TSN: Toronto’s salary cap balancing act, through the eyes of McDavid, Toews and Tavares

Johnnybegood13

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Jul 11, 2003
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He could also have pushed for the Max which was what, about 15. And they would have had to give it to him. So really he took 2.5 million per year less than he could have. That is 20 million he left on the table.
Or the Oilers could have waited a year and forced a bridge, handing a kid who has done nothing for team success $100 million will do nothing for the competitive juices. The other stupidity was signing Connor before Leon, Chia is as dumb as the paint on your wall.
 

McIce Whole

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Jan 7, 2008
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Or the Oilers could have waited a year and forced a bridge, handing a kid who has done nothing for team success $100 million will do nothing for the competitive juices. The other stupidity was signing Connor before Leon, Chia is as dumb as the paint on your wall.

Bridge the best player in the world, coming off a season where his team went to game 7 of the second round (no team success though :laugh:) only to give him the max or whatever the hell he wants the following season?

Your posts never fail to amuse me. :laugh:
 

JeremyTB

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Mar 16, 2007
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Or the Oilers could have waited a year and forced a bridge, handing a kid who has done nothing for team success $100 million will do nothing for the competitive juices. The other stupidity was signing Connor before Leon, Chia is as dumb as the paint on your wall.

Or just don't give Russell and Lucic horrible contracts. These two are making a combined $10 million per year.
 
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supsens

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Oct 6, 2013
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Or the Oilers could have waited a year and forced a bridge, handing a kid who has done nothing for team success $100 million will do nothing for the competitive juices. The other stupidity was signing Connor before Leon, Chia is as dumb as the paint on your wall.

Dear Connor, go away leon is are priority. Come back next week and we will see whats left in the budget.
 
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FerrisRox

"Wanna go, Prettyboy?"
Sep 17, 2003
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What if the team wants to trade them even with a NTC or a NMC? It happened when the Leafs wanted to trade Kessel despite him having a NTC.

It doesn't mean they get to just because they want to.

As a result of Kessel's NTC he got to pick his landing spot and the Leafs got a soft return.

If one of the Tampa guys didn't want to get traded to a city where the tax situation would change, they could simply say no, end of conversation. As a Leaf fan, surely you remember the Muskoka Five.
 
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Taylorst

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Jun 26, 2018
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The cap is about hockey related revenue. They can't just massively increase the cap. They could if the league was pulling in that kind of cash, it just tends not to. Plus, the cap isn't about parity, it's about cost certainty. If there's parity as a result, fine. If one team wins the Cup 10 years in a row, fine.

If you got rid of guaranteed contracts, maybe you could do away with penalties for retirement or injury. Since the whole thing is about cost certainty though, Toronto, NY, etc, aren't supposed to spend to their hearts content. In order to do that, there has to be a limit. You can't have more than 2 or 3 guys or whatever on LTIR at the same time, that kind of thing.


I'd agree on the guarantee contracts that has to change, but also other factors that go into the cap rising is the Canadian dollar that makes a big difference. However my point was over a 10 year period each year your going to give salary increases that's inevitable and the avg increase in a salary can differ but even bottom guys make an avg of 3.5 to 5 million so to only increase the cap 2.5 million each year over 10 years is a joke. When you have 5 guys on a 23 man roster eating up 60 percent of your cap how does that really benefit the league's ability to produce a sport that intices people to watch , by memorabilia or go to games.

If your highest paid player is making 10 to 13 million , that's peanuts compared to other sports players.


Bettman and his cronies need to get their act together.


Adding more teams to the league is not a solution when you have teams, markets that either don't generate the cash or fans and are constantly bottom feeders or can't go to the cap ceiling due to market. That's not a way to run a sport.

Every player should be on a 2way contract this way it alleviates cap issues and insures players play to the level their expected to and holds them accountable. Players on their final year of their contracts seem to up their game and once paid they go M.I.A with cheap excuses.
 
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lifelonghockeyfan

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Dec 18, 2015
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I know there is so much concerned about the Leaf cap situation but it look better some other teams.
Kings have Kopitar and Doughty at 21m. then Kovi and Brown. at 12m...which may not end well.
Ducks Getzalf, Perry, Henrique, Kesler. 29m
And the Jets...who are real good team will. have issues signing Laine, and Connor long term unless they rid themselves of iffy contracts such a Little, Perrault and Kulivov.
 

