News Article: Zetterberg: I will probably not play until 2020/21

Bench

3 is a good start
Aug 14, 2011
21,200
14,889
crease
Oh please. What a baseless generaltization :shakehead

There are countless sports outside of the US that are hardly shining examples of fair play.

Fair play like what goes on in rugby? Or soccer games? Or cycling?

Statistics proved (and later actual evidence) the yukuza completely rigged sumo wrestling in Japan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/world/asia/05sumo.html

Just figured I'd pile on another country and sport while adding an interesting fact of the day. :laugh:
 

TCNorthstars

Registered User
Jan 5, 2009
4,281
1,796
Lansing area, MI
Little different between that and a competitive sport. But of course, close your eyes and shove your fingers in your ears.

Red Wings deserve the recapture they will deal with. As do any others that embraced circumvention of the cap.

Perhaps you missed (I've bolded so you don't miss again) where Z4C said "It broke the spirit of the law and I can't stand anyone anywhere ever finding ways to skirt around a law or rule."
 

Frk It

Mo Seider Less Problems
Jul 27, 2010
36,198
14,681
Money is the limiting factor. Its the entire reason the cap exists so the super rich dont just buy their way out of problems.

What Holland wouldnt give for another $2m flexibility right now.

You realize that the cirumventing deals penalized by recapture made cap hits lower, right?.... if anything it would have helped small market teams.

It's why guys like Franzen got 3.75 instead of 5 or 6 million. And there wasn't really a drawback, because if they retired early the deal disappeared. So there wasn't even a lot of concern with the excess term.

Literally nothing about those deals were cost prohibitive to small marker or low budget teams.
 

Lazlo Hollyfeld

The jersey ad still sucks
Mar 4, 2004
28,131
26,425
It broke the spirit of the law and I can't stand anyone anywhere ever finding ways to skirt around a law or rule

I hope the league retroactively punishes anyone and everyone to tried or tries to skirt around league agreed upon rules.

It's important to remember that the NHL is in essence the owners (and by extension the GM's). This loophole came from their side of the bargaining table and was almost certainly not an accident.

I'm guessing Holland and other GM's likely weren't expecting the Devils to spoil the fun by so egregiously exploiting it that the league was compelled to act.
 

Winger98

Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
22,753
4,569
Cleveland
You realize that the cirumventing deals penalized by recapture made cap hits lower, right?.... if anything it would have helped small market teams.

It's why guys like Franzen got 3.75 instead of 5 or 6 million. And there wasn't really a drawback, because if they retired early the deal disappeared. So there wasn't even a lot of concern with the excess term.

Literally nothing about those deals were cost prohibitive to small marker or low budget teams.

except they have to be able to afford the higher actual costs that aren't reflected by the cap hit. Weber has a cap hit under $8m, but his actual salary for the first four years was $14m. He's still making $12m now. It actually hurts small market teams because it allows clubs like Philly to massage the cap hit while throwing huge money at a guy.

The NHL should have just removed the ability to change the salaries from year to year and made it so that the value of a deal is automatically spread throughout the length of the contract, so that there isn't a difference between the cap hit and salary. It would have killed all of these deals before they started and simplified everything.
 

Lil Sebastian Cossa

Opinions are share are my own personal opinions.
Jul 6, 2012
11,436
7,446
Just to be clear, I'm not against Holland doing what he did. I'm just against it being glossed over.

I don't think he did anything wrong though. It should be glossed over because the league itself is glossing over it. You think for one second that Weber's atom bomb of a recapture to Nashville if he retires from Montreal with one year left is ever gonna happen?

I also think it's bullcrap that they pulled ex post facto crap on contracts that they accepted as is. I think it's worse that it's being glossed over that the NHL can go back and retroactively change rules and punish teams for things that were okay at the time.
 

Frk It

Mo Seider Less Problems
Jul 27, 2010
36,198
14,681
except they have to be able to afford the higher actual costs that aren't reflected by the cap hit. Weber has a cap hit under $8m, but his actual salary for the first four years was $14m. He's still making $12m now. It actually hurts small market teams because it allows clubs like Philly to massage the cap hit while throwing huge money at a guy.

The NHL should have just removed the ability to change the salaries from year to year and made it so that the value of a deal is automatically spread throughout the length of the contract, so that there isn't a difference between the cap hit and salary. It would have killed all of these deals before they started and simplified everything.

Well, the Weber deal is unique. It was an offer sheet that was structured to be lucrative for Nashville to match, obviously with the hope they wouldn't.

With Franzen's deal the only difference between his actual salary and his cap hit is only about ~1 million over the first 6 years. Kronwall and Z only make about 1.5 million more in actual dollars than cap hit over the first half of their deals.

So I guess there is some variance there (between actual salary and caphit), but I'm not sure it's enough that makes it prohibitive for small market teams. Maybe in some cases like Weber, but I see other cases where I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference.
 

