Win-Win Proposal for the Owners

[The Mighty Duck Man]

This isn't my solution for the CBA mess, but it is IMO a proposal that the owner's can't lose on, and is something that could benefit them in the long run.

Gary should offer Bobby a deal which is like the NHLPA's last proposal, but with one big difference: Use the same system the NFL has with players. That means if you want to get rid of a high-priced contract, you just cut him. There's no way Pavel Bure should've gotten paid last season. Ditto Jason Allison and Adam Deadmarsh. The Detroit-mess with Cujo never would've happened, and alot of contracts teams wanted gone but couldn't because they didn't have the resources to buy them out would be gone. Cost-certainty doesn't get much better than that. If accepted, it could force players to take lesser-paid deals so if they don't play well, they're kept on because their salary isn't that much of a bother. Bobby might not like it one bit because just like that a contract can get eliminated, but this way, Gary can say that he not only considered, but offered Goodenow a deal where there's no hard cap, and even if Bobby says that there's no guarantees, media in the states, which would be familiar with the NFL system, wouldn't buy it, and no one in Canada probably wouldn't either, thus more pressure put on the PA to get a deal done, which may lead to them caving a bit.

Either way, the owner's couldn't lose. If Bobby bites, they get cost-certainty at it's finest. If he doesn't, worst he can do is turn the proposal down, and that could lead to media pressure put on Goodenow to get a deal done because he turned down one that had no salary cap, which is what he wants.

So, what do you think?

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[Peter]

This isn't my solution for the CBA mess, but it is IMO a proposal that the owner's can't lose on, and is something that could benefit them in the long run.

Gary should offer Bobby a deal which is like the NHLPA's last proposal, but with one big difference: Use the same system the NFL has with players. That means if you want to get rid of a high-priced contract, you just cut him. There's no way Pavel Bure should've gotten paid last season. Ditto Jason Allison and Adam Deadmarsh. The Detroit-mess with Cujo never would've happened, and alot of contracts teams wanted gone but couldn't because they didn't have the resources to buy them out would be gone. Cost-certainty doesn't get much better than that. If accepted, it could force players to take lesser-paid deals so if they don't play well, they're kept on because their salary isn't that much of a bother. Bobby might not like it one bit because just like that a contract can get eliminated, but this way, Gary can say that he not only considered, but offered Goodenow a deal where there's no hard cap, and even if Bobby says that there's no guarantees, media in the states, which would be familiar with the NFL system, wouldn't buy it, and no one in Canada probably wouldn't either, thus more pressure put on the PA to get a deal done, which may lead to them caving a bit.

Either way, the owner's couldn't lose. If Bobby bites, they get cost-certainty at it's finest. If he doesn't, worst he can do is turn the proposal down, and that could lead to media pressure put on Goodenow to get a deal done because he turned down one that had no salary cap, which is what he wants.

So, what do you think?

I like the idea of no guaranteed contracts. It would allow owners to "appease" their fans by signing some big names to large contracts but then, if they don't pan out (paging Mr. Jagr and Mr. Daigle), they can just fire them...or renegotiate new terms.

However...I think the owners want more salary control than that. They want the average salary to go down...not up. They want the players to stay longer where they are at...not move more. And on top of that the players will not bite.

 

[Guest]

One of the big things the NHLPA would be against is non-guaranteed contracts however. This is likely as big of an issue as a salary cap to the Players Association.

Nice in theory, I fully agree, but it's not as simple as it may sound. The owners might not need a cap if there were non-guaranteed contracts, because you'd see many teams just walking away from high contract players rather than paying them past their prime. Philadelphia would have likely walked away from LeClair at this point, even Dallas was trying to deal Turgeon and/or Guerin within the past year and may have walked away from one of them. I know Brian Savage would have no longer been on the Coyotes if that was an available option, and there are others.

This is bad from the PA perspective because all of those players are making millions as it is now, and they would stand to lose a lot if the teams walked away from those deals.

I think an equally possible solution would be to term all contract one year contracts with an option for the owners every other year.