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

[phillydownsouth]

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

reductio ad absurdum.

/s

 

[Stubu]

It protects the owners from their own lack of self control.

(I didn't title it "good audio")

 

[Stubu]

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

Depends on your TV.

 

[BruinsFan37]

LITR players shouldnt be tradeable imo

1000% agree on that. LTIR is supposed to be cap-relief, nothing more, nothing less. Your teams 8-10 mil/year superstar goes down in a freak injury and can't play anymore you'd basically be dressing a team with a 70 mil cap instead of an 80 mil one without it -- and that would be a huge disadvantage.

When teams trade LTIR contracts (Hossa, Horton, Pronger, etc.) it's being done for "creative bookkeeping" which goes against what LTIR is supposed to be used for.

 

[Muffin]

According to Capfriendly:

ESTIMATED SALARY EXPENDITURE

Caps: $91,875,000
Vegas Golden Knights: 93 567 500
Dallas: $94,287,500
Toronto: $113,424,167

Why do the NHL has a salary cap?

To keep player's salary lower. If you think the cap is actually there for parity you're really naive, it's all about the money.

 

[TaLoN]

To keep player's salary lower. If you think the cap is actually there for parity you're really naive, it's all about the money.

It's absolutely about the money. Several teams were threatening insolvency without player cost guarantees due to highly inflated salaries in the non-cap world.

The league is financially healthier as a whole now that player salaries are kept more in check.

More parity is a positive side-effect.

 

[Negan4Coach]

I find it pedantic to ask "why salary cap" when you know why salary cap. You don't have to like it, but everybody knows why it exists.

 

[blankall]

Without the cap there'd be a team paying at least $200 million. There are small work arounds under the current system, but they are very limited.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

It would be interesting to see it structured so that it's yearly salary that matters and not aav. Teams could coordinate their signings so that guys like Marner, Matthews, Nylander, etc. are all cheap for the same period, then you have some years from hell and have to deal dudes away. It'd be a lot more chaotic and impractical, but it'd be hella fun seeing a stacked squad who NEEDS to win this year because next year they gotta pay two guys $40 million so the roster will.. look different. Some teams would go for it, others wouldn't, it'd be weird.

 

[TaLoN]

It would be interesting to see it structured so that it's yearly salary that matters and not aav. Teams could coordinate their signings so that guys like Marner, Matthews, Nylander, etc. are all cheap for the same period, then you have some years from hell and have to deal dudes away. It'd be a lot more chaotic and impractical, but it'd be hella fun seeing a stacked squad who NEEDS to win this year because next year they gotta pay two guys $40 million so the roster will.. look different. Some teams would go for it, others wouldn't, it'd be weird.

Knowing the league, instead of going that route, they'd change to the AAV being the actual salary instead.

Players wouldn't care since they are ultimately guaranteed the same dollar amount.

 

[Claypool]

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

Do you think the NHLPA likes 90% of total salaries going to the top 10% of players?

 

[ES]

Tavares, Matthews and Marner combined earn about 14.3 million more than their cap hit is.

It takes a turnaround and in 2023-24 the trio earns about 9.6 million less than their cap hit is.

 

[SotasicA]

It would be interesting to see it structured so that it's yearly salary that matters and not aav. Teams could coordinate their signings so that guys like Marner, Matthews, Nylander, etc. are all cheap for the same period, then you have some years from hell and have to deal dudes away. It'd be a lot more chaotic and impractical, but it'd be hella fun seeing a stacked squad who NEEDS to win this year because next year they gotta pay two guys $40 million so the roster will.. look different. Some teams would go for it, others wouldn't, it'd be weird.

It would be stupid and ridiculous and also exactly why it is AAV and not actual salary. The whole salary circus would become a distraction to the game.

"This year Jonathan Toews is just picking up his salary. But next year he will try and win a Stanley Cup when his salary goes from $16m to $3m. The another two years of grinding money, and another Cup window in 2024-25."

Also rosters would be pretty stupid, and totally against the spirit of the salary cap.

 

[torniojaws]

To answer the question, it gives mid/smaller market teams the opportunity to compete and doesn’t allow big market teams from just buying all star teams

I think Toronto wouldn't make it past 1st round even with the Top 16 scoring players as forwards

 

[CanadianPensFan1]

reductio ad absurdum.

