Will the NHL ever have Luxury Tax? / Should it have?

[ARZ*]

Will the NHL ever have a lLuxury Tax like the MLB and NBA? It would also introduce sign and trades into the NHL. Luzury tax would mean that teams can re-sign players and go over the cap. If a team goes over the cap they would be required to pay the extra amount to the league as a luxury tax. You cannot go over the cap to sign guys through free agency unless you trade for their bird rights through a sign and trade.

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[ResilientBeast]

Will the NHL ever have a lLuxury Tax like the MLB and NBA? It would also introduce sign and trades into the NHL. Luzury tax would mean that teams can re-sign players and go over the cap. If a team goes over the cap they would be required to pay the extra amount to the league as a luxury tax. You cannot go over the cap to sign guys through free agency unless you trade for their bird rights through a sign and trade.

Teams like the Leafs and Rangers who have buckets of money would be able to kinda ignore the cap then and just throw crazy offers to FA

 

[Shrimper]

No it doesn't and no it shouldn't.

 

[ARZ*]

Teams like the Leafs and Rangers who have buckets of money would be able to kinda ignore the cap then and just throw crazy offers to FA

You cant just sign anybody through FA. If you have cap space you can. The benefit they have would be that they can resign all their rfa's without trading somebody.

 

[ResilientBeast]

You cant just sign anybody through FA. If you have cap space you can. The benefit they have would be that they can resign all their rfa's without trading somebody.

Then your idea confuses me?

Team A has cap space, signs a FA to a crazy 8 million offer. Has no more cap space left, resigns their young RFAs to long term 6 million a year deals.

 

[LaCarriere]

It will never happen. I doubt you'll ever see a league go from a hard cap backwards to any sort of soft cap.

The league was insistent on a hard cap when it was implemented -- otherwise they would have been open to a soft cap, which as far as I know they weren't. They were adamant about a hard cap, which makes sense given how many weaker small market teams there are.

 

[Noodletoro]

Its a great idea if your aim is to destroy parity and damage the long term health of the league.

 

[MapleLife*]

As a leafs fan, would love to see this happen. Salary caps are so tedious, its just wrong that great teams like Chicago and LA have to get worse just because they did a good job drafting and now cant afford all the players they acquired

 

[Gundee1114]

As a leafs fan, would love to see this happen. Salary caps are so tedious, its just wrong that great teams like Chicago and LA have to get worse just because they did a good job drafting and now cant afford all the players they acquired

Well of course you would. That's why there will always be one.

 

[WinterEmpire]

Teams like the Leafs and Rangers who have buckets of money would be able to kinda ignore the cap then and just throw crazy offers to FA

You mean like the pre-cap era?

Because the was so effective back then right?

 

[Catamo]

As a leafs fan, would love to see this happen. Salary caps are so tedious, its just wrong that great teams like Chicago and LA have to get worse just because they did a good job drafting and now cant afford all the players they acquired

Lol yea poor Chicago and L.A. will have a tough time winning even more cups.

 

[Soundwave]

I don't know about a luxury tax full stop like the NBA, but I think some compromise maybe could be made where a team has the option to buy-out a contract every 3-4 years with huge cap repercussions but a stiff payment penalty.

 

[Swervin81]

Then your idea confuses me?

Team A has cap space, signs a FA to a crazy 8 million offer. Has no more cap space left, resigns their young RFAs to long term 6 million a year deals.

RFA's would have temporary cap hits equal to their QO's (or 10% raise, whatever) while unsigned so you couldn't circumvent the cap to sign UFA's then extend RFA's. That's how a soft cap would work.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

No and no.

Completely unnecessary in a capped league, and uncapping the league would be horrible.

Generally it's wise to do the opposite of what Major League Baseball does.

 

[mouser]

MLB hasn't been successful in getting a salary cap instituted, and their luxury tax is comical. Maybe 2-3 teams each year hit the luxury tax, and the Yankees have paid more in luxury taxes then all the other MLB teams combined. Then there's that silly detail that MLB luxury taxes don't even get distributed to the other MLB teams.

NBA has a salary cap and while it's still a soft cap, with each new CBA they've increased the luxury tax penalties to the point where it's now rare for teams to run payrolls with luxury tax penalties. The NBA owners would love to completely dispense with the soft cap and luxury tax.

