Speculation: The Cap has ruined hockey for fans

[yukoner88]

See that’s just the thing though we were so far behind other teams before the cap because we couldn’t afford to keep our stars. The cap should have evened the playing field and for the first 4 years or so it did. But now we have a billionaire owner willing to spend to the cap every year and we are still unable to ice a balanced team. It goes both ways but I truly believe fans would not be so hard on players if the cap was not a thing.

That's a reflection of bad management for so many years. KLowe (post Pronger wanting out), to Tambo, to Mact, all had no clue of what they were doing and soiled multiple rebuilds.

 

[russ99]

It would be nice if the NHL awarded an amnesty buyout to each team every once in a while. I know this was done a few years ago

Actually would be much better if the NHL adopted a release waiver rule akin to MLB. Release the player, if anyone wants them at their current salary, claim on waivers. If not, the original team is responsible for the remainder of the contract and the player can sign elsewhere at a lowered salary. There seems no mechanism to release a player in the CBA save retirement or buyout.

This offseason has been super-interesting. Each team got an expansion payout and GMs spent like drunken sailors in a flat cap year. Curious what happens if the cap doesn't start going up like they think. The league may need to add an amnesty buyout at some point.

 

[McShogun99]

I think they need to change the buyout rules. Allow each team 1 no penalty buyout every 3 seasons.

Keep ELC’s at 3 years and any contract signed while the player is still on an ELC is 8 years. After that the max contract a player can sign with his team is 6 years, 5 years for UFAs.

Allow a team to go 10a% over the cap with the penalty being a loss of next years 1st round pick.

 

[AM]

How much time do we as fans spend fight each other over certain players salaries? The answer is a hell of a lot. Before the cap became a thing on the NHL the average fan would pipe in that so and so makes to much money but as long as they play well who cares. Now because we have fans that just won’t let anything go if a player is in their eyes overpaid we spend a majority of time discussing what said player gets paid rather than discussing if they can help the team win. Nobody would care if Keith for instance made 1.5 million they would just be happy we have a first ballot HOF on our team. Same goes with Nurse before his contract was signed everyone was praising him and saying how he had taken the next step and become a true number one d man. Fast forward to after the deal and now a large majority of fans say to much money should have traded him or made him repeat this years success before re signing him. This is because as fans we look at the salty first and the results second. The cap has destroyed hockey for us fans. What are the thoughts on this observation?

Im pretty sure its a feature for Bettman. "fan engagement is through the roof!"

 

[K1984]

No the cap is not the issue, rules for the cap and things like no trade clauses and loop holes in the cap are the issue.

How soon we forget a time when our good players left because other teams had no cap.

100%

Limited NMC's, LTIR rules and state tax balancing needs to come in to truly level the playing field. The tax thing is likely impossible due to the complexity of making it work (how do you handle a tax law that changes mid deal/season?), but the limited NMC's along with the fact that all the no tax states are attractive locales to play in causes competitive imbalance. It isn't fair that everyone with an NMC waives for one of Vegas, Tampa, Rangers or nothing. Then these teams get players for pennies on the dollar in trade. Should be an all or nothing clause where it is either a blanket waive to any team or no waive at all.

 

[nexttothemoon]

Take an annual poll of the NHL players favorite places to play in the NHL (due to location/taxes/amenities etc)... and then add cap space to every team in inverse order of that list.

So you'd have the "dumps" of the NHL with larger salary caps and the prestigious areas with lower relative salary caps... and the parity would be true parity in that case.

The "dumps" could then pay players a little more to make it worth their while to play there... and if a player really wants to play in sunny Florida to keep their wag happy for instance... well they'll just have to take a slight pay cut to do so to fit under that team cap.

(Yes I realize players would lie and say their favourite places to play are Columbus and Edmonton and the worst are TB and Seattle... this revised cap parity method is clearly a work in progress. )

 

[oilers'72]

So we can agree that the cap is needed to keep small market teams in business. But that wasn’t my question I want to know if it has ruined hockey for the fans? IMO we spend way to much time and energy worrying about how much money a guy is paid and not enough time on what they can do do to help the team we all cheer for. Good for the game bad for the fans IMO.

At one time we were a small market team with Pockington and EIG trying to pay the bills.

People are saying that a cap works for small market teams, i.e. those with cheap owners. But, even with a cap, there's plenty of problems. Buyouts creating dead cap space, circumvention of the cap, inability to sign several good pieces (with teams having to trade players because of the cap hit, not because the team doesn't have the physical money). Players do pick and choose what team they want to go to, because so few teams have the cap room to take on their salary, which makes the player's decision easier.

