[News] Hossa won't play 2017/18 due to side effects of skin condition meds

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by photon

Of course, he's the one who decides on an ongoing basis if the benefit of playing is worth the downsides and the risks, since he's the one who has to suffer with the downsides and take the risk. I don't think that's shady at all, everyone who has an ongoing condition makes similar decisions.



Unlikely things do happen, and they do happen at seemingly unlikely times. His evaluation is benefit vs downside, his decision probably has more to do with the Hawks' outlook for another championship; the less likely that is the more likely he doesn't want to go through the downside, and that's perfectly fair IMO.

I don't understand why people would think he for some reason takes the team's cap situation into account... he doesn't own part of the Hawks, he gets paid regardless, he doesn't personally benefit from the team's benefiting from his decision... unless we get back into conspiracy theories and the Hawks are kicking a chunk of money to the player under the table.

Because he signed a contract that in the current CBA would destroy the Hawks competitiveness and his friends are all in that team.

If he retired, the Hawks get stuck with a $4.275 cap recapture every year for 4 years. That's a good reason to do what he's doing. He loses nothing here but helps the bhawks avoid trading out core players.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

It should be remembered that the contract Hossa signed was blessed by the NHL and was in line with others signed at the same time.

To call it "cap circumvention" was always stretching the truth in my mind.

The NHL could have disallowed it at the time, and chose not too.

The league certainly didn't like those contracts, but I guess it would have been hard to challenge them by a legal route.

The Kovalchuk one was so far over the line, they had a great case that it was completely unreasonable to expect Kovalchuk to play to 44.

And now we have the Hossa contract ending just like many predicted it would.

The intent of these contracts was definitely cap circumvention.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Because he signed a contract that in the current CBA would destroy the Hawks competitiveness and his friends are all in that team.

If he retired, the Hawks get stuck with a $4.275 cap recapture every year for 4 years. That's a good reason to do what he's doing. He loses nothing here but helps the bhawks avoid trading out core players.

Also, if he retires not only does his old team and friends get hurt by it, he doesn't get his last $4 million.

On LTIR the Hawks get flexibility and he still gets paid....but doesn't have to grind out the season for a fraction of what he used to make.

[Savvy27]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

It should be remembered that the contract Hossa signed was blessed by the NHL and was in line with others signed at the same time.

To call it "cap circumvention" was always stretching the truth in my mind.

The NHL could have disallowed it at the time, and chose not too.

Of course it was designed to lower the cap hit, much like Kipper's last year at $1M was designed to do. Which was, IIRC, the first contract to take that approach. And Kipper walked away from the last year.

Teams then started to push the envelope more and more.

This is just a difference of opinion. Those deals directly contradicted the spirit of the cap (including Kipper's). The NHL let it go for a little while -a mistake- and then they introduced the cap recapture penalties so that teams who tried to game the system would have to live with the contracts that they handed out and not walk away from them when they were no longer advantageous. Now there has either been an absolutely incredible turn of events that restore the original plan or one has been invented/exaggerated to accomplish the same thing. It's stinks like cheating to me and I hope they don't get away with it.

[Sylvanfan]

I really do get the impression that it's not that difficult to make a guy seem injured for cap relief. Seems like a lot of guys could play, but they find medical reasons for them not to when the team doesn't necessarily need them.

In this case, Hossa can still play, and he's still worth his cap hit. But I'm skeptical that this condition will keep him out for an entire year. He's likely at a point where it's not worth taking the beating of a NHL season for what's left on his contract, and the team is happy to still pay him for his past service and not suffer any cap consequences.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

I really do get the impression that it's not that difficult to make a guy seem injured for cap relief. Seems like a lot of guys could play, but they find medical reasons for them not to when the team doesn't necessarily need them.

In this case, Hossa can still play, and he's still worth his cap hit. But I'm skeptical that this condition will keep him out for an entire year. He's likely at a point where it's not worth taking the beating of a NHL season for what's left on his contract, and the team is happy to still pay him for his past service and not suffer any cap consequences.

Maybe at playoff time when there is no cap?

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

I really do get the impression that it's not that difficult to make a guy seem injured for cap relief. Seems like a lot of guys could play, but they find medical reasons for them not to when the team doesn't necessarily need them.

In this case, Hossa can still play, and he's still worth his cap hit. But I'm skeptical that this condition will keep him out for an entire year. He's likely at a point where it's not worth taking the beating of a NHL season for what's left on his contract, and the team is happy to still pay him for his past service and not suffer any cap consequences.

This is it in a nutshell. Hawks probably discussed this with Hossa years in advance as they went through any and all ailments he had that they could use in as a loophole, one of them being his skin condition that was more of a nuisance thing but something they could document and snowball into a severe condition as they have done. If the NHL lets the Hawks get away with this you can bet the Wild will start monitoring Suter and Parise closely over the coming years to see if they have any ailments they can turn into career ending once the players get over 35 years old. Once you let a few teams get away with it there's really no stopping the floodgates from opening.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Because he signed a contract that in the current CBA would destroy the Hawks competitiveness and his friends are all in that team.