/s

Harry Potter?

 

[Havre]

To answer the question, it gives mid/smaller market teams the opportunity to compete and doesn’t allow big market teams from just buying all star teams

Just the way Karl Marx designed it.

 

[MNNumbers]

More detail for people who want it.....

As has been discussed in this thread, it LOOKS like Toronto is exceeding the cap, but actually they are playing by the rules.

As has been discussed also, the salary cap exists to give the owners cost certainty, which really means "profitability certainty." But I don't think the OP is actually asking that question.

Continuing with cap stuff.
LTIR exists, as has been discussed, so that teams don't have dead cap space because of injuries. Thus, in a qualitative sense, injured players' salary does NOT count against the cap (for salary cap purposes.)

HOWEVER...
LTIR spending does count against the 50% rule.
This is one contributing factor to the escrow problem. Because of LTIR, teams can actually spend MORE on players than seems allowed under cap rules. Since more is spent, more is lost by the players to escrow.

Ways of fixing escrow are discussed on a few thread on the BOH forum.

As for LTIR, and AAV salary cap hits, versus actual money being spent....
There are arguments to be had on both sides, imo.

 

[rojac]

Some of you would like to see a luxury tax. Since it seems pretty clear that the owners prefer a hard cap system, what do you think the players should give up to get the owners to switch to a luxury tax? How long are you willing to have the NHL shut down to get it?

 

[dukeofjive]

With no cap the nhl would close shop every 10 years to clean up the mess some GMs give out as candy. Its not there for parity, its to help owners of smaller markets to stay afloat.

 

[Advanced stats]

It would be interesting to see it structured so that it's yearly salary that matters and not aav. Teams could coordinate their signings so that guys like Marner, Matthews, Nylander, etc. are all cheap for the same period, then you have some years from hell and have to deal dudes away. It'd be a lot more chaotic and impractical, but it'd be hella fun seeing a stacked squad who NEEDS to win this year because next year they gotta pay two guys $40 million so the roster will.. look different. Some teams would go for it, others wouldn't, it'd be weird.

Sounds like that would be too much financial influence in the sport. GM's would literally be forced to blow it all up based on the cap, which is against the spirit of the game and not the purpose of the cap.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

It would be stupid and ridiculous and also exactly why it is AAV and not actual salary. The whole salary circus would become a distraction to the game.

"This year Jonathan Toews is just picking up his salary. But next year he will try and win a Stanley Cup when his salary goes from $16m to $3m. The another two years of grinding money, and another Cup window in 2024-25."

Also rosters would be pretty stupid, and totally against the spirit of the salary cap.

I said interesting, not good . I think the distraction thing is kinda relative, salaries are already distracting sometimes, but agree that it'd likely all be too much. I just think it'd be interesting to see how much teams take advantage of it- do all teams go with ridiculous balancing, do very few? Wouldn't be surprised if most teams overdo it and then can't make a deal when they'd planned to, would seem to give the GMs too much freedom to be dumb.

 

[Matty Sundin]

It protects the owners from their own lack of self control.

There you have it

 

[phillydownsouth]

Harry Potter?

close but no cigar

 

[Lunatik]

LTIR is a thing, you know

It's also salary and not cap hits. So front/back loaded deals skew things further

 

[JeremyTB]

Salary and Cap hit are not the same thing. If the salary cap was based on the actual salary of players, teams competing right now would just back load all of their salaries so they can add star players right now and deal with it later. If it's a rebuilding team they would front load contracts so when they're ready to compete they have a bunch of star players with low salaries and room to add more pieces.

Also, LTIR exists for a reason. If you're going to have guaranteed contracts you need to give some protection to the teams. Hockey is a dangerous sport and there are a ton of injuries every year. It wouldn't be fair to apply a cap hit for a player who isn't even on the ice for reason's outside the team's control. Do we really want teams trying to force injured players back before they should be because they're too tight against the cap?

I do think the NHL needs to tweak something to stop teams from trading for injured players just so they can stash them on LTIR but at the end of the day does it really matter who pays the injured guy's salary if it's not going to apply to anyone's cap anyway? I'm torn on that.

I agree but at the sametime teams shouldn't be able to exploit it. For example the Leafs deliberately traded for a guy they knew was never going to play another game just so they could have him on LTIR and be allowed to spend an extra $5+ Million.