Is this a cap circumvention?

kdb209

Registered User
Jan 26, 2005
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Is the 42 games minimum requirement an absolute and automatic one or is the minimum possible requirement? In other words, could LA had included 82 games minimum requirement in Schenn's contract for him to be eligible for ice time based bonuses?

The 42 game minimum is an absolute - it's part of the bonus definition for pts/game, ATOI, and +/- bonuses.
 

mouser

Business of Hockey
Jul 13, 2006
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South Mountain
The 42 game minimum is an absolute - it's part of the bonus definition for pts/game, ATOI, and +/- bonuses.

You sure this is absolute? I read it as minimum possible requirement and the contract could potentially negotiate a higher number of games required. Just like there are minimum amounts like 10 goal to earn a bonus--team is free to negotiate that higher to 15 or 20 goals for example.
 

y2kcanucks

Le Sex God
Aug 3, 2006
71,229
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Surrey, BC
Its not circumvention, but i would be pissed as hell if i was Schenn. Taking money out of my pocket because you cant properly manage your staff assets? Fark you.

He wasn't going to get that money anyways. This is just the team managing their cap to ensure they can ice the best team possible with that cap space. It's stupid to carry around dead cap space when you know it's not going to be used, if you have use for that space.
 

barneyg

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Apr 22, 2007
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I also read this as a minimum and not an absolute. Otherwise I don't see the point of putting "minimum" in all of those definitions -- surely you're not getting a bonus to reach EXACTLY 20 goals, so I read "20 goals minimum" as a requirement that the bonus number specified in the contract cannot be "3 goals" or "10 goals", it has to be 20+ goals (and so it can be "30 goals", or "25 minutes TOI/G").

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Jason Demers yet. He was sent down to Stockton (ECHL) instead of Worcester (AHL) quite a few times in the past 2 years. Montreal media even interviewed him on such an occasion, asking him "has your play declined so much that you can't even make the AHL?" He was back up with the Sharks the next day.

As for the usefulness of the strategy -- suppose the guy who is sent down is making 1 million, and the team does that 10 times for 2 days each from the beginning of the season to the trade deadline. That guy's daily cap hit is $5,376 (1M/186 days), so the team saves $107,526. At the trade deadline this prorates to about $500,000 additional salary the team can take (*186/40 days left). Now triple that for Schenn.
 

Noldo

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May 28, 2007
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I also read this as a minimum and not an absolute. Otherwise I don't see the point of putting "minimum" in all of those definitions -- surely you're not getting a bonus to reach EXACTLY 20 goals, so I read "20 goals minimum" as a requirement that the bonus number specified in the contract cannot be "3 goals" or "10 goals", it has to be 20+ goals (and so it can be "30 goals", or "25 minutes TOI/G").

Regarding the bonuses for Goals, Assists, Points and Points-per-Game it is clear that the defined minimum values are lowest possible that can bee agreed, but the contract can include higher benchmarks:

CBA said:
For example, ... it [an Entry Level SPC] may contain bonus of $ 100,000 for 20 goals and $ 112,500 for 30 goals

Regarding Ice time (top six (6) forwards on the Club) and Plus-Minus Rating (top three (3) forwards on the Club) I would agree with kdb's interpretation that the games played requirement is there to define which players are included in the comparison and as such not subject to negotiations like performance benchmarks.

CBA said:
Player must be among top six (6) forwards on the Club (minimum 42 Regular Season Games played by the Player and comparison group).

[...]

Player must be among top three (3) forwards on the Club (minimum 42 Regular Season Games played by the Player and comparison group)
 
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Fourier

Registered User
Dec 29, 2006
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Waterloo Ontario
He wasn't going to get that money anyways. This is just the team managing their cap to ensure they can ice the best team possible with that cap space. It's stupid to carry around dead cap space when you know it's not going to be used, if you have use for that space.

If kdb is right, which I believe he is, then yes he was going to get that money. Everyday he spends in the AHL costs him the difference between his NHL salary for the day and his AHL salary.

Chicago used this tactic quite effectively a few years ago. But they would literally send the player down between NHL games to save cap space.
 

barneyg

Registered User
Apr 22, 2007
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Regarding Ice time (top six (6) forwards on the Club) and Plus-Minus Rating (top three (3) forwards on the Club) I would agree with kdb's interpretation that the games played requirement is there to define which players are included in the comparison and as such not subject to negotiations like performance benchmarks.

I stand corrected, I think you (and kdb) are right.

If kdb is right, which I believe he is, then yes he was going to get that money. Everyday he spends in the AHL costs him the difference between his NHL salary for the day and his AHL salary.

SJ with Demers too (me = broken record). but unless I'm mistaken, what y2kcanucks was referring to when he was talking about "that money" is the money from a hypothetical 25:00 TOI/G bonus if Schenn played 82 games -- no, he wouldn't have gotten that.
 

