Couldn't they just increase each teams roster by 1 player and there is an extra healthy scratch each night? No jobs are lost and 6 new ones are created.
Edit: of course the CAP would temporarily go up to make room and then dip after expansion.
It will not come to contraction.
I guess they could. But by contracting NHL (the 29 owners) are already down $170M, now, I know Rangers, Habs and Leafs have money to pay that extra guy. But what about Devils ? They may not have enough to sign Parise. What about who gets who ? I mean a team with 8 goalies gets Smith or do Flyers call dibs on him ?
How would a player who will now get scratched react to the fact that he had 10-15 min per game of playtime before contraction and now has 0.
Ordinarily, a dispersal draft would occur. Players are league assets, they can be transferred between teams without their consent. Most commonly that happens with a trade but it is analogous to contracting the team. I am not an expert on Coyotes players or their contracts but I'm willing to guess and say that none of them have a strict no-trade clause in their contract. Total guess here but Doan was probably the only one who might have had one but he's FA now so that is irrelevant. It would be unlikely that the league would pay any considerable amount in contract buyouts. We are compressing a complex subject into a paragraph but I disagree with your conclusion.
Also since we are in the midst of a labor negotiation, I'll play CasualBettman and just expand the roster to 24. There, now the league has a net addition of 6 jobs.
I get all that. But what you are saying thru contraction is that the NHL would be better off with it because they will lose only $170M now and gain $900M in a year with expansion. I am telling you that it might be better off taking the ''rumored/speculated'' $230M offer from PKP now and make a $60M profit NOW.
And I say this because I guarantee you that PKP nor anyone else in Quebec will pay more than $250-300M for an expansion team where you have to start everything from scratch.
It may happen in Ontario. But Quebec and almost certainly Seattle won't give you that kind on money, no way. PKP would be more wise to partner up with Wang and offer him a brand new arena some 700km north of his current home for free. PKP would make cash on TV contract and other non-hockey events in the arena and Wang would make cash on ticket sales and all merchandise related to the team...oh and NHL can't do nothing about it.