Poll: Should Iginla's contract be voided by the NHL as cap circumvention?

[Nehkara]

CapGeek has revealed the breakdown of Iginla's bonuses.

Base Salary: $1.8 million
Bonus for playing 10 games: $3.7 million
Bonus for scoring 30 goals and team playing 3 rounds in the playoffs: $0.25 million
Bonus for scoring 30 goals and team winning Stanley Cup: $0.25 million

If Iginla reaches the 10 games played mark, which is almost a given, that bonus money will apply to the following season's cap... the year the cap is expected to rise again.

Should this contract be voided for cap circumvention?

Discuss!

[saillias]

Yup cancel it.

[Ashasx]

...but his cap hit is still $6M this year regardless.

[PlayfulGenius]

It's clearly the intention, I'm surprised more teams aren't utilizing his approach, though its really only relevant for older players or ELCs, correct?

[PlayfulGenius]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

...but his cap hit is still $6M this year regardless.

Are you sure about that?

What's the purpose of the bonus structure?

[Caged Great]

The Bonuses only allow you to go over the cap by the amount of the bonuses, similar to how you can go over from players on LTIR. The difference between the amount of cap available and the bonuses remaining beyond that gets put as a penalty the following season. This happened once before when Toews won the Conn Smythe as he had a bonus of 1 million if I recall correctly if he won that specific award, and they were penalized close to that the following year (the year they had to ditch Ladd and Byfuglein).

[puckluck2]

Maybe they will play him 9 games then healthy scratch him as payback.

[CampbellsTransgressions]

They're going to have to pay for it next year so I don't see what the big deal is. Stupid contract by Chiarelli.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by PlayfulGenius

Are you sure about that?

What's the purpose of the bonus structure?

To motivate a player.

[kyuss275]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

...but his cap hit is still $6M this year regardless.

I don't think it is. I think they can spread his bonuses over to the folowing year.

So to answer the original post.. Yes i think its cap circumvention. I don't think the NHL will do anything about it.

[Wolven]

I don't see what the problem is. Its not like the bonus salary is outside of the salary cap. Either the Bruins take the cap hit now or they defer it until next season, right?

[PeteMoss]

It just delays the hit for a year. Doing this is part of why the Blackhawks ended up having to get rid of bunch of guys after their previous Cup win because a bunch of guys hit bonuses and they had a lower cap number than everyone else.

Unless the cap goes way up they are still going to be tight against it next year once they resign Bergeron and potentially Seidenberg.

[troutman]

The cap is expected to go up next year (and by quite a lot - I've heard $70 M+ ?) so this deferral is clearly monkey business IMO.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...rticle7029575/

With 5% growth, the cap could reach $90M by 2021.

[kyuss275]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

It just delays the hit for a year. Doing this is part of why the Blackhawks ended up having to get rid of bunch of guys after their previous Cup win because a bunch of guys hit bonuses and they had a lower cap number than everyone else.

Unless the cap goes way up they are still going to be tight against it next year once they resign Bergeron and potentially Seidenberg.

The cap is going to go way up next year, i heard it could be over $70 million. Maybe the Bruins will still be screwed, but it lets other teams that are close to the cap one year with space the following year to have a small loop hole. The NHL is trying to make it as equal as possible for all teams to be able to sign good players. This is just another way in the future to keep good players off of "meh" teams.

[You Need a Thneed]

It's not cap circumvention to do something that's allowed in the rules.

The Bruins (and the Red Wings with Alfredsson's contract) will just have a penalty against their cap next year. Over the two year stretch, they will pay the same amount to the player as the cap hit was over the period.

[_Q_]

No.... The CBA should be voided for Iginla circumvention.

[tempz]

I feel like this is going to become a common thing now.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by troutman

The cap is expected to go up next year (and by quite a lot) so this deferral is clearly monkey business IMO.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...rticle7029575/

Really? I hadn't heard rumblings about that. How much of an increase is being rumoured? Is it going to bounce back up to $70M immediately? (because that would be hilaaaaaaarious!)

I still wouldn't call this cap circumvention. Its smart management, especially if the expected salary cap increase will make the deferred bonus trivial to eat in the 2014-2015 season while keeping their core roster intact. I expect that this will be the first of many contracts that will use the bonuses to try to go over the cap one year by sacrificing next year's salary cap.

The concept is really not that different from having a team keep half the salary on a player's contract in a trade. The difference is that instead of the Bruins getting another team to eat half of Iginla's cap hit, the 2013 Bruins are getting the 2014 Bruins to eat half his cap hit.

[SilverGS]

Teams creating contracts within the rules? My goodness void them all!

[tvp2003]

If Iggy gets traded in the middle of the season, does the additional cap hit still get transferred to the new team (i.e. for 2014/15)? Pro rata?