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

[StoneHands]

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.

Not really. You already said that he's never going to play a game so who cares? That trade was essentially Sparks and $5.25m to Vegas for a 4th. Toronto gained nothing more than 750k in cap space by trading Sparks maybe and a higher pick than they would have gotten back, that's all. So they got a 4th round pick instead of a 5th or 6th, big deal. They really didn't gain any competitive advantage by paying the salary for a player who will never play for them.

The only problem I have with the LTIR is when teams sign players who have a known injury history to long term deals. Signing a guy like Horton who was 29 to a 7 year deal knowing that he had missed 15+ games in 3 of the 4 seasons prior to the lockout was a bad idea and they were bailed out by LTIR. I think a small percentage of the players cap hit should apply to the cap for LTIR players just to make GMs think twice about giving long term deals to older players. Maybe 10% or something just to keep them honest.

 

[CupsOverCash]

I think you answered your own question. So that teams like Toronto dont buy up the UFA market every summer. I think its great that teams can keep their own players.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

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?

Because cash paid during over a 12 month period doesn't matter. Over the long term, what matters is the NHLPA members make 50% of hockey related revenue.

 

[gamer1035]

Leafs are just the richest team. It balances though cause Dubas is the worst negotiator in the league. Even with all the front loadedness and signing bonuses our cap hits and terms are still absurd

 

[abo9]

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 mean, if say the poorest team in the league had to pay a guy 9M per year for 5 years bc he is on LTIR, that affects their expenditures directly no? I'm no expert on the Cap, but a "rich" team could take advantage of such a situation right? (and it did happen before if I'm not mistaken?)

At the same time, it does let them get the player traded, so they can use that money on actual roster players.
No perfect solution exist, but the cap does even out the playing field imo, since it affects roster players

 

[dma0034]

Because without the salary cap the Eastern Conference All Star team would be Maple Leafs?

Also on the flip end. It's to make sure you don't have a perennial loser who doesn't spend money

 

[Hustlr]

You do realize if there wasn’t a cap our salary would be closer to 200M, right?

 

[ToDavid]

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.

They weren't "allowed to spend an extra $5+ million." They didn't create any additional space they didn't already have, they just bought themselves some more flexibility.

The problem was that the Leafs were sitting with approximately $10.5 million payroll room but about half of it was cap space and about half of it was LTIR relief (Horton). Basically, the way LTIR works once the season starts is you only get what you need. So if you need to replace a $5.25 million player but you already have $5.25 million in cap space then LTIR doesn't give you anything extra. To put it simply, they don't add together. So what the Leafs did was they took the ~$5.25 million in cap space they already had and turned it into $5.25 million in LTIR relief by acquiring Clarkson. They effectively locked in the $10.5 million they already had and made sure it would be available to them regardless of when Marner signed.

Ultimately Marner signed before the season started so it didn't matter at all and we ended up in the exact same situation as we would have been in without Clarkson.

 

[mouser]

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.

They aren't truly spending an extra $5m.

The active roster is still below the $81.5m cap limit.

 

[Pyrophorus]

Yeah....get rid of it
Or at least a luxury tax