Quote:
Originally Posted by Aegypticus
I think using Toews as a comparable is fair, but I don't think Kopitar should get $10 million per year.
I don't think any player should get $10 million per year.
Does anyone else feel like the contracts of star players are getting completely out of control? I know all these crazy numbers are allowed under the cap and all the other reasons it's happening, but these 8, 10, 12, 14 million per year contracts just seem to be causing so many problems in the league.
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Iginla's first contract under the cap was 7M. That was with a salary cap ceiling of 39M. He was taking up 18% of the cap ceiling and the average payroll was under 35M, so Iginla was making 20% of the average NHL payroll. Even when he got his re-up in the 2008-2009 season he was taking up over 12% of the cap, and with the average payroll at 51M he was nearing 14% of the average teams payroll. There were 15 players with a higher cap-hit than Iginla that year, including Ovechkin who's 9.5M cap hit was over 18% of the cap ceiling and with the low-cap teams spending roughly 44M. Ovechkin's cap alone was over 20% of what Nashville and Phoenix were spending on all their players.
A 10M dollar player today is taking up 14% of today's 71.4M cap. With all teams spending at least 60M, a 10M player is
only being paid about 16% of what Arizona is spending on their entire roster.
I think today's biggest 'problem' with mid-tier vets getting pushed out of the line up is the amount of quality young players knocking on the door. You mention Raymond. Cap has nothing to do with why he's sitting, the organization has too many forwards pushing him down the depth chart.
It's really not the star players. The top tier players will continue to make there ~15% of the cap ceiling. The issue is the middle of the pack players. If a player is replaceable by a young player making a million a year, why would you throw money at him? If a team doesn't think this mid-tier player is replaceable, they will throw money at him and fill the rest of their lineup with the entry-level league minimum contracts to squeeze him in. There seems to be more of a have and have-not dynamic forming in the middle tier rather than changes to the top tier.