The NHL has a BIG problem (Cap Circumvention via LTIR)

[GermanSpitfire]

The NBA salary cap is $109.1M with a $132.6M luxury tax. That is what the NHL should be! Why should the NHL stars be worth 1/4 of what the NBA stars are! It is BS.

That is simple, roster sizes in the NBA are half of that of the NHL and one single player in the NBA can have a drastic effect on the outlook of a game, where as the NHL you need a team to win.

 

[ItWasJustified]

The NBA salary cap is $109.1M with a $132.6M luxury tax. That is what the NHL should be! Why should the NHL stars be worth 1/4 of what the NBA stars are! It is BS.

Hockey is the ultimate team sport. Bouncehoop is not.

If I understand the thread, Kucherov

Kucherov is still injured though.

 

[Sky04]

The NBA salary cap is $109.1M with a $132.6M luxury tax. That is what the NHL should be! Why should the NHL stars be worth 1/4 of what the NBA stars are! It is BS.

You know what the salary cap is based off of right?

 

[edog37]

I would scrap the daily cap calculations and redefine it so that that aggregate AAV of a team's contracts must be below the cap for the entire regular season as well as the playoffs. This would also get rid of "saving cap space" for deadline rentals.

and again, it still is a solution in search of a problem. Neither the league or the NHLPA want to do this, so why is it a burning question here?

 

[Blackjack]

and again, it still is a solution in search of a problem. Neither the league or the NHLPA want to do this, so why is it a burning question here?

Because fans want it? Are these threads just here to discuss what owners and players want? What is the point of even saying things like this?

 

[Chips]

Because fans want it? Are these threads just here to discuss what owners and players want? What is the point of even saying things like this?

90% of fans don’t understand the business or hockey side of any NHL topic, idk why they’d choose the opinions of people who’ve never run a team and or competed at a high level lol. Half of the people in here don’t even fully know the rules, or how changing this will affect that. It’s just people pissy a team benefiting this time happens to be good.


These threads are mostly the same few people going back and forth

 

[Blackjack]

90% of fans don’t understand the business or hockey side of any NHL topic, idk why they’d choose the opinions of people who’ve never run a team and or competed at a high level lol. Half of the people in here don’t even fully know the rules, or how changing this will affect that. It’s just people pissy a team benefiting this time happens to be good.


These threads are mostly the same few people going back and forth

I think 90% of fans can understand that there's something wrong when they play Tampa Bay in the playoffs and Tampa has $102 million of NHL payroll on their roster.

Also, no one knows what the owners or players want. There's obviously a contingent of owners or players that are happy with the current arrangement, but that doesn't mean everyone is.

If someone has the rules wrong, there's nothing wrong with correcting them, and there's nothing wrong with discussing any unintended consequences you think will come from a reform of LTIR. This isn't about any specific team, or at least it doesn't need to be. Nearly 1/3 of the league is above the salary cap, and it's probably closer to half the league if you count the full AAV of retained-salary players.

 

[Karl Eriksson]

I actively encourage cap circumvention. The NHL's cap is stupid.

They sold you all on a parity narrative when the sole purpose of it was owners lining their pockets.

Look at who has one the cup in the cap era. Seems like a lot of small and medium sized markets to me. I think parity worked.

 

[Chips]

I think 90% of fans can understand that there's something wrong when they play Tampa Bay in the playoffs and Tampa has $102 million of NHL payroll on their roster.

Also, no one knows what the owners or players want. There's obviously a contingent of owners or players that are happy with the current arrangement, but that doesn't mean everyone is.

If someone has the rules wrong, there's nothing wrong with correcting them, and there's nothing wrong with discussing any unintended consequences you think will come from a reform of LTIR. This isn't about any specific team, or at least it doesn't need to be. Nearly 1/3 of the league is above the salary cap, and it's probably closer to half the league if you count the full AAV of retained-salary players.

We have a pretty good idea what owners and players want, because they’ve had years to change how contracts work, and LTIR works and they’ve evidently either not thought of it as a problem, or they don’t think it’s enough of a problem that any downsides to changes made wouldn’t be worse.