As for whether it's affected fans, it used to be that people would complain if they thought Player X wasn't good enough. Now, it's whether the player is good enough or not based on their cap hit.

The cap may be far more interesting to those that play some sort of General Manager game but to others, it's another obstacle.

 

[Senor Catface]

Some of our pre-salary cap woes came from our financial situation.

The secondary problem was that Sather wasn't a good GM by the time he left. He gave away a lot of talent with no return, when we could have restocked the cupboards with draft picks through trades or retained the talent (until no longer financially feasible)

Satan, 30-40 goal scorer.
Mariusz Czerkawski, 30-35 goal scorer
Ray Whitney 30 goal scorer

You know what we got back for 3 30-goal scorers?

Barrie Moore, Craig Miller and Dan LaCouture.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Yup, living through the pain of being a feeder team to the big market clubs was awful. Anytime the Oilers had a player break out or out performed their current deal, they were immediately snapped up by a rich team and we had to hear the constant bullshit lines about "making room for youth" or "the team needed to move on from this player, to go in a different direction". It was all garbage. Even one of the most loved Oilers in his time here, Doug Weight was traded because the team knew they couldn't afford him when his contract was done, and then having to hear all the tripe in the media about how Jochen Hecht was going to be this fantastic player made me wanna puke.

The Irony of the salary cap from the Oilers perspective is, Edmonton always had a hard time aquiring and keeping top end talent, but had an abudnace of good cheap depth and they were always fairly competetive with that depth. The complete opposite is true now. But what i wouldn't give for a 3rd line of Marchant, Grier and Moreau/Murray in their prime right now.

Yep, actually the Oilers are not that much more successful in the current century, than they were in the 90's. Or say the 16 seasons before cap, or after cap.

Most of us recollect guys like K Lowe saying all we needed to be successful was a CBA with a cap that allowed all teams to "compete" For the Oilers that competitive advantage (cap space was gold in the hills) allowed the Oilers to compete for one season, then back to the trash bin basement so fast everybodies head was spinning. Soon it was 2009 and the team was the worst it had ever ever been.

Theres a bit more chicken than egg in the argument and teams that are at a competitive disadvantage sometimes have to try harder to be in the mix. Good managers can do that. On the contrary an owner with deep pockets is able to easily tenure incompetency. Careful what we wish for..

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Yes? And most GMs hand out atrocious contracts on a yearly basis. It took barely a year for that Lucic contract to become horrid. James Neal, Loui Erikkson, John Tavares, the list goes on.

Most of the GMs in this league aren't very good at their jobs.

This is why I say GM-ing a hockey team is not EA Fantasy. You and I do not know a fraction of what goes into a GM's job beyond what we see and read. A handful of bad contracts does not damn every GM into being incompetent morons.

 

[Jumptheshark]

No the cap is not the issue, rules for the cap and things like no trade clauses and loop holes in the cap are the issue.

How soon we forget a time when our good players left because other teams had no cap.

Yep. We have a billioniare owner NOW but when we were run by 10 or so local guys--we had to trade players because we did not have the money to pay them.

There are about 12 clubs that are in the boat the oilers were in a few years ago and no cap would kill them.

BTW

We have a least 2 posters who were either part of or associated with the previous group and when we chatted in Cologne and Gothenburgh--they shed some light as to how much trouble the oilers were in back in those days

 

[BudBundy]

We got super unlucky on the timing that we had to sign nurse

of course we all want nurse on the team just the timing was horrible

could be franchise altering. Hopefully the cap will rise and wash these deals

Luck had nothing to do with it. They kept bridging the guy and let him get to the verge of UFA. The Werenski and Jones contracts twisted the knife even further, but the mistakes with Nurse and his contract were made years ago, leading to today.

 

[Chabot84]

Luck had nothing to do with it. They kept bridging the guy and let him get to the verge of UFA. The Werenski and Jones contracts twisted the knife even further, but the mistakes with Nurse and his contract were made years ago, leading to today.

Yeah excellent. I tread water here and go easy but yeah I think this deal is horrible and I don’t think the Oilers are gonna win a cup with Mcdavid.

which is a damn shame.

In fact, if I am to be so bold, I think the Sens will get further in the playoffs then the damn Oilers over the next 5 years

which is so stupid

 

[CanmoreMike]

Hindsight had the NHL had no cap a Canadian team or three would've won Cups between 2006-2012/13. Strong Canadian dollar would've carried the day coupled with the American market meltdown in 2007/2008.

Having said that I do have a question:

Couldn't the NHL clear up a TON of cap silliness if they just dropped the AAV rule?
If I sign a deal for $10M/$10M/$6M/$6M/$6M/$2M/$2M wouldn't it be far simpler to say I have cap hits equal to my salary as opposed to using my AAV number of $6M? Wouldn't that almost eliminate the escrow accounts? Wouldn't that make end of contract retirements far easier?

