Salary Cap: Jason Robertson's Contract

[BG44]

With the cap likely increasing $1 million, and without any major changes, you have about $2.8 million for a defender. A buyout is now off the table for Khudobin because of his surgery. He won't be recovered sooner than September. Unless this is a Bishop situation, which as I've said before at no point did Dallas give a timetable for Bishop to return as they have with Khudobin, you have to factor him in as a part of the cap. The good news is, if they roll with him, you're locked in at $3,333,333. If they don't, as long as they pay the backup less than $1,125,000, assigning Khudobin to the minors means your total investment into the backup position (Backup + Khudobin's buried) will still be $3,333,333 or less.

The best possible outcome for Dallas though is probably paying someone a pick to take Khudobin. That would give you about $5 million for a defender without any major changes to the roster. I'm factoring in about $2 million in LTRI space for injury call-ups.

 

[serp]

Yotes still need to add alot of cap to hit the floor and also need a backup to Vejmelka. This might be a place that could interest in Dobby for next year since he'll also be an expiring contract.

 

[Sports2]

I think Nill is probably too good a guy to buy out Faksa. Which kinda sucks because the penalty is very doable.

 

[BG44]

Something I hadn't considered ... Dallas will have bonus money earned this year. Looking at the current contracts, Harley and Oettingers appear to be A Bonuses while Robertson and Peterson appear to be Games Played Bonuses. Cap Friendly doesn't report the type of bonus, but the salary and the signing bonus are the dead giveaways. When the signing bonus is greater than 10% of the salary ... it's almost always a game-played bonus. The signing bonus must be 10% of the salary.

For example, Oettinger's salary is $925K, and his signing bonus is $92.5K. Safe to say, no games played bonus.

On the other hand, Robertson's salary was $825,833 prior to the slide, but he still had a full signing bonus of $92.5K. The games played bonus makes the salary not guaranteed, but it counts towards the percentage for determining a signing bonus. Safe to assume, Robertson's bonuses are games played. Peterson's contract is structured similarly. Now ... the games played bonus hasn't been reported anywhere I've seen other than on Mark's old Andrew's Dallas Stars site. We have to guess, but most of the time it's not going to be 82 games. It's probably safe to assume Robertson and Peterson get their full games played bonus.

Harley's stats aren't anywhere close for A bonuses. It's a virtual lock he's not earning anything this year.

Oettinger's A bonuses don't seem to be traditionally structured (factors of $212,500 / not greater than $825,000). No matter how his are structured, the max number of stats he'd need to hit to receive his full A bonus is 4, and he's already reached 2 A bonus levels for goalies (Wins and minutes played). The other stats depend on his rankings amongst the league for goalies that played at least 25 games. Since there are about 20 games remaining, I just look at goalies that have played 15 games or more. There are 62 in the NHL right now.

Oettinger is 12th in GAA, and tied for 15th in Save %. To qualify for those stats, they have to be higher than the median of all goalies who played more than 25 games. He seems safe there for those 2.

tl;dr: Oettinger, Peterson, and Robertson should earn $702,500 in performance/games played bonuses this season.

If Holtby stays on LTIR the remainder of the season, I think Dallas is fine ... no overage. If Holtby comes off LTIR, they may not be safe and could have an overage. Also, another reason for waiving Sekera could actually have been a potential bonus overage meaning they might be able to assign him to the AHL at the end of the season to prevent an overage. I think they'll ultimately be fine, but at most, they'll carry about $700K into next season. I'm not as confident about this application as I am about the actual amount of money the players earned. I feel like the bonus value is probably accurate.

 

[BG44]

I think Nill is probably too good a guy to buy out Faksa. Which kinda sucks because the penalty is very doable.

Good guy or not, while he won't be backed into a corner this summer likely, if he can't trade Faksa, a buyout may be the only option next summer when they're trying to re-sign Hintz.

 

[hairylikebear]

There's nothing wrong with buying out a player. It's negotiated by the PA to have perfectly fair terms. Suter, for example, has made money from getting bought out and then immediately signing a contract with a new team.

