Ideas to improve the free agency market

[NHL Dude 120]

So I'll be honest other than the 2012 Parise & Suter signings Free agency has become boring,I know teams are willing to lock up top talent to prevent them from losing it. My question is how could free agency be better ??? my ideas are


1. Get rid of RFA status: once your contract expires your a UFA, if a team cant lock you up then maybe they should have gotten some value. personally i hate RFA's

2. Players can Opt out of contracts: its stupid but what if Players could opt out of their contract provided they have played through 50% of the contract minimum and announce their intention to do so after the season has ended until June 1st.

So none of these are going to happen, Its just id like to see more excitement in the off season.

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[Super Cake]

Getting rid of of rfa status would be horrible for teams trying to rebuild in my opinion.

 

[dahrougem2]

So I'll be honest other than the 2012 Parise & Suter signings Free agency has become boring,I know teams are willing to lock up top talent to prevent them from losing it. My question is how could free agency be better ??? my ideas are


1. Get rid of RFA status: once your contract expires your a UFA, if a team cant lock you up then maybe they should have gotten some value. personally i hate RFA's

2. Players can Opt out of contracts: its stupid but what if Players could opt out of their contract provided they have played through 50% of the contract minimum and announce their intention to do so after the season has ended until June 1st.

So none of these are going to happen, Its just id like to see more excitement in the off season.

There's plenty of excitement in the off-season. Draft is great, free agency, while lacking "stars", is very entertaining and there are also some trades that happen.

Getting rid of RFA status would kill teams in this league, especially rebuilding teams. Think Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or Jordan Eberle would stay in Edmonton after their three years?

 

[penguins2946*]

Definitely keep RFAs, maybe shorten the years though until you hit free agency though. I'd like them to implement some sort of compensation for losing top end free agents.

 

[Super Cake]

If you kill RFA status, might as well say goodbye to teams like Arizona, Ottawa, Edmonton, Florida and even Buffalo who pretty much all depend on their rfas right now.

 

[DonskoiDonscored]

So the market will be dominated by teams that have the money to spend to the cap? This would make draft picks nearly worthless, and I like that Hockey has some of the most loyal players in all of NA sports.

Also, what happens to teams like Edmonton that would be stuck in a perpetual rebuild because people wouldn't want to be there? I see where you are coming from, but the current contract structure is perfect.

You can't give the players that much power.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

trades have also become boring. No more blockbusters. Will there ever be another LaFontaine for Turgeon?

 

[Seb]

Was the free agency market ever exciting? In one hand you want your teams to retain the superstars, in the other hand you want an exciting day full of stars available. I don't see any way the UFA day "improves" in any way. You can only rely on the willingness of a player to get out of a team when his contract expires and it's fine that way.

What needs to be improved on the other hand, and can be, is the Trade deadline. With the addition of salary retaining, it should open up the market a little bit at least. I badly wanna see more blockbusters.

 

[Machinehead]

Raise the damn salary cap, it's absurdly low.

RFA's I would keep though, you want drafting to have at least equal value.

 

[SirPaste]

Why do we need to fix free agency? So your team can get better?

 

[newfy]

So you basically want to penalize teams that draft well so you can have a bit more entertainment in the offseason? Not a fan at all

 

[Bad News Benning]

How quickly people forget all the horrible deals signed July 1st.

Also unfair to put a cap in that already handcuffs deep teams, but now you want to steal their young players that they drafted/developed?

There is enough parity as is, no need to make 30 average teams by punishing well managed teams.

 

[DonskoiDonscored]

Raise the damn salary cap, it's absurdly low.

It's not that simple. Also, I'm pretty sure you're only saying this as it would benefit your team.

 

[Vesa Awesaka]

Raise the damn salary cap, it's absurdly low.

RFA's I would keep though, you want drafting to have at least equal value.

Sens fans say hell no lol its sad enough being 15 mil behind some teams

 

[tfong]

One year contract max all around.

Free agent market bonanza every year

 

[Derrty]

3 year max contracts. Do it. Families be damned.



edit: same time post.

 

[Machinehead]

It's not that simple. Also, I'm pretty sure you're only saying this as it would benefit your team.

When has free spending ever benefited the Rangers? I just wanna keep Derek Stepan without it banning us from free agency for 8 years.

 

[Tacos]

Number 2 is essentially a variant of the Early Termination Contract in the NBA which is a contract stipulation that can be added prior to signing

If you were to give players that right, you should have one for owners as well

Giving an ETO for both sides potentially raises the salary cap

 

[jmart21]

You need to have RFA status to properly build and evaluate your team. It'll be nearly impossible to build a high quality team if the only time you have to build it is what's left on a bunch of ELCs.

You'd be constantly losing guys like Keith/Kopitar; who took longer than (Toews/Kane) and Doughty to develop, and endlessly spinning your tires. If it wasn't for RFA status we wouldn't see teams like the CHI and LAK of today.

Not having RFAs will make it impossible to build what we consider a Stanley Cup team by today's standards. The result? Well, someone still has to win the cup, so you'd see a bunch of teams fighting for the cup that aren't anywhere near the level of the CHI and LAK teams we've seen recently.

No RFAs? Quality of product goes way down.

 

[CraigsList]

Might as well just take away the salary cap as well while you're at it.

I like the way things are right now.

 

[DonskoiDonscored]

When has free spending ever benefited the Rangers? I just wanna keep Derek Stepan without it banning us from free agency for 8 years.

Well, your team is absurdly close to the salary cap while needing to re-sign quite a few players. It makes sense that you want to raise the cap to benefit your team...

 

[tfong]

FA market would actually have more options if players didn't have guaranteed contracts like NFL.

 

[Machinehead]

Well, your team is absurdly close to the salary cap while needing to re-sign quite a few players. It makes sense that you want to raise the cap to benefit your team...

The Rangers don't need it. Every year we hear about how bad the cap is gonna get us and every year we ice a better team than the one we had. It's not about the Rangers. We don't need help, we've succeeded with the cap.

I think it makes the league better. We don't have any truly great teams anymore. A .500 team can easily win the Stanley Cup.

 

[KingsFan7824]

There's a fine line between entertainment and why the players want free agency. They work hand in hand, but at the same time, one has nothing to do with the other.

If you got rid of guaranteed contracts, you might be able to get rid of restricted free agency.

 

[The Missing Piece]

Maybe not such a fix for free agency but you see blockbuster soccer deals all the time with the best names in soccer getting traded across leagues.

I would recommend the "transfer fee" so teams could offer some cash incentives to the organizations to loosen their grips on star players.