 

[eXile59]

No it doesn't work. At least it doesn't in the MLB. Rich teams just eat the tax and move along.

The cap right now is working. There is parity but at the same time the better organizations like the Hawks and Kings still win.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

I would be really sad to see this implemented

Big money teams wouldn't have to be smart anymore, it would make it a lot more boring

 

[HjamSandwich]

I would be really sad to see this implemented

Big money teams wouldn't have to be smart anymore, it would make it a lot more boring

He's talking about an NBA style system.

How are the big money teams doing in the NBA? Knicks and Lakers are a joke.

 

[Soundwave]

I'd like some kind of solution though to teams like Chicago basically being punished for being too successful.

You shouldn't have to gut half your roster as a reward for winning a Stanley Cup, and "good management" only works for so long, the players aren't stupid and will want to be paid market/inflated value.

I don't think you should be able to spend over the cap recklessly, but I think maybe say a $5 million cushion above the cap where you incur steep penalties which are then distributed to the lower earning teams would be win-win for everyone.

 

[Sanderson]

As a leafs fan, would love to see this happen. Salary caps are so tedious, its just wrong that great teams like Chicago and LA have to get worse just because they did a good job drafting and now cant afford all the players they acquired

Remind me again how Chicago was able to get such a talented roster?
Oh that's right, they were handed high draftpicks that landed them Kane, Toews, etc.

The salary cap, just like the draft, is simply part of the system. You cannot complain about the disadvantages of the system (losing players because of the cap) when you got your best talent because of the advantages of the system (through the draft). There is nothing unfair about it.

After their first Cup, Chicago had to get rid of some good players because of the cap. Some people complained, completely ignoring that Chicago decided to spend a ton of money on free agents prior to the season. If they had wanted to keep all their own players, they simply shouldn't have signed these free agents. But that may have meant that they wouldn't have won the Cup. They made their decision and had to live with the consequences, both good (winning the Cup) and bad (losing good players). Now they are in trouble because all their great players cost a lot of money, again, it's their decision to pay them so much, they could have refused, and the players could have asked for less. Not to mention that the fact of them gaining their best players because of being handed high draftpicks still remains, thus leaving them with little reason to complain about the system which benefitted them a lot.

As for the original question:
Hopefully never. The luxury tax is a horrible idea, especially compared to a hard cap. It does absolutely nothing for the league.

 

[The Thin White Duke]

If the leagues going to allow using contracts like Pronger to get above the cap floor, they might as well just allow trading cap space. Chicago trades Arizona a 1st for 2mil in cap space for the next 2 seasons lets say. Arizona's ceiling and floor are lowered by 2 mil, Chicago's are raised by the same amount. Total money spent remains consistent, rebuilding teams get assets for space they're not using anyway, top teams pay futures to keep their current cores intact.

 

[Poignant Discussion*]

Well of course you would. That's why there will always be one.

Yes we must live in a welfare state. No matter how well you draft and develop players. We must hand those players to the poor teams.

No matter how well you market your team, you must pay a penalty to be successful. So we can have teams in stupid markets that do nothing but suck blood from the league.

No matter what state of rebuild you are in or how much profit you are making, we must force these teams to spend a certain amount. Of course the rich well marketed teams will have to pay a penalty for this too.

And what has this done for the NHL?

It has made the product semi unwatchable, the name recognition of players is gone and we have a bunch of average teams battling it out for the Championship. The last great team was the early 00's Wings.

Yes the cap has killed the game, and it's a damned shame.

 

[emg0827]

If the leagues going to allow using contracts like Pronger to get above the cap floor, they might as well just allow trading cap space. Chicago trades Arizona a 1st for 2mil in cap space for the next 2 seasons lets say. Arizona's ceiling and floor are lowered by 2 mil, Chicago's are raised by the same amount. Total money spent remains consistent, rebuilding teams get assets for space they're not using anyway, top teams pay futures to keep their current cores intact.

I...would actually support that. interesting idea, though the league will probably never go for it.

 

[yukoner88]

the luxury tax in the MLB is a bit of a joke, I do not want the NHL to replicate that. Of all the leagues, NHL has the best salary cap system. No need to change things when we already have the gold standard

 

[TalkingProuder]

This would work for Buffalo but it would be terrible for the league. No thanks.