Taylorst

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Jun 26, 2018
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I know there is so much concerned about the Leaf cap situation but it look better some other teams.
Kings have Kopitar and Doughty at 21m. then Kovi and Brown. at 12m...which may not end well.
Ducks Getzalf, Perry, Henrique, Kesler. 29m
And the Jets...who are real good team will. have issues signing Laine, and Connor long term unless they rid themselves of iffy contracts such a Little, Perrault and Kulivov.



Agreed , that's the same situation the hawks are In their pay 5 guys out of a 23 man roster over 60 percent of their cap money, now granted Chicago those 5 players earned every penny with winning 3 cups to justify those salaries. However the league over a 10 year period has increased the salary cap on avg 2.5 million that is a joke and the incentive for teams to be competitive doesn't inspire with a minimal rise in the cap. Bonuses also should not be included in the cap it penalizes teams for excellence.

Next year the league and players should raise the cap at least 15 to 20 million to account for these rising salaries.
 

Tobias Kahun

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Oct 3, 2017
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Agreed , that's the same situation the hawks are In their pay 5 guys out of a 23 man roster over 60 percent of their cap money, now granted Chicago those 5 players earned every penny with winning 3 cups to justify those salaries. However the league over a 10 year period has increased the salary cap on avg 2.5 million that is a joke and the incentive for teams to be competitive doesn't inspire with a minimal rise in the cap. Bonuses also should not be included in the cap it penalizes teams for excellence.

Next year the league and players should raise the cap at least 15 to 20 million to account for these rising salaries.
You do know the rise of the cap is directly tied to revenue?
 

GaryPoppins

A broken clock is right twice in a day
Sep 10, 2016
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Yea Dubas is going to have to pull it out of his ass to keep all the talent long-term. I think he can do it, but he has to be pretty good.

Speaking none of Leafs three big ticket items are signed yet... the glass can either be seen as half empty or half full. You realistically hope they're all buying in on taking team friendly deals to keep the clan together, but a mentality like that can easily be removed by agents/family/other players who perhaps made a contractual mistake in terms of earnings and urge said players to maximize their return.

Seeing the latter of this with Nylander. Firmly believe as an unbiased outsider that you cant have all of Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Tavares signed. Too tight.
 

powerstuck

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If your highest paid player is making 10 to 13 million , that's peanuts compared to other sports players.


Bettman and his cronies need to get their act together.

NHL wouldn't survive in 25 out of 31 markets, after 5 years if the cap was to raise to 100M (lets call it a significant increase).
 

Taylorst

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Jun 26, 2018
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You do know the rise of the cap is directly tied to revenue?


It's a myriad of factors , revenue plays apart but that's where the players who have vested interest determine the percent.
Other factors are the Canadian dollar, markets , etc.
 

Taylorst

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Jun 26, 2018
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NHL wouldn't survive in 25 out of 31 markets, after 5 years if the cap was to raise to 100M (lets call it a significant increase).


That's a false choice, you're stating. The cap is at 79.5 million 20 million more makes a difference for teams to offer their stars or free agents and reward them without playing these twister games .

Look at markets like phoniex or Carolina, buffalo ,Ottowa I think Florida as well. Year after year these teams are dead last or not willing to go above the cap floor or put out subpar teams and their 1 or 2 superstars they end up trading away or these players walk due to the conditions in those teams not willing to win or be competitive.


I'm a Chicago fan and speaking from what this team has had to do to win those 3 cups and 5 western conference finals, while deciding who the core players are and reward players and pay bonuses that get added into the salary cap it's ridiculous that the league bettman hasn't talked more about the cap and it's negative impact. He's worried about adding more teams like Seattle , when he has markets that can't even year after year compete or break even. Phoniex is a prime example they should have either had a owner whom was willing to put a great product on the ice instead bankruptcy and bad hockey
 

powerstuck

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That's a false choice, you're stating. The cap is at 79.5 million 20 million more makes a difference for teams to offer their stars or free agents and reward them without playing these twister games .

Look at markets like phoniex or Carolina, buffalo ,Ottowa I think Florida as well. Year after year these teams are dead last or not willing to go above the cap floor or put out subpar teams and their 1 or 2 superstars they end up trading away or these players walk due to the conditions in those teams not willing to win or be competitive.