 

[BG44]

There's nothing wrong with buying out a player. It's negotiated by the PA to have perfectly fair terms. Suter, for example, has made money from getting bought out and then immediately signing a contract with a new team.

Yeah, I agree there is no good/bad that can be assigned to buyouts. You know that's true because even Nill has used them already. It's just a tool. Based on the way he's structured several recent contracts including Faksa and Suter, it was part of the decision-making so that there was an out on those deals.

Janko deserves a lot of the credit, but I love looking at Dallas' contract structures. I often find something I hadn't seen before. Damiani's is a good example. This though may be more of a hat tip to his agent than Dallas though. He seems to have negotiated a smaller signing bonus for a greater game played bonus. Most of the time, you see guys taking $92,500 per year. Some of the later picks will get less, but with Dallas (and other teams), most NCAA players and 1st, 2nd, or 3rd rounders are getting the highest signing bonus possible.

With Damiani, he got the top signing bonus for 2 years, but he's only getting $55K that last year. He also only has games played bonus in Year 2 and 3 instead of Year 1. That allows for him to have a better chance to earn that money this year (didn't work out) and next year.

I wish you could find the exact breakdown on games played because right now it's anyone's guess what the team and player negotiated.

 

[hairylikebear]

Janko deserves a lot of the credit, but I love looking at Dallas' contract structures. I often find something I hadn't seen before. Damiani's is a good example. This though may be more of a hat tip to his agent than Dallas though. He seems to have negotiated a smaller signing bonus for a greater game played bonus. Most of the time, you see guys taking $92,500 per year. Some of the later picks will get less, but with Dallas (and other teams), most NCAA players and 1st, 2nd, or 3rd rounders are getting the highest signing bonus possible.

This seems to me like the ideal structure for both sides. The team saves a little money if they don't end up with the player they expected, the player bets on themselves to develop on schedule and ends up with more money if they do. I think there might be some concern around giving a team a financial incentive not to play you in the NHL if you're very close to your bonus at the end of the season. The Stars don't strike me as a team that would be so petty to save a few cents, relatively speaking.

 

[BG44]

 

[Captain Awesome]

Something I hadn't considered ... Dallas will have bonus money earned this year. Looking at the current contracts, Harley and Oettingers appear to be A Bonuses while Robertson and Peterson appear to be Games Played Bonuses. Cap Friendly doesn't report the type of bonus, but the salary and the signing bonus are the dead giveaways. When the signing bonus is greater than 10% of the salary ... it's almost always a game-played bonus. The signing bonus must be 10% of the salary.

For example, Oettinger's salary is $925K, and his signing bonus is $92.5K. Safe to say, no games played bonus.

On the other hand, Robertson's salary was $825,833 prior to the slide, but he still had a full signing bonus of $92.5K. The games played bonus makes the salary not guaranteed, but it counts towards the percentage for determining a signing bonus. Safe to assume, Robertson's bonuses are games played. Peterson's contract is structured similarly. Now ... the games played bonus hasn't been reported anywhere I've seen other than on Mark's old Andrew's Dallas Stars site. We have to guess, but most of the time it's not going to be 82 games. It's probably safe to assume Robertson and Peterson get their full games played bonus.

Harley's stats aren't anywhere close for A bonuses. It's a virtual lock he's not earning anything this year.

Oettinger's A bonuses don't seem to be traditionally structured (factors of $212,500 / not greater than $825,000). No matter how his are structured, the max number of stats he'd need to hit to receive his full A bonus is 4, and he's already reached 2 A bonus levels for goalies (Wins and minutes played). The other stats depend on his rankings amongst the league for goalies that played at least 25 games. Since there are about 20 games remaining, I just look at goalies that have played 15 games or more. There are 62 in the NHL right now.

Oettinger is 12th in GAA, and tied for 15th in Save %. To qualify for those stats, they have to be higher than the median of all goalies who played more than 25 games. He seems safe there for those 2.

tl;dr: Oettinger, Peterson, and Robertson should earn $702,500 in performance/games played bonuses this season.

