Quote:
Originally Posted by littlereddevil
It makes you wonder if Canadian GMs will start avoiding American-born players at all costs, whether via the draft, trades, or free agency.
Either way, the original intentions of the salary cap era being a way to level the playing field have clearly not panned out, as there are still more desirable markets that are driven by player perception (+/- their agents' opinions). The market is clearly tilted in favour of larger American markets.
I wonder who will be the next American player to leave a Canadian team for peanuts. Matthews?
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I completely disagree with the salary cap not leveling the playing field. Maybe you're too young to remember, but before the cap era, small market and Canadian teams (except for the Leafs) were basically a farm team to the big boys. You had the Rangers paying guys like Holik $10M a year, and they could just bury him in their line up if it didn't work out, and they'd move onto the next shiny UFA. It was terrible as a small market team fan.
You can't mandate where a player prefers to play, and that reality will never have a solution. The cap only helps to mitigate against it and put a limit to it.