Bevans

Registered User
Apr 15, 2016
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The NHL should have just removed the ability to change the salaries from year to year and made it so that the value of a deal is automatically spread throughout the length of the contract, so that there isn't a difference between the cap hit and salary. It would have killed all of these deals before they started and simplified everything.

Are you familiar with how collective bargaining works? The NHL doesn't "tell" the players what contracts they're allowed to sign. The two sides negotiate.

Money in hand is worth far more than money in 5-10 years. the NHLPA obviously negotiated the right to receive their money sooner and the NHL didn't want to spend the negotiating capital on making salaries average out across the contract.

This isn't a dictatorship. And I'm sure if there had been a second year of lock out just to deprive the NHLPA of the right to signing bonuses you would not have been happy with the owers.
 

Cyborg Yzerberg

Registered User
Nov 8, 2007
11,150
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Philadelphia
I saved this article a few years ago that really relays how dominant Zetterberg was in his prime:

http://thehockeywriters.com/henrik-the-great-does-zetterberg-belong-in-the-hall-of-fame/


This guy doesn't owe us a damn thing at this point. In the face of everything rotten happening to this team this decade, it's had one hell of a leader and player in front of it all in Zetterberg. He really is the best thing about this team and the last remnant of what this organization started to put together in the 80's.

He's a hall of famer and his number will be retired, and all rightfully so. Dude's been my favorite player in the league for a decade, I'll be really sad to see him go. But dude's done everything for us and more so.
 

Lil Sebastian Cossa

Opinions are share are my own personal opinions.
Jul 6, 2012
11,436
7,446
I saved this article a few years ago that really relays how dominant Zetterberg was in his prime:




This guy doesn't owe us a damn thing at this point. In the face of everything rotten happening to this team this decade, it's had one hell of a leader and player in front of it all in Zetterberg. He really is the best thing about this team and the last remnant of what this organization started to put together in the 80's.

He's a hall of famer and his number will be retired, and all rightfully so. Dude's been my favorite player in the league for a decade, I'll be really sad to see him go. But dude's done everything for us and more so.

Yep. That's why none of us are saying anything bad about him. He's fantastic and deserves to finish his career here. I am loathe to deal him to let him chase a Cup because of the financial realities of recapture. But you're right, he doesn't owe the team or city any more than he's given.
 

Winger98

Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
22,753
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Cleveland
Are you familiar with how collective bargaining works? The NHL doesn't "tell" the players what contracts they're allowed to sign. The two sides negotiate.

Money in hand is worth far more than money in 5-10 years. the NHLPA obviously negotiated the right to receive their money sooner and the NHL didn't want to spend the negotiating capital on making salaries average out across the contract.

This isn't a dictatorship. And I'm sure if there had been a second year of lock out just to deprive the NHLPA of the right to signing bonuses you would not have been happy with the owers.

:speechles

Given the NHL didn't see the gaping hole they left in the CBA that allowed the backdiving deals in the first place, I doubt they seriously considered the benefits to forcing the contracts to have their values evenly distributed.

Also, the NHLPA really wasn't negotiating anything at that point. When they caved, they caved hard. The owners essentially submitted their laundry list of demands and the NHLPA hustled about and made sure they were all brought back to the counter neatly folded and pressed. Outside of making contracts non-guaranteed, I'm not sure there is a hill the owners could have found that the players would have been willing to die (some more) on rather than getting back on the ice.

And I was never happy with the owners or their lockout. More irritated by the NHLPA caving.

Well, the Weber deal is unique. It was an offer sheet that was structured to be lucrative for Nashville to match, obviously with the hope they wouldn't.

With Franzen's deal the only difference between his actual salary and his cap hit is only about ~1 million over the first 6 years. Kronwall and Z only make about 1.5 million more in actual dollars than cap hit over the first half of their deals.

So I guess there is some variance there (between actual salary and caphit), but I'm not sure it's enough that makes it prohibitive for small market teams. Maybe in some cases like Weber, but I see other cases where I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference.

I don't know. We saw the Suter and Parise deals, too (wow, Nashville was on the wrong end of a lot of these things). Z and Franzen were really the tip of the ice berg when it came to the big money guys wanting to get their cake and to eat it, too. Not only then are the up front salary costs much larger, but there is greater risk to the club if the deals don't work out for whatever reason. Detroit could have taken a deal like Suter's and, if need be, just ate it and moved on.
 

Perfect Human

Registered User
Dec 17, 2014
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I haven't read the entire thread...but I thought because he signed his contract BEFORE he turned 35 there is no penalty on the wings. True?
 

Lil Sebastian Cossa

Opinions are share are my own personal opinions.
Jul 6, 2012
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I haven't read the entire thread...but I thought because he signed his contract BEFORE he turned 35 there is no penalty on the wings. True?