If Holtby stays on LTIR the remainder of the season, I think Dallas is fine ... no overage. If Holtby comes off LTIR, they may not be safe and could have an overage. Also, another reason for waiving Sekera could actually have been a potential bonus overage meaning they might be able to assign him to the AHL at the end of the season to prevent an overage. I think they'll ultimately be fine, but at most, they'll carry about $700K into next season. I'm not as confident about this application as I am about the actual amount of money the players earned. I feel like the bonus value is probably accurate.

Stars have $0 in their performance bonus ltir pool, won’t all of it will go towards next year’s cap?

Edit: should have scrolled down further.

 

[BG44]

Stars have $0 in their performance bonus ltir pool, won’t all of it will go towards next year’s cap?

Edit: should have scrolled down further.

The thing I thought was the most likely outcome happened ... overage, but I still don't know technically why. That performance bonus pool was reduced to $0 by those players. It was a placeholder. When you're using LTIR, the bonuses are automatically factored in.

Just to simplify it as much as possible these numbers aren't completely realistic. Say you have an ELC worth $1.5 million with all bonuses and just $1 million with salary. If you're not in LTIR, that player counts $1 million on the cap. If you're in LTIR, that player takes up $1.5 million in LTIR space. Let's say you acquire a guy with a $1.5 million salary though ... just a standard contract no bonuses. You're in LTIR, and that player also counts $1.5 million ... the exact same as the ELC. If you have more than $1.5 million in LTIR space ... you're fine. No issue adding the standard contract, and you have no overage for next season.

Using that same logic, if your LTIR is greater than all of your ELCS and their bonuses ... in what world does it make sense that you'd be forced to carry over a bonus that you were already forced to accommodate this season? I knew that was probably the rule and application, but I still can't wrap my mind around it making any sense.

It feels like you're being punished for playing a guy on an ELC in LTIR. The best way to illustrate my confusion might be this. Oettinger cost $1,462,500 in LTIR space all season he was up because of his bonus. There were times Dallas couldn't call up a particular forward they wanted because Oettinger's full LTIR cap hit prevented them from calling someone up. You already paid $537,500 for his bonuses this year in LTIR space. They were the reason at one point Gardner gets called up because his salary cap fit where another (I believe it was Damiani) didn't.

In REAL money, you're paying Oettinger $1,462,500 which he earned, but in actual cap hit you're paying Oettinger $2,000,000. That includes the $1,462,500 you were forced to carry as LTIR any time he was on the cap this season because of LTIR plus an additional $537,500 bonus this coming season despite covering that bonus with LTIR in 2021-22.

Technically in real money, Oettinger didn't earn his full salary because he played some games in the AHL, but that doesn't actually impact the discussion here.

It seems pretty clear to me that Dallas or any other of the many teams in the same situation are being double charged. If you're going to force them to carry it over to next season, there is ZERO logic to make them accommodate that bonus in LTIR during the season. There's no world where they should have done this, but if they had just paid a goalie $1,462,500 in straight salary (the equivalent of the money Oettinger earned), they wouldn't have had an overage for that player making the exact same money.

It's probably a very minor inconvenience, but it's for me at least that doesn't make sense.

 

[BG44]

So this is a little interesting. Peterson did NOT earn his full games played.

The total Peterson could earn is $82,500. He played 65 games though which I would have guessed (since exact data isn't available) would have been plenty to earn the bonus. Robertson for example played 74 games and earned his full bonus of $82,500.

Most of the time, at least with veteran games played bonuses ... it's varied and it's rarely a huge number of games. Did Peterson lose out on almost $30K for 5 games, less, maybe a bit more? That sucks for him.

 

[DarrylshutzSydor]

Oettinger should make more than Robertson. Robertson puts up points but doesn't control the game. He is dependent on those around him.....

 

[BfantZ]

Oettinger should make more than Robertson. Robertson puts up points but doesn't control the game. He is dependent on those around him.....

I can 100 percent gaurentee you oettenger won’t make more than Robertson lol

 

[Satan]

Oettinger should make more than Robertson. Robertson puts up points but doesn't control the game. He is dependent on those around him.....