LTIR is about the regular season. 90-100% of teams’ year. Icing as competitive a roster as possible to even make the playoffs, and get home ice for themselves and their fans.


Factor in how most LTIR placements don’t actually return for the playoffs and or aren’t significant players near Kucherovs level, and it probably doesn’t justify in league people’s minds making changes that would affect 100% of teams all the time.

the last closest example was Patrick Kane several years ago, and that team wasn’t exactly world beaters. They added THREE “great” players and went something like 12-8-3

you have to be pretty “lucky” that the timing works out relative to the season and severity of the injuries (which no player would ever consider lucky in the first place) which doesn’t happen often.

now again consider how much luck good and bad plays into every teams season. Some teams (including probably the bolts anyway) lose players after the deadline and even just before the round starts. That’s both bad luck for them, and good luck for the other team. That’s an “advantage” for them. If you’re point is spending difference, now they’re X-more millions of dollars heavier in the playoffs round. Shit happens. I wouldn’t be surprised if many around the league view this as essentially the same given the degree of luck


I’d bet anything the scale of “outrage” would shift up or down any instance given the respective teams quality to begin with. A team that’s lower seed quality, maybe bubble, has made some bad decisions in the past because they can’t see the future. They’ve got some cap recapture or retained or a massively overpaid bottom six guy, yet by some miracle has been competitive and makes the playoffs. Not stacked by any means, and lost a key guy before the deadline, they should be hamstrung? The league is all about parity, and these teams have just as much potential to need the current LTIR (and still would need lucky timing to benefit as Tampa is, but would the league complain? Probably not. More talent = more entertainment)


You’d pretty much have to fundamentally alter finances and how contracts work, and I’m not smart enough to get into all that but I assume it would have impacts on the league well outside this issue or otherwise would lose on parties interest

 

[edog37]

Because fans want it? Are these threads just here to discuss what owners and players want? What is the point of even saying things like this?

Which fans? The only fans I see complaining about this are located on this thread. No one outside of this thread thinks this a "fall on your sword" type item. The current cap structure has benefitted the league in ways that are beyond measure. If there are little quirks like this, who cares.

 

[Blackjack]

Which fans? The only fans I see complaining about this are located on this thread. No one outside of this thread thinks this a "fall on your sword" type item. The current cap structure has benefitted the league in ways that are beyond measure. If there are little quirks like this, who cares.

Yeah, I mean, I see people upset about what Tampa Bay is doing with Stamkos and Kucherov on Twitter and on the Devils board, but if you don't see them I guess they don't count.

 

[LTIR Trickery]

You know what the salary cap is based off of right?

He doesn't.

 

[edog37]

Yeah, I mean, I see people upset about what Tampa Bay is doing with Stamkos and Kucherov on Twitter and on the Devils board, but if you don't see them I guess they don't count.

The rule applies equally across the board to all teams. It isn't like pre-cap, where you had a few teams with monster revenue streams & corporate ownership who could spend whatever amount they chose to create a distinct advantage. Tampa is at a competitive disadvantage by missing Stamkos & Kucherov, so the cap implications do not outweigh the competitive disadvantage. So you honestly think Tampa wouldn't want to have either of those guys available in the lineup? That would be a remarkable assertion to make that claim. Again, this is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem.

 

[Blackjack]

The rule applies equally across the board to all teams. It isn't like pre-cap, where you had a few teams with monster revenue streams & corporate ownership who could spend whatever amount they chose to create a distinct advantage. Tampa is at a competitive disadvantage by missing Stamkos & Kucherov, so the cap implications do not outweigh the competitive disadvantage. So you honestly think Tampa wouldn't want to have either of those guys available in the lineup? That would be a remarkable assertion to make that claim. Again, this is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem.

I thought we were talking about whether or not anyone else cares.

 

[rojac]

Because fans want it? Are these threads just here to discuss what owners and players want? What is the point of even saying things like this?

