Does the NHL have a Canadian success problem?

[Paulie Walnuts]

NTC and 8 year contracts is your issue you have no player movement.

Canadian teams have to offer up long term big money deal and get stuck with crap at times. Plus you can't trade for many players.

NHL needs to give some leeway on RFA and bring in contract limits to 4 and 5 for the signing team and NTC only available after 10 years of service.

Also to give back the advantage to teams to retain players do it like the NBA so that the team you are on can offer you the largest deal.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

NTC and 8 year contracts is your issue you have no player movement.

Canadian teams have to offer up long term big money deal and get stuck with crap at times. Plus you can't trade for many players.

NHL needs to give some leeway on RFA and bring in contract limits to 4 and 5 for the signing team and NTC only available after 10 years of service.

Also to give back the advantage to teams to retain players do it like the NBA so that the team you are on can offer you the largest deal.

I would be interested in the NBA style not only can you offer the extra year but you can offer more per year. The biggest difference with the NHL and the NBA is NBA players often make the max you can offer where no NHL players makes the max. If you said teams signing UFA's can only offer 16% vs 20% from original team, it would make no difference as no player typically makes more than 16% anyways.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Macho0978

I would be interested in the NBA style not only can you offer the extra year but you can offer more per year. The biggest difference with the NHL and the NBA is NBA players often make the max you can offer where no NHL players makes the max. If you said teams signing UFA's can only offer 16% vs 20% from original team, it would make no difference as no player typically makes more than 16% anyways.

Use Connor for example. 90 Million cap Edmonton can offer him a max 5 year 90 million deal while Toronto can offer him 57.6 over 4 years. You could still could down to say a 16 million per season over 5 years but its still more overall and longer.

The 8th year is available to reduce cap hits and maybe pay 8 million extra this type of scenario you are paying almost 20-25 million more for 1 more year.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Muta

Cool - I don't see those as big factors (that's just me though). Edmonton has McDavid and Draisaitl, two of the best players in the league, so taxes, NMCs, weather, Canadian fans, small markets kinda go out the window with that stuff. At the end of the day, it's who wins on the ice. Canadian teams have shown, and recently, that, they can make it to the last dance, which would be viewed as success from every other team in the league competing that particular year. And 7/30 is right on par for the 'odds' discussion.

And it will be difficult for the Oilers to keep them both. As it will be difficult for the Leafs, with Matthews, Marner and Nylander.

Do we hear talk that Tampa will have trouble keeping Kucherov or Hedman? That the Rangers won't be able to keep Fox or Panarin? Pittsburgh with Crosby and Malkin?

Have you forgotten what happened to the Flames last summer?

As for the stats, you should probably just let it go.

[lazypucker]

Eliminating the NTC and NMC will help player movement, and will give smaller market teams and teams in undesirable cities a fair chance of trading for star players.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

My view is
- The biggest disadvantages for Canadian teams are self inflicted and being poorly run
- But there are also other clear disadvantages particularly for Canadian teams not named Toronto and Montreal. Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg would rank in the very bottom of desirable destinations for a lot of NHLers.

I really don't know how much of 2 creates 1, in your list.

10% more for a player seems incremental. In a league of fine competitive lines x 20 players it might be everything.

What is 'well run' for a Canadian team? I really don't know. If it's win lotteries, sign cheap deals, and get a lucky break or two I'm not sure any of the teams have shot at that, and most can never get close.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

Use Connor for example. 90 Million cap Edmonton can offer him a max 5 year 90 million deal while Toronto can offer him 57.6 over 4 years. You could still could down to say a 16 million per season over 5 years but its still more overall and longer.

The 8th year is available to reduce cap hits and maybe pay 8 million extra this type of scenario you are paying almost 20-25 million more for 1 more year.

But in a $90 mil cap the max per year is $18 mil. We have never seen a deal signed at 20%. I think for it to work you would need to lower the max contract to 18% and then only allow other teams to offer 15%

McDavid in a 90 cap world

5 years $81 mil

vs

4 years $54 mil

Problem though is only a few players in the league are going to hit 16% of the cap and maybe you see McDavid, Mathews and Leon type free agents get impacted by this, but everyone else it would just be the extra year

[FlamesAddiction]

Re: NTCs... Blame the WHA. They started the whole concept when they were trying to compete with the NHL for players. It was one thing they tried to do to entice them away from the NHL. The NHL started doing it after that.

I am not sure if the rules or something changed, but since the mid 1990s, NTCs started to become more and more common, until today where they are pretty much standard. Most teams have several on their roster at any given time and you almost can't sign any free agent of significance without giving them one.