 

[WaitingForUser]

Hindsight had the NHL had no cap a Canadian team or three would've won Cups between 2006-2012/13. Strong Canadian dollar would've carried the day coupled with the American market meltdown in 2007/2008.

Having said that I do have a question:

Couldn't the NHL clear up a TON of cap silliness if they just dropped the AAV rule?
If I sign a deal for $10M/$10M/$6M/$6M/$6M/$2M/$2M wouldn't it be far simpler to say I have cap hits equal to my salary as opposed to using my AAV number of $6M? Wouldn't that almost eliminate the escrow accounts? Wouldn't that make end of contract retirements far easier?

They tied this but it turned into 17 year deals that completely circumvented the rules of cap.

 

[Game 8]

NFL has a cap, Patriots win the super bowl as much as anyone why is that? They don’t sign the big name free agents and when their stars demand stupid money they say see yah!

 

[Oilhawks]

NFL has a cap, Patriots win the super bowl as much as anyone why is that? They don’t sign the big name free agents and when their stars demand stupid money they say see yah!

Except they had Brady and Gronk on the team for an eternity…

 

[TB12]

Yeah excellent. I tread water here and go easy but yeah I think this deal is horrible and I don’t think the Oilers are gonna win a cup with Mcdavid.

which is a damn shame.

In fact, if I am to be so bold, I think the Sens will get further in the playoffs then the damn Oilers over the next 5 years

which is so stupid

LOL take
Will literally bet you anything that this is not the case.

 

[Oilhawks]

Yeah excellent. I tread water here and go easy but yeah I think this deal is horrible and I don’t think the Oilers are gonna win a cup with Mcdavid.

which is a damn shame.

In fact, if I am to be so bold, I think the Sens will get further in the playoffs then the damn Oilers over the next 5 years

which is so stupid

 

[MessierII]

They tied this but it turned into 17 year deals that completely circumvented the rules of cap.

To me they should have stricter max term. The 7-8 year thing was a start but to me it should be even lower. 5-6 would be better. Or 5 with an option for a 6th year. One thing the NBA does well.

 

[rboomercat90]

We had a bunch of minor millionaire owners who, albeit a valued stop gap, didn't have the money to compete in a no cap world. They led the charge on having a cap. Now we have a billionaire who could spend money on keeping and obtaining stars, but he can't due to the cap.

So, we got stuck twice.

How much more would he spend without a cap though? He’s a businessman first. I don’t see him as a guy who would out spend everybody. I think he appreciates a cap and if he spends to it he’s fulfilling his end of the bargain. I don’t think he’d be a guy willing to lose a fortune chasing a winner. I think whatever he’d be willing to spend is based on whatever he can squeeze out of the fan base and I think he’s already past that point.

 

[rboomercat90]

So we can agree that the cap is needed to keep small market teams in business. But that wasn’t my question I want to know if it has ruined hockey for the fans? IMO we spend way to much time and energy worrying about how much money a guy is paid and not enough time on what they can do do to help the team we all cheer for. Good for the game bad for the fans IMO.

To answer your question, what ruined hockey or all pro sports for that matter was publicly releasing the financial details of players salaries. Nobody cared what players were making before they knew what they were. They just enjoyed watching and cheering for their teams. Now it’s all they care about. It’s pretty sad when you can’t enjoy a player having a career year because you’re worried about how it’ll affect his status on the team. That’s where we are now.

 

[Fourier]

NFL has a cap, Patriots win the super bowl as much as anyone why is that? They don’t sign the big name free agents and when their stars demand stupid money they say see yah!

Any team in the NFL with one of the best QB's of all time is an automatic contender. That is not the case in hockey.

 

[ijuka]

Cap's a good thing.

Something like Tampa Bay Lightning being able to play 30% above the cap is the issue.

 

[Fourier]

Hindsight had the NHL had no cap a Canadian team or three would've won Cups between 2006-2012/13. Strong Canadian dollar would've carried the day coupled with the American market meltdown in 2007/2008.

Having said that I do have a question:

Couldn't the NHL clear up a TON of cap silliness if they just dropped the AAV rule?
If I sign a deal for $10M/$10M/$6M/$6M/$6M/$2M/$2M wouldn't it be far simpler to say I have cap hits equal to my salary as opposed to using my AAV number of $6M? Wouldn't that almost eliminate the escrow accounts? Wouldn't that make end of contract retirements far easier?

It would actually introduce a whole lot of other issues including making planing much harder. Lots of one year contracts. Players moving around from team to team. It's extremely unlikley to happen.