I'm a Chicago fan and speaking from what this team has had to do to win those 3 cups and 5 western conference finals, while deciding who the core players are and reward players and pay bonuses that get added into the salary cap it's ridiculous that the league bettman hasn't talked more about the cap and it's negative impact. He's worried about adding more teams like Seattle , when he has markets that can't even year after year compete or break even. Phoniex is a prime example they should have either had a owner whom was willing to put a great product on the ice instead bankruptcy and bad hockey

What you state is an owner problem. Melnyk in Ottawa doesn't/cannot spend to full cap.
Phoenix, who's real owner is kinda a debatable subject, doesn't/cannot spend to full cap.

The cap and floor are a CBA negotiated mathematical formulas. One cannot grow without the other, not without having a major impact on pretty much everything else.

Sure a place like Toronto would survive but every single one of the 31 teams would try to fully or partially transfert those extra millions in cost to US the fans. Without knowing how much you pay for your tickets...would you be okay with a sudden 20% increase ? I know I wouldn't. The NHL is still a gate-driven league. A big chunk of it's 4B revenues come from direct ticket sales to fans (82 games for every 31 teams, at an average of 50$ a ticket and an average of 15000 tickets per game is 1,9B).

Very few teams could afford to pay a higher cap ceiling without charging more, and you already state that many teams struggle in current conditions, worsening those (raising the expenses) would only make it worse.
 
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LeafsNation75

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Jan 15, 2010
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Toronto, Ontario
It doesn't mean they get to just because they want to.

As a result of Kessel's NTC he got to pick his landing spot and the Leafs got a soft return.

If one of the Tampa guys didn't want to get traded to a city where the tax situation would change, they could simply say no, end of conversation. As a Leaf fan, surely you remember the Muskoka Five.
How many of Tampa's players with a NTC or a NMC would only have Dallas or Las Vegas as teams they would go to in a trade, because the states of Texas and Nevada have the same no state tax as living Florida. I also guess with that logic would they want to be traded to the Panthers since they would still play in the state of Florida. So basically what I'm asking is the no state tax advantage something the Lightning players consider or is it more talk among fans about it's advantage?
 

supsens

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NHL wouldn't survive in 25 out of 31 markets, after 5 years if the cap was to raise to 100M (lets call it a significant increase).


Sure it would, but the players giving up 40% of thier checks to escrow is the result.
 

Taylorst

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Jun 26, 2018
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What you state is an owner problem. Melnyk in Ottawa doesn't/cannot spend to full cap.
Phoenix, who's real owner is kinda a debatable subject, doesn't/cannot spend to full cap.

The cap and floor are a CBA negotiated mathematical formulas. One cannot grow without the other, not without having a major impact on pretty much everything else.

Sure a place like Toronto would survive but every single one of the 31 teams would try to fully or partially transfert those extra millions in cost to US the fans. Without knowing how much you pay for your tickets...would you be okay with a sudden 20% increase ? I know I wouldn't. The NHL is still a gate-driven league. A big chunk of it's 4B revenues come from direct ticket sales to fans (82 games for every 31 teams, at an average of 50$ a ticket and an average of 15000 tickets per game is 1,9B).

Very few teams could afford to pay a higher cap ceiling without charging more, and you already state that many teams struggle in current conditions, worsening those (raising the expenses) would only make it worse.




My argument is very simple , hockey has always been a great sport over any other sport , but the players have always been under paid . The notion about ticket prices going up is false , if a team a team is winning they automatically go up that's a given, cities impose taxes which in turn teams half to raise ticket prices.


Their are plenty of billionaire and investors out their who would love to buy into or buy a franchise that's a given.

Winning solves all cash flow issues, if your not willing to put a team out their that is competitive, you build and send a bad message to the players on the team , moral , tanking to get picks , etc, if these markets or owners can't support these teams and have a salary cap that rewards players and teams for allowing them an achievable cap to work with then instead of adding another market , either take the franchise away from bad ownership or eliminate that market.

I'm not saying over pay players, but example players who are extremely gifted should be rewarded and players , who achieve team success year after year Chicago 3 cup , 5 conference finals in 7 years those players should be rewarded and not penalized , because other markets or owners can't get their act together and other teams have to suffer the cost at their expense.


Ottowa use to have good teams , however their owner seems to be a I see along with Montreal, phoniex why did the NHL not just fold up that market when the owner created a losing attitude with being cheap which killed the market shares . Their comes a point where the league needs to rethink the salary cap and markets.
 