I would say one step would be to simply limit the number any team can have on their roster at any given point (say 3). That way the team would really have to consider if they wanted to use one of their spots on a player, and if a player really wanted an NTC for stability, they would have to go to a team that had spots available. That would still be a total of 96 NTC slots available to players, pretty generous compared to what you see in other leagues.

[Enoch Root]

That's the thing - with 32 teams, a reverse draft, and a tight salary cap, the margin between winning and losing is razor thin. If some teams have to pay more, and are less desirable destinations, that is likely more than enough to lose that margin. Saying they are poorly run may be true, but it may also be true that the difference is simply that margin.

The likelihood that all of the Canadian teams are poorly run, is quite low.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

Eliminating the NTC and NMC will help player movement, and will give smaller market teams and teams in undesirable cities a fair chance of trading for star players.

This would have a huge impact. Also could limit the amount a team can have to 3.

If teams can trade for players under contract or sell more players because fewer have NMC it would make things easier on all teams that struggle to sign UFA's

[Sylvanfan]

Owners in Canada tend to be pretty Conservative with who they hire to run their teams. They're afraid to try some new ideas with their teams and tend to be a bit safe or cheap with their hires. So you have a system where you are overpaying for equal talent after rookie contracts. You only have players for 7 years. Plus the added pressure and scrutiny of the fan base. Maybe some unconventional ideas are warranted.

I look at Ottawa and they put together a decent foundation. But than they trade good picks in back to back years to add Debrincant and Chychryn, plus paid Giroux a good wage to come home. They also traded Gustavsson for the more proven but mediocre Talbot. The types of moves which can generate excitement and make the team better. But I'd argue having the picks plus cap space and Gustavsson probably have them in a better position to become an elite team. They fell into the same trap Calgary and Vancouver did in making these types of moves before their core was ready to win.

Also doesn't help that all "Luck" for the Canadian teams fell in the Oilers lap and they couldn't do much with it.

[Bonded]

Let’s just say I’m thankful the Oilers have been so poorly managed.

[Cube Inmate]

I know this goes against the spirit of the question but the only success I want for Canadian teams is Flames Cups. Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton fans are dumb enough to pay for a crap product so let them subsidize the rest of the league without any real success. Ottawa and Winnipeg know they're just lucky to be in the big leagues. Throw them an occasional bone... maybe a second-round appearance... and they'll be fine. Vancouver? I don't know what their fans like other than rioting. But they must never get a taste of that mug.

I would rather go 100 more years without a Canadian Cup win than to see Toronto, EDM, or Wancouver get one. I'd tolerate one of the other three, but it would not be something to celebrate.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

That's the thing - with 32 teams, a reverse draft, and a tight salary cap, the margin between winning and losing is razor thin. If some teams have to pay more, and are less desirable destinations, that is likely more than enough to lose that margin. Saying they are poorly run may be true, but it may also be true that the difference is simply that margin.

The likelihood that all of the Canadian teams are poorly run, is quite low.

There have only been 13 cup winners since 2000. There are a lot of US franchises with no success either. Teams have to be lucky when they are bad and hit a star or two at the top of the draft and hit in later rounds as well. The Rangers would be perennial cup contenders if winning came down to signing UFAs.

[Five-hole]

The tax issue is overblown, as the pay is taxed based on where you're playing the games. So 50% of your games are in your low tax home jurisdiction but 50% are spread out elsewhere. Factoring that in we're not talking about massive differences in tax rates. Taking a crude measure that half of your games are played at the average NHL tax rate, there's only a 7% difference between the best and worst tax jurisdictions. Sure, we'd all take a 7% raise, but there's way more important factors in play for athletes than a 7% raise, many of which are out of their control. We're only talking UFAs and NMCs here. There's only a 3% difference between the worst tax jurisdictions and the average NHL tax rate. Players in the best tax jurisdictions do 4% better than the average NHL tax rate.

The worst tax jurisdictions are California, Ontario, Quebec, and New York (the Rangers specifically due to Manhattan municipal tax). I haven't heard about teams in those jurisdictions having a problem attracting talent, except Ottawa but they're just cheap generally. While only LA of the teams in those areas has won cups in recent memory, the really low tax jurisdictions (Arizona, Nevada, Dallas, Florida, Colorado, Tennessee) haven't done much better. TBL is a huge outlier but I don't think anyone is suggesting they won their cups because of a tax advantage. Florida is in the same state and has been largely horrifically bad for 30 years.

Alberta is actually right in the middle, tax-wise. Our problems in not winning championships do not stem from our tax rate.

