AdmiralPred said:
MePutPuckInNet, after recomprehending your previous post, I realized I had thought about something else.
Will these suits go anywhere? In theory the new CBA between the NHL and the NHLPA seems to have set a player salary cap at $75,000, but the players, and a team's management, have the option of negotiating beyond that threshhold.
As for the first suit, I am asuming it is in reference to the clip that Lion posted above. A pleyer gets called up and is paid NHL money for the day and then gets his ticket punched for the AHL affiliate and will draw the AHL salary for his time there. Other than not drawing a NHL salary for a longer period of time, I don't see how the rule technically cuts the minor-league player's salary. He's still drawing the same minor league salary while playing in the minor league.
The root of this beef is a CBA provision known as the "$75,000 rule". With the NHL minumum salary now at $450K, teams would certainly be tempted to send players with 2-way contracts up and down in turnstile-like fashion, as you mentioned. This would cut corners, and allow them to "play" the salary cap like a fiddle.
To prevent this type of manipulation, a rule was put in place that any player who makes over $75,000 must clear waivers before being sent down to the AHL. If the player gets claimed by another team upon being sent down, then the club owes half of his
NHL salary for that year against the cap.
So teams don't do it... however it is so restrictive a formula, that it hinders AHL players over $75K from getting called up at all. Teams do not want to leave themselves exposed by calling up a guy who makes $100K in the minors, knowing that sending him back down may well cost them half his NHL level salary... So the result is like a glass ceiling at $75K for AHL players. Supposedly, many 2-way players were approached and offered a "re-structuring" of their minor league number to $75K, allowing them the freedom of passage to get called up more often, or in some cases get called up at all.