SOME fans want it. And even if the majority of fans here wanted it, I really don't think HFBoards is representative of the average fan. It's representative of hockey fans who are willing to waste time on a hockey web site. I don't think I know anyone else in real life who is a hockey fan and bothers reading internet discussion boards dealing with hockey.

 

[rojac]

Yeah, I mean, I see people upset about what Tampa Bay is doing with Stamkos and Kucherov on Twitter and on the Devils board, but if you don't see them I guess they don't count.

You do realize that people only post about stuff like this when they don't like it. The people who do like it or simply don't care are very unlikely to post -- and most likely simply write off the complainers as whiners without even acknowledging the complaint.

 

[Blackjack]

SOME fans want it. And even if the majority of fans here wanted it, I really don't think HFBoards is representative of the average fan. It's representative of hockey fans who are willing to waste time on a hockey web site. I don't think I know anyone else in real life who is a hockey fan and bothers reading internet discussion boards dealing with hockey.

You do realize that people only post about stuff like this when they don't like it. The people who do like it or simply don't care are very unlikely to post -- and most likely simply write off the complainers as whiners without even acknowledging the complaint.

I have no idea what your point is here. Did the average fan care about 14 year front-loaded retirement contracts before the Kovalchuk sanctions and rule changes? Did the average fan care about 35+ contracts? did the average fan care about back loaded RFA bridge deals designed to juice the qualifying offer?

No, in each case the league identified a problem with the existing CBA and changed it.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I have no idea what your point is here. Did the average fan care about 14 year front-loaded retirement contracts before the Kovalchuk sanctions and rule changes? Did the average fan care about 35+ contracts? did the average fan care about back loaded RFA bridge deals designed to juice the qualifying offer?

No, in each case the league identified a problem identified a non-problem that it thought existed with the existing CBA and changed it. implemented a shitty non-solution that created more problems, while ignoring other still-existing problems that needed [still need] real solutions.

IFYP

 

[Chips]

I have no idea what your point is here. Did the average fan care about 14 year front-loaded retirement contracts before the Kovalchuk sanctions and rule changes? Did the average fan care about 35+ contracts? did the average fan care about back loaded RFA bridge deals designed to juice the qualifying offer?

No, in each case the league identified a problem with the existing CBA and changed it.

And the league hasn’t addressed this “issue” in multiple chances, even when it was brought up at an annual GM meeting several years ago (by a couple teams who just happened to have lost, to a non-juggernaut that after the deadline won marginally more games than it lost with three added players). It got nowhere.


Most alternative/rule changes are unrealistic and or will create other problems.

instances of a Tampa level team losing a Kucherov level player, and the timing working out “perfectly”* that he returns for the playoffs is so uncommon, and almost entirely depends on luck + already having done a great job building a roster that you have guys to spare, rules changes would affect things every year

*(Ignoring that he likely won’t be 100%. Now Stamkos, and don’t be the least bit surprised if they lose more anyway)


What if a team loses their star or two just before the first round starts, and their opponent is technically icing a team tens of millions of dollars more valuable? So unfair, should the opponent be required to bench a guy to avoid such a travesty?

 

[SotasicA]

This thread is full of so many misconceptions, it hurts my brain to read it.

 

[BCNate]

It is the same set of rules for everyone. Not sure what the issue is.

 

[Chips]

It is the same set of rules for everyone. Not sure what the issue is.

Their team has lower odds of winning the cup than Tampa.

 

[BCNate]

Their team has lower odds of winning the cup than Tampa.

If you "circumvent" the rules by conveniently sitting a top 10 player in the league for a whole year, and have so much confidence that you will still enter the playoffs in a favorable position, more power to you.

 

[smack66]

outside of Tampa fans, I think we can all agree on one thing.

let's hope they get bounced in the first round of the playoffs so this becomes a non issue.

 

[LTIR Trickery]

If you "circumvent" the rules by conveniently sitting a top 10 player in the league for a whole year, and have so much confidence that you will still enter the playoffs in a favorable position, more power to you.

If by sitting you mean having your f***ing hip cut open, sure.

Also sorry for putting together a good roster? Sorry your team isn't deep.