[taxbuster]

Ask for The Stanley Cup to be returned to Canada "for display" (yah...there's a fake dupe)....and THEN NEVER GIVE IT BACK TO THAT NEW YORK **** Bettman.

Refuse to allow it to ever travel south of the border. They can come up with a new one.

[Press Level]

From '93-'04, in the pre-cap era, the Flames, Oilers, Sens, Jets and Nordiques could not compete with the free-spending large market teams. The Jets and Nordiques relocated to larger American markets and the Flames, Oilers and Sens basically became farm teams for the larger markets. This era of the 30 year drought is not a fair comparable to the post-lockout era.

The post-lockout/salary cap era has been dominated by a few teams that drafted well and built solid cores (Pittsburgh, Chicago, Tampa, LA). With the exception of Toronto, none of the Canadian teams did the same. Better run teams get better results. That's it. Toronto may yet win with their core, and Montreal seems to be on the right path. The other Canadian teams continue to wander in the wilderness.

[SutterBrother]

I thank the heavens its harder for Canadian teams.

The absolute last thing I want is a Canadian team winning it before Calgary does. No thank you.

[Ace]

Originally Posted by Five-hole

The tax issue is overblown, as the pay is taxed based on where you're playing the games. So 50% of your games are in your low tax home jurisdiction but 50% are spread out elsewhere. Factoring that in we're not talking about massive differences in tax rates. Taking a crude measure that half of your games are played at the average NHL tax rate, there's only a 7% difference between the best and worst tax jurisdictions. Sure, we'd all take a 7% raise, but there's way more important factors in play for athletes than a 7% raise, many of which are out of their control. We're only talking UFAs and NMCs here. There's only a 3% difference between the worst tax jurisdictions and the average NHL tax rate. Players in the best tax jurisdictions do 4% better than the average NHL tax rate.

The worst tax jurisdictions are California, Ontario, Quebec, and New York (the Rangers specifically due to Manhattan municipal tax). I haven't heard about teams in those jurisdictions having a problem attracting talent, except Ottawa but they're just cheap generally. While only LA of the teams in those areas has won cups in recent memory, the really low tax jurisdictions (Arizona, Nevada, Dallas, Florida, Colorado, Tennessee) haven't done much better. TBL is a huge outlier but I don't think anyone is suggesting they won their cups because of a tax advantage. Florida is in the same state and has been largely horrifically bad for 30 years.

Alberta is actually right in the middle, tax-wise. Our problems in not winning championships do not stem from our tax rate.

I was going to bring up the same point. I do think players are way more savvy with being tax efficient so it’s a factor; but on the flip side earning USD in Canada is likely an advantage with the local cost of living being in CAD. Geographical issues like nice weather and beaches are probably more important to millionaires that can afford nice places on the beach vs. Anywhere in Alberta.

I do think Canada in general may be (and become) a more desirable country for people to generally immigrate to than the US, but for the rich Money mitigates any downside factors of one country over the other (healthcare, security, etc.). So I don’t think it’s a factor for NHL’ers.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Five-hole

The tax issue is overblown, as the pay is taxed based on where you're playing the games. So 50% of your games are in your low tax home jurisdiction but 50% are spread out elsewhere. Factoring that in we're not talking about massive differences in tax rates. Taking a crude measure that half of your games are played at the average NHL tax rate, there's only a 7% difference between the best and worst tax jurisdictions. Sure, we'd all take a 7% raise, but there's way more important factors in play for athletes than a 7% raise, many of which are out of their control. We're only talking UFAs and NMCs here. There's only a 3% difference between the worst tax jurisdictions and the average NHL tax rate. Players in the best tax jurisdictions do 4% better than the average NHL tax rate.

The worst tax jurisdictions are California, Ontario, Quebec, and New York (the Rangers specifically due to Manhattan municipal tax). I haven't heard about teams in those jurisdictions having a problem attracting talent, except Ottawa but they're just cheap generally. While only LA of the teams in those areas has won cups in recent memory, the really low tax jurisdictions (Arizona, Nevada, Dallas, Florida, Colorado, Tennessee) haven't done much better. TBL is a huge outlier but I don't think anyone is suggesting they won their cups because of a tax advantage. Florida is in the same state and has been largely horrifically bad for 30 years.

Alberta is actually right in the middle, tax-wise. Our problems in not winning championships do not stem from our tax rate.

I'm not sure, but I don't think that is exactly right. At least in the US, I think they would pay home state tax (if there is one) on their whole salary, but do get charged a "jock tax" of 3% of the portion considered earned in the visiting state.