Alberta_OReilly_Fan

Bruin fan since 1975
Nov 26, 2006
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oilers and maple leafs are both screwed because of their special ownership

in Edmonton... the ownership wanted to develop downtown ice district but the market is the same market that saw wayne gretzky and mark messier get sold. if this new owner wanted the political capital to get all that sweetheart consideration from the tax payers to do his multi billion dollar land deal he had to show the tax payers that he was going to do what he could to bring pride and glory back to the team. connor McDavid needed to be signed to as long a deal as possible. this was much much much much more than a hockey deal. this was a billion dollar deal for the ownership group.

and honestly keeping draisaitl was probably part of it. this oiler team has been dysfunctional for years. kind of a party attitude going back to the days of the boys on the bus. the media used to joke on the shows... well wayne gretzky needs to have a say in the decesions. but it was more than just a joke. peter puck was a media whore who wanted to be a member of the team... and gaetz has admitted he is basically best friends to the old oiler players like kevin lowe too.

when the oilers were trying to land Justin Schultz they fly hall and a few of the kids down to talk to him... basically tell him come hang out with us and party party… meanwhile when yakupov flunks out he basically breaks down and cries in st louis saying he was out of the clique in Edmonton and never felt lonlier in his life.

its not a traditional hockey story going on in Edmonton... and its not going to lead to success... but you will see contracts like this handed out because believe it or not-its good business for the owner.

meanwhile we look at Toronto owned by the 2 largest media groups in Canada sports. as long as the fans are willing to give this ownership group the benefit of the doubt and buy into the rebuild... revenues will be through the roof. but the second the young kids are traded away because they cost too much, heaven help the media companies that own the team. Toronto fan base has lividly hated former owner groups but the teachers union and the grocery guy didn't really make their fortune being popular with the fans. these media owners need the good will of the fans to jack the advertising revenues.

both Toronto and Edmonton are slaves to their biggest stars for outside business reasons. its a situation that is destroying the pay grade scale for all the regular markets. this is going to end up being part of the next cba. the only way to protect the other teams is to adapt a special 'franchise player' designation that allows players to exist outside the cap in markets like this.

weve already seen Eichel use this situation to his advantage to get his 10... and laine is going to get even more than that. 3 years ago these guys would have realistically been looking at 7-7.5 mill tops. this is a huge huge huge inflation rate. its unnatural

and it totally kills the whole idea of building through the draft. the idea was for poor teams to draft well, and get a 6-8 year run with a young group of affordable guys to make their team relevant to their fan base... just wait and enjoy the kids and we will have a chance to win...

but not when second term players are getting 6+ million now if they are any good at all
 

MessierII

Registered User
Aug 10, 2011
27,646
16,190
oilers and maple leafs are both screwed because of their special ownership

in Edmonton... the ownership wanted to develop downtown ice district but the market is the same market that saw wayne gretzky and mark messier get sold. if this new owner wanted the political capital to get all that sweetheart consideration from the tax payers to do his multi billion dollar land deal he had to show the tax payers that he was going to do what he could to bring pride and glory back to the team. connor McDavid needed to be signed to as long a deal as possible. this was much much much much more than a hockey deal. this was a billion dollar deal for the ownership group.

and honestly keeping draisaitl was probably part of it. this oiler team has been dysfunctional for years. kind of a party attitude going back to the days of the boys on the bus. the media used to joke on the shows... well wayne gretzky needs to have a say in the decesions. but it was more than just a joke. peter puck was a media ****e who wanted to be a member of the team... and gaetz has admitted he is basically best friends to the old oiler players like kevin lowe too.

when the oilers were trying to land Justin Schultz they fly hall and a few of the kids down to talk to him... basically tell him come hang out with us and party party… meanwhile when yakupov flunks out he basically breaks down and cries in st louis saying he was out of the clique in Edmonton and never felt lonlier in his life.

its not a traditional hockey story going on in Edmonton... and its not going to lead to success... but you will see contracts like this handed out because believe it or not-its good business for the owner.

meanwhile we look at Toronto owned by the 2 largest media groups in Canada sports. as long as the fans are willing to give this ownership group the benefit of the doubt and buy into the rebuild... revenues will be through the roof. but the second the young kids are traded away because they cost too much, heaven help the media companies that own the team. Toronto fan base has lividly hated former owner groups but the teachers union and the grocery guy didn't really make their fortune being popular with the fans. these media owners need the good will of the fans to jack the advertising revenues.