35+ and cap recapture are two separate deals.

35+ was put in place with the 1st lockout to avoid signing older, riskier players to contracts that they were not likely to complete. We got tagged on Datsyuk because even though he was 34 when he put pen to paper on his 3 year deal, he was 35 by the time the league year started and that contract applied to him. If say, Jonathan Ericsson decided he was done playing with his hip and finger injuries, we would retain no cap hit for him.

Cap recapture was a direct response to the backdiving contracts signed in the aftermath of the first lockout. Z and Franzen had them. It's just to make up the cap hit that the team avoided by structuring the deal that way. The Wings if Z retires in two years will still have benefited by ~10M on his contract between what they paid him in money and what it counted as on their cap.
 

HockeyinHD

Semi-retired former active poster.
Jun 18, 2006
11,972
28
Disagree. Its was a cheap and bad way to tried and basically rort the system to basically get a lower salary cap yet pay the player more. Its outright cheating whether it was legal or not.

Was the way Detroit got so many Russians over here also 'cheating the system'?

Nah.

Detroit (and other teams) followed the rules of the CBA as they were written at that time. That they were written poorly is the fault of the idiots running the NHL, not the teams whose job it is to be as good as they can, not try to follow some obtuse perception of what the rules are supposed to be.

Heck, the application of a cap is to artificially create an environment where all teams are relatively equal. By the same application of logic one can make the argument that tanking itself is an obviation of the intent of the rules of the league, and I don't exactly expect that to draw people back from constant and endless plea for a full tank.
 

HockeyinHD

Semi-retired former active poster.
Jun 18, 2006
11,972
28
Red Wings deserve the recapture they will deal with. As do any others that embraced circumvention of the cap.

Exactly. Just like, say, all teams will deserve what they get if the NHL adds in punishments after the fact for teams that tanked in the past in the form of taking away draft picks in the present.

It wouldn't be reasonable at all for Avs fans to be mad that Colorado lost 2 or 3 #1's to penalize them for tanking.
 

HockeyinHD

Semi-retired former active poster.
Jun 18, 2006
11,972
28
35+ and cap recapture are two separate deals.

35+ was put in place with the 1st lockout to avoid signing older, riskier players to contracts that they were not likely to complete. We got tagged on Datsyuk because even though he was 34 when he put pen to paper on his 3 year deal, he was 35 by the time the league year started and that contract applied to him. If say, Jonathan Ericsson decided he was done playing with his hip and finger injuries, we would retain no cap hit for him.

Cap recapture was a direct response to the backdiving contracts signed in the aftermath of the first lockout. Z and Franzen had them. It's just to make up the cap hit that the team avoided by structuring the deal that way. The Wings if Z retires in two years will still have benefited by ~10M on his contract between what they paid him in money and what it counted as on their cap.

Exactly. I don't care about cap recapture or the 35+ rule, in and of themselves. I am annoyed that rules were designed in the present and then retroactively applied to past contracts.

This would be like changing the speed limit from 50 to 25 and then sending me a ticket because I was driving way over a speed limit that didn't exist 6 months ago.

It's stupid and punitive on its face, it's designed to be so, and the NHL knew when they did it exactly which teams were going to be penalized by it.
 

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,077
12,076
Tampere, Finland
Exactly. I don't care about cap recapture or the 35+ rule, in and of themselves. I am annoyed that rules were designed in the present and then retroactively applied to past contracts.

This would be like changing the speed limit from 50 to 25 and then sending me a ticket because I was driving way over a speed limit that didn't exist 6 months ago.

It's stupid and punitive on its face, it's designed to be so, and the NHL knew when they did it exactly which teams were going to be penalized by it.

You are exactly right on this.

It even had a bigger impact on our overall building.
 

Lazlo Hollyfeld

The jersey ad still sucks
Mar 4, 2004
28,131
26,425
Exactly. I don't care about cap recapture or the 35+ rule, in and of themselves. I am annoyed that rules were designed in the present and then retroactively applied to past contracts.

This would be like changing the speed limit from 50 to 25 and then sending me a ticket because I was driving way over a speed limit that didn't exist 6 months ago.

It's stupid and punitive on its face, it's designed to be so, and the NHL knew when they did it exactly which teams were going to be penalized by it.

Wholeheartedly agree. I don't put much stock in "spirit of the rule."

I still don't quite get how the NHL could do that with an existing CBA. And if there was outrage by the owners about it, they kept it pretty quiet. At least I don't remember much fuss.
 

WingedWheel1987

Registered User
Jan 11, 2011
13,315
897
GPP Michigan
The recapture penalty was dumb. Was Detroit given a warning from the NHL, prior to finalizing that contract? The Kovy contract was the straw that broke the camels back, but to go back and punish other back diving contracts with no warning was asinine.
 

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