Salary cap good or bad?

Actual Thought*

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As a Wings fan I feel that the cap punishes teams for being successful. I think parity is a nice word for mediocrity. In my view salary caps water down sports and create inferior product. In the 90s teams like Colorado, NJ, and Detroit were playing the game at an extremely high level albeit defensive. It seems to me that if you want to be good you should market your product as the best franchises in the league do. What do you think? Is it good that Chicago had to dismantle their team after winning a cup? Is it good that a team that drafts well and develops talent has to give up that talent as soon as they become strong NHL players?
 

Crazy_Ike

Cookin' with fire.
Mar 29, 2005
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It ain't changing, deal with it.
 

Blackhawkswincup

RIP Fugu
Jun 24, 2007
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Chicagoland
As a Hawk fan I feel the Cap is fine

It helped bring sanity to NHL which was going the way of MLB with a few super rich teams using poorer teams as farm system.

System works ,, Could maybe use a few tweeks but overall I am a fan

Summer of 2010 did suck though but Hawks gambled and in end we knew it was gonna be painful for organization ,,,,, But the cup helped sooth the pain
 

fasterthanlight

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Jul 30, 2009
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I am a huge salary cap fan. It keeps things competitive, which is good for the whole of the league, and makes a GM's job far more important. I do think the salary floor should be raised a little bit, though.
 

Finlandia WOAT

js7.4x8fnmcf5070124
May 23, 2010
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Bobby Holik was being paid 9 million dollars a year.

Also, Chicago screwed themselves with crazy FA signings (Hossa, Huet, Campbell) and Dale Tallon screwing up the contracts of Versteeg and Byfuglien.

The salary cap doesn't "punish success", it rewards smart asset management.

EDIT: IMO, the League is still getting used to life with the cap, which is why you are seeing "good" players such as Huet, Souray, LeCavalier and Redden (to name a few) are becoming burdens.
 
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Ogopogo*

Guest
The salary cap is the greatest economic mechanism in the NHL today. Without the cap the league would be in shambles.

The cap does not punish success, it exposes ****** GMs.
 

WheatiesHockey

Registered User
Dec 19, 2006
585
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There was a year long lockout due to the owners insistence on a cap and so called cost certainty.
To me at least, it looked like a solution in search of a problem.
The cap has not helped many of the marginal franchises become successful and the rich franchises simply get to make more money.
The Cap has changed the way teams are managed and which players get a long term deal.
Serviceable players like Campbell and Souray and Redden turn into unmarketable contract burdens.
The NHL is a CARTEL period. The league controls the number of franchises and has a monopoly on the best available players. Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin will not be selling their playing skills to the Central Hockey League anytime in the near future. The NHL is the market as far as hockey talent goes, so the salary cap is as it were a phoney creation.
The NFL has had hard cap for a long a time. Based on that experience, the NFL teams make enough money to make a profit from media rights before anyone even buys a ticket.
The NHL has an uneven revenue problem and the salary cap can not fix that one bit.
The biggest problem with the NHL cap is that it is an artificial market in the truest sense of the word. A handful of the best players get all the coin. Really good depth players on the roster are tough to keep for purely economic reasons. Building an elite dynasty team is a near impossibility. What fans get now are one year wonder magical seasons that are quickly forgotten.
The best hockey decision is not necessarily the best contract decision for coaches and GM's.
The cap does not really create a level playing field. There is a great deal of in market diversity among NHL teams that a cap can not possibly fix.
Toronto and New York make scads of money no matter what. Phoenix has to issue quasi junk bonds to finance a new potential owner. Columbus and Buffalo are tied to economically distressed rust bowl communities. One could go on and on about the many imbalances in the NHL that were not fixed by the salary cap.
 

Dado

Guest
I don't like the cap, and I don't like the mediocre "champions" it has created.
 

Badger36

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Jan 4, 2010
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Even though it sucks when your team is a victim of the cap, I think its overall a good thing.
It keeps the same teams from winning the Stanley Cup every year. Without it, the NHL would be like baseball where the same 2 or 3 teams win the championship every year.
 

y2kcanucks

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Aug 3, 2006
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As a Wings fan I feel that the cap punishes teams for being successful. I think parity is a nice word for mediocrity. In my view salary caps water down sports and create inferior product. In the 90s teams like Colorado, NJ, and Detroit were playing the game at an extremely high level albeit defensive. It seems to me that if you want to be good you should market your product as the best franchises in the league do. What do you think? Is it good that Chicago had to dismantle their team after winning a cup? Is it good that a team that drafts well and develops talent has to give up that talent as soon as they become strong NHL players?

Some of those Colorado and Detroit teams literally bought their Stanley Cups. So in that respect, yes, I like the fact we have a salary cap. It puts a greater emphasis on smart hockey decisions and internal player development rather than going out and signing high profile free agents because you have the money.

As far sa Chicago goes...yes, I think it's a good thing Chicago had to dismantle their team because they got themselves in that position in the first place. They didn't need to go out and sign Marian Hossa. They didn't need to throw over $7M at Brian Campbell. They didn't need to pay $5.6M to Huet to be their backup. Their own boneheaded personnel decisions put them in that spot and it's their own fault they're paying for it now.
 

Gobo

Stop looking Gare
Jun 29, 2010
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I don't like the cap, and I don't like the mediocre "champions" it has created.