Fourier

Registered User
Dec 29, 2006
25,438
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Waterloo Ontario
I stand corrected, I think you (and kdb) are right.



SJ with Demers too (me = broken record). but unless I'm mistaken, what y2kcanucks was referring to when he was talking about "that money" is the money from a hypothetical 25:00 TOI/G bonus if Schenn played 82 games -- no, he wouldn't have gotten that.

No question that the reference was to the phantom bonus. This is a consequnce of the inaccurate reporting. It creates the impression that the player has no real loss from this decision, since everyone knows that such a bonus could not be realized. IN reality though, the player is impacted by the clubs method of cap management.
 

kdb209

Registered User
Jan 26, 2005
14,870
6
I actually think they should do away with bonuses that are unobtainable.

The League already has the authority under Article 11.6 to reject any SPCs that it deems are intended to circumvent the cap (or any other terms of the CBA) - in which case it would be up to the NHLPA to file a grievance and have it heard before the Independent or System Arbitrator. An indefensible, very unlikely to be achieved bonus used as a means to get a team over the cap floor, for example, could and would likely be rejected.
 

nycbruins*

Guest
The League already has the authority under Article 11.6 to reject any SPCs that it deems are intended to circumvent the cap (or any other terms of the CBA) - in which case it would be up to the NHLPA to file a grievance and have it heard before the Independent or System Arbitrator. An indefensible, very unlikely to be achieved bonus used as a means to get a team over the cap floor, for example, could and would likely be rejected.

Bump.

Question:

If Schenn's cap hit is still $3.11 million, how are the Flyers under the cap with him on the team?

By my calculations, even if Laperriere & Betts are both on LTIR, they should still be over $1 million over the limit.

Thanks.
 

Blue Liner

Registered User
Dec 12, 2009
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Chicago
Well what Chicago was doing was sending Jack Skille up and down every few days saying he had made the team. They did this for a while and then eventually just left him down there. There was almost no point to it and they got almost nothing out of it since they made no trades other than dumping Barkers salary at the deadline.

Having these guys fly to Wilkse-Barre and then back(because they do have to) just to save a measly amount of capspace is not very smart sorry to say.

I tend to think they know their business better than you do.

Chicago did it because they needed every bit of cap relief they could get that year, and their AHL affiliate is about an hour and a half drive from the United Center, so it costs them nothing to send people up and down. That whole season they had no idea what move they may or may not make come the deadline, they had to prepare accordingly, and all those thousands would add up.

As it turns out, the one trade they did make was huge in that they dumped Barker's salary and picked up Nick Leddy (and Kim Johnsson but he didn't play much on account of a concussion shortly after coming over) and went on to the win the Cup so I'd say they kinda knew what they were doing. Those things are somewhat mutually exclusive but the end product tends to tell you that these organizations kinda know what they're doing most of the time when it comes to managing their organizations and their money more than any of us do.
 

mouser

Business of Hockey
Jul 13, 2006
29,284
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South Mountain
Bump.

Question:

If Schenn's cap hit is still $3.11 million, how are the Flyers under the cap with him on the team?

By my calculations, even if Laperriere & Betts are both on LTIR, they should still be over $1 million over the limit.

Thanks.

Capgeek is claiming that $1.42m of Schenn's bonus clauses became unachievable on Oct 19th when he was recalled. Making his effective cap hit $1.69m for this season. Technically his cap hit remains the same and the team gets a credit for the unachieved bonuses.

According to the CBA ELC contracts can't contain bonuses for forward ice time, which makes the original article's in this thread's explanation still sound weird. Either there's an unpublished CBA update with some additional bonus clauses, or Schenn had some kind of league-wide performance bonus like top-10 scoring per/game with a very high minimum game count.
 

kdb209

Registered User
Jan 26, 2005
14,870
6
Capgeek is claiming that $1.42m of Schenn's bonus clauses became unachievable on Oct 19th when he was recalled. Making his effective cap hit $1.69m for this season. Technically his cap hit remains the same and the team gets a credit for the unachieved bonuses.

According to the CBA ELC contracts can't contain bonuses for forward ice time, which makes the original article's in this thread's explanation still sound weird. Either there's an unpublished CBA update with some additional bonus clauses, or Schenn had some kind of league-wide performance bonus like top-10 scoring per/game with a very high minimum game count.

I exchanged email with Matt @ Cap Geek and he said he confirmed the cap hit (sans bonus), but would give no other explanation or info on the source of the information.
 

Fourier

Registered User
Dec 29, 2006
25,438
19,569
Waterloo Ontario
Wonder where we can get a copy of the double secret version of the CBA. The one with phantom bonuses and no penalties for being under the cap.
 

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