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Originally Posted by Textcritic
It is more than a little naive to shift the entire blame for escalating top-end salaries on GMs who have "decided to overspend," while simultaneously ignoring the rather crucial role that players and player agents have played in the process. Salaries continue to escalate because players have wrested a tonne more leverage in their negotiating positions, and are singularly focused on maximizing their individual earning potential to the detriment of canibalising their lower-earning NHLPA counterparts.
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I’m not ignoring the role that players and their agents have in the process. I’m also not ignoring the fact that players have no control over how much GMs will offer them, and no control over how much GMs will offer other players after they sign their contract. Also it isn’t high end player contracts that are solely to blame for GMs spending above the salary midpoint.
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In other words, GMs pay exorbitant asks because the alternative is the greater of two bad options. GMs contributed to the problem, but also did so with a proverbial gun cocked and pointed at their heads.
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Which is precisely why the league should adopt a model similar to what the NBA has. As I mentioned in my post, I think this is where they are going to end up. Since both sides play a role in creating additional financial risk for the league and it’s owners, both sides should be responsible for accepting the consequences of their actions. Under the current system only the players do so it isn’t surprising that they would want to change that.