If he retired, the Hawks get stuck with a $4.275 cap recapture every year for 4 years. That's a good reason to do what he's doing. He loses nothing here but helps the bhawks avoid trading out core players.

Maybe.. I might buy that it makes his decision to not play a bit easier, but to say that's his primary motivation says something about his character, I don't think most people value themselves so little that they'd lie so outrageously, basically fake an injury (in this case making it much more severe than it really is) so their friends have an incrementally better chance in the playoffs.

[Jason14h]

I still don't get why anyone thinks this 'helps' Chicago. You don't think sub-cap teams would be lining up to take Hossa for free at $1 million real salary?

Unless Hossa wants to retire. In which case Chicago could still trade him and the team getting him owes nothing but cap space.

Why was Chicago going to have an issue getting rid of Hossa?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by photon

Maybe.. I might buy that it makes his decision to not play a bit easier, but to say that's his primary motivation says something about his character, I don't think most people value themselves so little that they'd lie so outrageously, basically fake an injury (in this case making it much more severe than it really is) so their friends have an incrementally better chance in the playoffs.

His primary motivation to stop playing is that he's older, win enough cups and doesn't want to do it for $1M a year. That says nothing about his character.

He's also not faking an injury. Again, this isn't binary. It's probably not pleasant, and if his heart wasn't in it, not worth playing through.

If this was the last year of his contract we'd hear nothing about his skin issues

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I still don't get why anyone thinks this 'helps' Chicago. You don't think sub-cap teams would be lining up to take Hossa for free at $1 million real salary?

Unless Hossa wants to retire. In which case Chicago could still trade him and the team getting him owes nothing but cap space.

Why was Chicago going to have an issue getting rid of Hossa?

If they traded Hossa, Chicago still would have been stuck with the cap recapture penalty. Same thing with retirement.

It was like $4 million per year over a few years depending on when Hossa retired.

LTIR is the only way out scot-free.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

If they traded Hossa, Chicago still would have been stuck with the cap recapture penalty.

It was like $4 million per year over a few years.

I did the calculation. 4 years left with $17.1M more paid in actually salary than cap hit, so $4.275M for 4 more years

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I still don't get why anyone thinks this 'helps' Chicago. You don't think sub-cap teams would be lining up to take Hossa for free at $1 million real salary?

Unless Hossa wants to retire. In which case Chicago could still trade him and the team getting him owes nothing but cap space.

Why was Chicago going to have an issue getting rid of Hossa?

Doesn't Chicago still have to be on the hook for cap recapture penalties in the event they trade Hossa? I thought that was a major reason why Luongo was hard for Vancouver to trade, the contract scared the Canucks more than anyone they were going to move him to.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

His primary motivation to stop playing is that he's older, win enough cups and doesn't want to do it for $1M a year. That says nothing about his character.

He's also not faking an injury. Again, this isn't binary. It's probably not pleasant, and if his heart wasn't in it, not worth playing through.

That's what I've been saying, and that's a reasonable decision IMO, I don't see what's shady about that. EDIT: Unless you mean the fact that he's not retiring.. that could just be he wants to keep the option of playing again open if it seems to get better. Or as you say it's a benefit to others and the same to him, and that's fine too, picking the best of the available legitimate options isn't really shady IMO.

That's far more likely than fabricating an injury or orchestrating the "development" of the condition over years to get this result IMO.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

If they traded Hossa, Chicago still would have been stuck with the cap recapture penalty. Same thing with retirement.

It was like $4 million per year over a few years depending on when Hossa retired.

LTIR is the only way out scot-free.

Thanks totally forgot recapture counts against ORIGINAL team!

[sureLoss]

NHL don't care:

Chris Johnston @reporterchris
Gary Bettman says the NHL has no reason to suspect anything is "amiss" with Marian Hossa's contract/health situation.

Chris Johnston @reporterchris
Bill Daly says the NHL still has to evaluate whether Marian Hossa can be placed on LTIR next season. No timetable for that decision.

[codynw]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

NHL don't care:

Chris Johnston @reporterchris
Gary Bettman says the NHL has no reason to suspect anything is "amiss" with Marian Hossa's contract/health situation.

Chris Johnston @reporterchris
Bill Daly says the NHL still has to evaluate whether Marian Hossa can be placed on LTIR next season. No timetable for that decision.

Of course they don't.

[Weitz]

As Lebrun has mentioned. They still can't put him on LTIR till day 2 of the regular season. So they can't add a player until then. And the process repeats every year.

It's not magical cap space.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by Weitz

As Lebrun has mentioned. They still can't put him on LTIR till day 2 of the regular season. So they can't add a player until then. And the process repeats every year.

It's not magical cap space.

It's still pretty magical. Teams also get 10% relief over the off-season.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Weitz

As Lebrun has mentioned. They still can't put him on LTIR till day 2 of the regular season. So they can't add a player until then. And the process repeats every year.

It's not magical cap space.

It's still better than if he just retired and they had the cap recapture all year round.