Only mediocre champion was Carolina.

Anaheim had 3 HOF (Selanne, Pronger, Niedermeyer) as well as some of the brightest young stars today (Getzlaf, Perry).

Detroit is Detroit.

Pittsburgh had at the time, 2 of the top 3 players in the world.

Chicago had unreal depth, as well as top-end talent.
 

WheatiesHockey

Registered User
Dec 19, 2006
585
5
The buy a cup theory does not hold water.
Toronto has not won a cup since 1967. The Rangers went 54 years to win a cup.
The having money and getting a cup theory does not stand up.
 

Mayor Bee

Registered User
Dec 29, 2008
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Toronto and New York make scads of money no matter what. Phoenix has to issue quasi junk bonds to finance a new potential owner. Columbus and Buffalo are tied to economically distressed rust bowl communities.

Wow, seriously? That's like trying to say that Philadelphia is declining because Centralia is falling apart.
 

Blackhawkswincup

RIP Fugu
Jun 24, 2007
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Chicagoland
Some of those Colorado and Detroit teams literally bought their Stanley Cups. So in that respect, yes, I like the fact we have a salary cap. It puts a greater emphasis on smart hockey decisions and internal player development rather than going out and signing high profile free agents because you have the money.

As far sa Chicago goes...yes, I think it's a good thing Chicago had to dismantle their team because they got themselves in that position in the first place. They didn't need to go out and sign Marian Hossa. They didn't need to throw over $7M at Brian Campbell. They didn't need to pay $5.6M to Huet to be their backup. Their own boneheaded personnel decisions put them in that spot and it's their own fault they're paying for it now.

Actually we did need Campbell as we were in dire need of a PMD

And the Thrashers offered 8 mil so Hawks had to stay competitive in bid

And Hossa deal is good and was a good signing

Huet was awful deal but in the end it didn't kill us cap wise since he was sent into exile thus off the cap for this year
 

Crazy_Ike

Cookin' with fire.
Mar 29, 2005
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The buy a cup theory does not hold water.
Toronto has not won a cup since 1967. The Rangers went 54 years to win a cup.
The having money and getting a cup theory does not stand up.

Actually, given that the Cup winner between 1991 (when salaries began to explode) and 2004 (last season before the second lockout installed a cap) has almost every time been in the top third of the league in payroll, it holds water quite fine.

What is faulty logic is pointing to individual teams as countering evidence, as only one team can win it.

You may not guarantee a win by spending money, but NOT spending money almost certainly guarantees NOT winning.

I see Dado is still trying to push baseball as parity, despite the fact the Yankees make the playoffs almost every single year and have been in the WS 7 out of the last 15 times, Boston twice more, and those numbers would be even more skewed if they didn't play in the same division thereby cannibalizing each other. The flaw of trying to use champions as some sort of measuring stick has been long exposed now, it's quite clear from numerous leagues that money is indeed key in the ability to win championships in uncapped leagues.

The most heinous example being, of course, the English Premier League, which basically just rotates the championship between three teams while the rest serve as their midday meals.
 

captainpaxil

Registered User
Dec 2, 2008
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ive come to accept the cap for what it is, its a mechanism to spread talent around and keep large markets from hogging all the talent ala the yankees. the problem i see with it is the minimum. instead of these teams absorbing the players that become cap casualties they get sent to the khl in lieu of cheap rookie contracts. the nhl is bleeding mid level talent. if i wanted to watch 18-24 year olds develop id watch an ahl team. the nhl is supposed to be the highest level of competition in the world not the highest level except for a few "rebuilding" franchises. with 30 teams the quality of the talent is watered down enough without further diluting the product. the percentage of revenues from the cap floor to the max doesnt create parity it creates parody as in how many veterans does it take to operate a tank? it needs to shrink in a large way. no team should be allowed to be more than half the max single player salary(10% of total cap) below the cap. this would mean that 30 teams are all never more than 1 player away from competing.
 

Melrose Munch

Registered User
Mar 18, 2007
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Actually, given that the Cup winner between 1991 (when salaries began to explode) and 2004 (last season before the second lockout installed a cap) has almost every time been in the top third of the league in payroll, it holds water quite fine.

What is faulty logic is pointing to individual teams as countering evidence, as only one team can win it.

You may not guarantee a win by spending money, but NOT spending money almost certainly guarantees NOT winning.

I see Dado is still trying to push baseball as parity, despite the fact the Yankees make the playoffs almost every single year and have been in the WS 7 out of the last 15 times, Boston twice more, and those numbers would be even more skewed if they didn't play in the same division thereby cannibalizing each other. The flaw of trying to use champions as some sort of measuring stick has been long exposed now, it's quite clear from numerous leagues that money is indeed key in the ability to win championships in uncapped leagues.

The most heinous example being, of course, the English Premier League, which basically just rotates the championship between three teams while the rest serve as their midday meals.
Thats all fine except for the fact Bigger Markets get better ratings on TV.
 

achtungbaby

Registered User
Oct 31, 2006
4,792
25
The buy a cup theory does not hold water.
Toronto has not won a cup since 1967. The Rangers went 54 years to win a cup.
The having money and getting a cup theory does not stand up.

You couldn't have picked a worse example of a rich team trying to buy a cup. New York did it, as did others.
 

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