both Toronto and Edmonton are slaves to their biggest stars for outside business reasons. its a situation that is destroying the pay grade scale for all the regular markets. this is going to end up being part of the next cba. the only way to protect the other teams is to adapt a special 'franchise player' designation that allows players to exist outside the cap in markets like this.

weve already seen Eichel use this situation to his advantage to get his 10... and laine is going to get even more than that. 3 years ago these guys would have realistically been looking at 7-7.5 mill tops. this is a huge huge huge inflation rate. its unnatural

and it totally kills the whole idea of building through the draft. the idea was for poor teams to draft well, and get a 6-8 year run with a young group of affordable guys to make their team relevant to their fan base... just wait and enjoy the kids and we will have a chance to win...

but not when second term players are getting 6+ million now if they are any good at all
Oh please. Ovechkin signed for 9.5 million dollar cap hit in 2008 when it was almost 17% of the cap. Slightly higher % than Mcdavid. The more money the league makes the higher the cap goes the higher the players share of the money is. That’s the function of the CBA.
 

crowi

Registered Loser
May 11, 2012
8,174
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Helsinki
Or the Oilers could have waited a year and forced a bridge, handing a kid who has done nothing for team success $100 million will do nothing for the competitive juices. The other stupidity was signing Connor before Leon, Chia is as dumb as the paint on your wall.
You can complain about every other signing Oilers have made, but when you bring up McDavid, then you're just wrong and bitter.
 

Alberta_OReilly_Fan

Bruin fan since 1975
Nov 26, 2006
14,331
3,941
Edmonton Canada
Oh please. Ovechkin signed for 9.5 million dollar cap hit in 2008 when it was almost 17% of the cap. Slightly higher % than Mcdavid. The more money the league makes the higher the cap goes the higher the players share of the money is. That’s the function of the CBA.

that was a 13 year deal at age 23? effectively a career contract... effectively an ufa contract???

yeah that's a great comparable
 

LeafsNation75

Registered User
Jan 15, 2010
37,975
12,506
Toronto, Ontario
meanwhile we look at Toronto owned by the 2 largest media groups in Canada sports. as long as the fans are willing to give this ownership group the benefit of the doubt and buy into the rebuild... revenues will be through the roof. but the second the young kids are traded away because they cost too much, heaven help the media companies that own the team. Toronto fan base has lividly hated former owner groups but the teachers union and the grocery guy didn't really make their fortune being popular with the fans. these media owners need the good will of the fans to jack the advertising revenues.
It was Brendan Shanahan who had to get approval from MLSE to start their rebuild in 2015 and that means getting approval from both Bell and Rogers. So in the case you are wrong with that opinion.
 

krt88nc

Registered User
Oct 7, 2017
717
278
Fayetteville, NC
Watching Leafs/Sabres last night Sportsnet said Nylander’s agent was looking at Draisaitl’s contract as a comparison.

That’s gotta scare the crap out of the Leafs brass. They felt that Edmonton signing McDavid first blotted Leon’s contract and they want to avoid that. Therefore, they want to get Nylander locked up long term before Matthews gets 12/12.5m. However, if Nylander gets 8 million per, doesn’t that create problems when Marner’s deal comes up? He’s gonna want more.

The Leafs seem like they’ll have issues unless they move one of their wingers.
 

Lenerdosy

Registered User
Feb 23, 2015
584
179
First of all, the Leafs don't need guys to take discounts to stay together. They just need to take reasonable deals that are in the "comparables" area.

Secondly, Mitch Marner may mess things up by being too good too fast. Last summer I expected he'd sign for about what Nylander will get.
Based on his last 50 games, he's going to get a fair bit more.

I won't worry about it. We have some of the best cap people in the business on it. One of which wrote the damned cap rules.
It will be really interesting when they get to negotiations next summer for Marner. He's proved he's the 2nd best offensive player on the team last year (in my view) behind Matthews and if he has a monster season playing with Tavares, will that be seen as a positive or will management come and be like "so we got you this all-star 11 million player for you to play with so it bumped up your stats". Thats the negotiation I am really intrigued by, mind you still a season to see how it all plays out.
 

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