Rangers want to be able to just outspend others to victory, but the league has been far better in the cap era than ever before. There is so much parity and so much skill.

This idea is terrible in any version.

 

[Claypool]

Agreed, the salary cap did not help teams like the Predators who were absolute NHL juggernauts prior to the lockout. Right?

I had to stop reading the responses. I get fans of teams like the Leafs, the Wings, and Rangers want to be able to just outspend others to victory, but the league has been far better in the cap era than ever before. There is so much parity and so much skill.

This idea is terrible in any version.

lol, it's because of the salary cap the Predators couldn't retain Ryan Suter. The Predators ownership group is worth billions. They'd be fine in a non-cap world, as would every other billionaire owner.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

You do realize that shortening cap lengths drives up the cap hit on newer contracts, putting more dollars in the hands of fewer players [the high-end ones] and fewer dollars in the hands of the rank-and-file ...... right?

Yes.

But you (and a few others) still want that to happen, because ........ ? Every time I see some kind of idea like this come out, it basically comes down to some combination of "keep GMs from making mistakes" and "help make mistakes made go away faster and with less consequences."

f*** that. I want teams to have some kind of flexibility in putting together rosters, but I also want them to be hand-tied for making mistakes. I'm fine with a 12-year contract to a 23-year old or a 9-year contract to a 27-year old. (My longstanding idea is a 3-tiered measure for contract length; I posted it numerous times in the past.) I just happen to think if you're dumb enough to sign a 23-year old to a 12-year contract and it blows up, you should have to suffer the cap consequences for it instead of being able to LTIR it away under the guise of some "ooh, he can't play because of ________" excuse.

The owners are never going to go for some idea that lets the players get more than 50% of league revenues; the players are incredibly unlikely to go for something that increases the escrow burden and/or takes them farther away from their idea of getting every dollar on the contract. [If the players are going to bear the burden of escrow, there's no way in hell they're also going to take on the burden of having contracts become non-guaranteed in any kind of fashion beyond the buyouts that already exist.] Once you understand those parameters, you can start trying to sketch an idea together - but the notion that teams are going to have no-consequence buyouts of whatever fashion is DOA so long as it violates either of those parameters.

 

[Ducks DVM]

I’m sure that the NHLPA would be totally ok with having 300+ contracts terminated with no payout every decade.

 

[Deegee]

lol, it's because of the salary cap the Predators couldn't retain Ryan Suter. The Predators ownership group is worth billions. They'd be fine in a non-cap world, as would every other billionaire owner.

They were terrible pre cap. Only certain teams with money signed free agents back in the day.

 

[scorpiorising]

Proud union member for 10 years, we don't have 10x pay differences though.

Wow that's unreal you think it's a good idea to take fellow brothers pay away. Thank God you're not in my union.

 

[ThreeOfAPerfectPair]

Wow that's unreal you think it's a good idea to take fellow brothers pay away. Thank God you're not in my union.

Same amount of money being spread around, more equality under my plan.

 

[scorpiorising]

Same amount of money being spread around, more equality under my plan.

Wow lol. Unreal

 

[Claypool]

They were terrible pre cap. Only certain teams with money signed free agents back in the day.

They were an expansion team under old expansion rules. Of course they were terrible.

And only certain teams with money sign free agents today.

1. John Tavares - Leafs
2. James van Riemsdyk - Flyers
3. Ilya Kovalchuk - Kings
4. Paul Stastny - Golden Knights
5. Mike Green - Red Wings

Sure looks like 2003 to me.

 

[MadLuke]

I imagine the only possible way for the PA to past, is that would not apply to all the already signed contract.

And that for the new one the player can get a type of contract where they received all the actual money the first with the rest of the year's 1 million salary and a cap hit distribution using the average a bit like in the past.

Poorer team would really dislike it, but that somewhat went on for a while.

 

[robert terwilliger]

sports is the only time that the average joe actively roots against people trying to get paid and sides with the establishment.

i've never seen anything like it: take away guaranteed contracts; let teams terminate contracts of underperforming players; salary caps are a good thing.

it's incredible. ownership saving a few million dollars isn't passed down to you, the season ticket holder. it's not put in a giant box marked "for children in need". it's kept by people who can clearly afford to pay players. somehow, people got it in their heads that players being paid is bad and we should root not only for them to be paid as little as possible in a cost-controlled league, but we should come up with different ways for them to make as little money as possible.

holy cats, you people.

 

[Midnight Judges]

You can't unilaterally add a termination clause to existing contracts (unless you're the Federal Government). All existing contracts would have to be exempt.

Future contracts for elite players would simply go up in price unless teams waived this right.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

Wow that's unreal you think it's a good idea to take fellow brothers pay away. Thank God you're not in my union.

NHLPA salary is tied to 50% revenue.

Taking a fellow brothers pay away adds it to their pool which gets redistributed through escrow.

 

[Deegee]

They were an expansion team under old expansion rules. Of course they were terrible.

And only certain teams with money sign free agents today.

1. John Tavares - Leafs
2. James van Riemsdyk - Flyers
3. Ilya Kovalchuk - Kings
4. Paul Stastny - Golden Knights
5. Mike Green - Red Wings

Sure looks like 2003 to me.

Cherry picking will do that.