Why salary cap? There are teams paying 90+ and one even 113 millions this season

[M88K]

Salary Cap= Parity. Smaller markets would have no chance to compete otherwise

Looking at the MLB....Snoooooooozzzzzzzzzze

Yeah but who likes baseball?

 

[phillydownsouth]

Yeah but who likes baseball?

people that werent athletic enough to play hockey and/or to slow to follow the puck on TV.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

LTIR is a thing, you know

Its a loophole, not meant to help you with your cap. Teams are just shamefully taking advantage on that.

 

[Claypool]

Salary cap is the worst idea for the league in a long while.

 

[tucker3434]

As the poet Puff Daddy so wisely put it, “it’s all about the benjamins.”

Hard to argue it isn’t working. The league has never had firmer financial footing.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

Its a loophole, not meant to help you with your cap. Teams are just shamefully taking advantage on that.

It's not a loophole, it allows a team to spend to the cap when they have injured players on the payroll. There's nothing to take advantage of. Leafs are spending to the cap on players who are healthy to play, just like everyone else.

 

[Kale Makar]

Salary Cap= Parity. Smaller markets would have no chance to compete otherwise

Looking at the MLB....Snoooooooozzzzzzzzzze

Came here to say this... Yankees in the WS again? who woulda thunk it

 

[Butch 19]

Salary Cap= Parity. Smaller markets would have no chance to compete otherwise

Looking at the MLB....Snoooooooozzzzzzzzzze

No, salary cap = cost certainty.

It has NOTHING to do with parity.

 

[phillydownsouth]

No, salary cap = cost certainty.

It has NOTHING to do with parity.

you may be right ; however, parity is the main perk we get with the salary cap

 

[sandysan]

That's not why there's a salary cap. It's to ensure a 50/50 split of HRR as an attempt to stabilize the financial health of all 31 franchises.

the cap isn't tied permanently to a 50/50 split of HRR ( although that is what it is now, at least for a while) and having a cap floor absolutely forces some teams to spend up to it ( creatively) to ATTEMPT ensure parity by NOT allowing the rich teams to use their financial might to keep the not rich teams relegates to second class developmental teams like in some leagues.

 

[IceNeophyte]

Does LTIR count towards expenditure and escrow or is it 'off the payroll'? Seeing a list like the leafs if that counts towards escrow the players would be getting burned.

Counts toward escrow. LTIR salary is in every way a cap hit, but that amount is an allowed overage to the cap.

 

[phillydownsouth]

I do also see many cons of the salary cap.

1.) players get signed to below-fair-market-value salaries
2.) Proficient drafting teams are eventually screwed and have to churn their rosters in order to retain their top talent. Could implement a soft cap and do with a luxury tax
3.) Less trades happen. Which nobody can argue - big trades are fun to see

I see both sides but also see what has happened in the MLB.

 

[weastern bias]

Disparities in salaries this large can only happen because player's cap hits are based on the AAV of their contracts rather than their salary in a given year

Every other reputable league bases cap hit on the salary that year, it makes for a much more honest cap system and discourages the dumb long term deals that NHL GMs hand out like candy

 

[Menzinger]

Agreed. Dump the cap introduce a luxury tax

 

[snag]

You've been on this site for 15 years, since 2004, and you don't yet understand why the NHL and the NHLPA bargained LTIR into the CBA, and how the salary cap works?

If you don't get it by now, I don't think there's any further and other explanation that has not already been given.

Hardly a fair criticism when there are NHL GMs who seem to not have any clue how it works.

 

[Legionnaire11]

the cap isn't tied permanently to a 50/50 split of HRR ( although that is what it is now, at least for a while) and having a cap floor absolutely forces some teams to spend up to it ( creatively) to ATTEMPT ensure parity by NOT allowing the rich teams to use their financial might to keep the not rich teams relegates to second class developmental teams like in some leagues.

Parity is a side effect of the cap and was a nice selling point from the league, but it's not at all why a cap was put into place. Cost certainty (50/50 split at the moment) is the only real reason for the cap and why the league was willing to lose a full season of hockey and revenue to put it in place.

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

Salary cap is the worst idea for the league in a long while.

Actually, it's one of the best. Parity is the reason the NFL is king in the US while the MLB has fallen off dramatically. It's why the MLB and NBA have progressively moved more and more towards a hard cap model. It's fun in the short term to have a few elite teams running around but it's unhealthy in the long run.

 

[SotasicA]

Does LTIR count towards expenditure and escrow or is it 'off the payroll'? Seeing a list like the leafs if that counts towards escrow the players would be getting burned.

It does count toward payroll and thus, escrow. The more LTIR, the less there is left for the remaining players.

 

[Suntouchable13]

people that werent athletic enough to play hockey and/or to slow to follow the puck on TV.

What's being athletic have to do with being a fan of a game? I never played hockey, but I love watching it. I love watching baseball too. So generalizing is not great. I am sure there are lots of people who enjoy both.

 

[Butch 19]

Salary cap is the worst idea for the league in a long while.

Do you think the NHLPA would like to see 300+ jobs disappear?

 

[saluki]

I wish they would go to the old NBA model and let teams exceed the cap to sign their own free agents without a luxury tax but that will never happen. Of course I'm biased - Panarin would make a ton of difference in Chicago right now.

But owners want cost certainty above all else.

 

[bronco73]

The salary cap is a good idea in theory and frankly if you ask me the NHL's salary cap is the best among all major sports. Look at other sports and you will see what I'm talking about. Anyways, when players go on LTIR they still earn their salary and their cap hit still remains on the books for the team... which gives other teams an unfair cap advantage since you are now losing cap to a player who cannot even play, through no real fault of your own. Cap relief was put in place to allow teams to overcome that deficit by giving them the flexibility to exceed the cap by the remaining amount of the injured players cap for the season. That's why you see some teams with total cap hits higher than the league maximum... they technically are above, but in reality they are at the same cap as they would have been had their player not been injured. IMO it's the best way to keep every team on an even playing field.. That being said, there are some hockey markets that are not desired destinations due to location or poor play, and many higher end free agents seem always willing to take a discount to play in the more desirable destinations, which gives that team a further cap advantage over the others. It keeps the bad teams down, so to speak. I wish there was some way the league could come up with a way to circumvent that problem.

 

[AveryStar4Eva]

Front loaded contracts and LTIR. Stars just gave new contracts to Seguin and Pavelski, lots of players like to get their money ASAP.

 

[King Mapes]

people that werent athletic enough to play hockey and/or to slow to follow the puck on TV.

What? Baseball doesn’t require you to be athletic?

 

[King Mapes]

Yeah but who likes baseball?

Considering how much bigger it is than hockey, I’d say quite a few.