Well actually Pierre McGuire should be #1 on the payroll. Once that happens maybe then we could talk about who should be #2

 

[Captain Awesome]

The thing I thought was the most likely outcome happened ... overage, but I still don't know technically why. That performance bonus pool was reduced to $0 by those players. It was a placeholder. When you're using LTIR, the bonuses are automatically factored in.

Just to simplify it as much as possible these numbers aren't completely realistic. Say you have an ELC worth $1.5 million with all bonuses and just $1 million with salary. If you're not in LTIR, that player counts $1 million on the cap. If you're in LTIR, that player takes up $1.5 million in LTIR space. Let's say you acquire a guy with a $1.5 million salary though ... just a standard contract no bonuses. You're in LTIR, and that player also counts $1.5 million ... the exact same as the ELC. If you have more than $1.5 million in LTIR space ... you're fine. No issue adding the standard contract, and you have no overage for next season.

Using that same logic, if your LTIR is greater than all of your ELCS and their bonuses ... in what world does it make sense that you'd be forced to carry over a bonus that you were already forced to accommodate this season? I knew that was probably the rule and application, but I still can't wrap my mind around it making any sense.

It feels like you're being punished for playing a guy on an ELC in LTIR. The best way to illustrate my confusion might be this. Oettinger cost $1,462,500 in LTIR space all season he was up because of his bonus. There were times Dallas couldn't call up a particular forward they wanted because Oettinger's full LTIR cap hit prevented them from calling someone up. You already paid $537,500 for his bonuses this year in LTIR space. They were the reason at one point Gardner gets called up because his salary cap fit where another (I believe it was Damiani) didn't.

In REAL money, you're paying Oettinger $1,462,500 which he earned, but in actual cap hit you're paying Oettinger $2,000,000. That includes the $1,462,500 you were forced to carry as LTIR any time he was on the cap this season because of LTIR plus an additional $537,500 bonus this coming season despite covering that bonus with LTIR in 2021-22.

Technically in real money, Oettinger didn't earn his full salary because he played some games in the AHL, but that doesn't actually impact the discussion here.

It seems pretty clear to me that Dallas or any other of the many teams in the same situation are being double charged. If you're going to force them to carry it over to next season, there is ZERO logic to make them accommodate that bonus in LTIR during the season. There's no world where they should have done this, but if they had just paid a goalie $1,462,500 in straight salary (the equivalent of the money Oettinger earned), they wouldn't have had an overage for that player making the exact same money.

It's probably a very minor inconvenience, but it's for me at least that doesn't make sense.

Hey, I completely forgot about this post, that's my bad. To be honest, I almost think this rule just isn't being applied by the NHL. It seems to me the Stars are spending to the cap, that bonuses aren't being factored in, and that every bonus dollar is being counted after the season is over. Otherwise, I'm not sure how they could have run what they did this year. I remember that, regardless of the bonuses, that the Stars were against the cap on base salary alone most of the season. I tried to go look at capfriendly to see if I could make sense of why this happened, and I can't seem to connect the dots. The history section of capfriendly doesn't even mention the overages they had accrued from the previous season, and I can't help but feel like their information is incomplete.

The thing that really confuses me is the number is perfectly clean for overages, I don't know if someone is rounding, but it just looks weird. I don't think the Stars spent literally every dollar to the cent of LTIR, but it seems to be calculated that way. It makes me think that if the team has no bonus performance pool, that they're eating the bonuses regardless, in fact, Capfriendly says this when using the training camp formula specifically:

When using the training camp formula, 100% of the relief pools are used when the player is initially placed on LTIR.

So maybe it's really that simple, when using the training camp formula where Bishop is the player on LTIR, you use 100% of the relief pool immediately, which includes no performance bonuses in his case, so you've resigned yourself to have bonus overages regardless of what you manage?

 

[BfantZ]

Well actually Pierre McGuire should be #1 on the payroll. Once that happens maybe then we could talk about who should be #2

I all seriousness , however cringe pierre maguire is , I’d love to have him part of the stars broadcast . Games feel bigger when he’s between the benches making a fool of himself .

 

[JesusNPucks]

Whatever it ends up being, it should not match the Kaprizov contract, seeing as He has handily outperformed Robertson the past two years. Shoot for 8x8-8.5.