NHL Cap - Keep, Amend, Turf

[spuzzum]

The NHL Cap came about for the 05/06 season following a lengthy lock out. It started at 39 million and now it's up to 75 million. We've had 11 or 12 seasons to assess it from a hockey or Flames fan perspective:

-Do you like the cap to encourage league parity and revenue sharing?
-What would you change if anything?
-Would you like to see it eliminated?

While I do like paridy, it's unfortunate seeing teams being decimated because of success. I'd really like to see the league implement a franchise tag for 1 player not counting against the cap. Being a selfish Flames fan, I'd also consider allowing 1 player being buried in the minors in any given year not counting against the cap.

[Kipper_3434]

I'd like to see a much lower individual player cap with extensive league wide performance bonuses written into every contract. Something 10% of cap max base salary so 7.5m right now. Then something like 1m for first in points, 700k for second, 500k for 3-5. Add smaller bonuses for things like blocked shots, hits, faceoff etc. Have the bonuses paid at year end based on revenue if necessary.

I think this would really help mitigated some of the risks teams face when signing enormous 80 million dollar contracts. I also think it would be a little more fair and merit based for the players.

Other than that, I like the cap. Not a fan of the circumvention though.

[Backlunds_socks]

TUrf , obviously the terms with the players are not economic in the sense that teams need civic contribution to capital costs.

[Caged Great]

The cap is the best thing to happen to the NHL in a long time. Chicago would have won every cup from their first one forward if they were able to keep all their players. Makes for tough decisions and allows the smart GM's to build teams that can win repeatedly.

[nfotiu]

It made for a lot of missed hockey for a flawed model. Without meaningful revenue sharing, it is bound to fail eventually and will make for more missed hockey down the road.

The bottom line is that implementing a cap that is affordable by the average team means the average revenue teams do fine, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The poor teams, which are largely made up of teams in large TV markets without much care for hockey have been kept alive by regional sports networks raking in carriage fees while no one is watching the games. That model has 5 years left at best before it collapses spectacularly. Once that happens, there will be several franchises in trouble and that will lead to more work stoppages.

The cap has been decent for on ice parity, but but is a model built with little foresight for long term financial parity. Since becoming commissioner, Bettman has little interest or competence in winning anything but short term tactical battles at the expense of the long term health of the league, franchises and the on-ice product.

[N-E-B]

Absolutely 100% keep the cap. Every fan of every team should feel like their team has a chance to win, either immediately or in the future. Parity is a good thing in my opinion.

[Fire]

Originally Posted by spuzzum

The NHL Cap came about for the 05/06 season following a lengthy lock out. It started at 39 million and now it's up to 75 million. We've had 11 or 12 seasons to assess it from a hockey or Flames fan perspective:

-Do you like the cap to encourage league parity and revenue sharing?
-What would you change if anything?
-Would you like to see it eliminated?

While I do like paridy, it's unfortunate seeing teams being decimated because of success. I'd really like to see the league implement a franchise tag for 1 player not counting against the cap. Being a selfish Flames fan, I'd also consider allowing 1 player being buried in the minors in any given year not counting against the cap.

You make it sound like getting rid of the salary cap would benefit the Flames. It wouldn't. The Flames are not a serious risk to move right now, but they would be if they remove the cap or made it weaker.

[corporatejay]

Without the cap the Leafs offer McDavid 35 million a year without question, Matthews 30 million etc... They wouldn't care.

[Matty81]

I would like to see the cap and the draft turfed. Artificial parity is lame. Teams with bigger support should be allowed to have at least some kind of advantage.

I think teams should go back to developing their own players through a farm system starting with junior teams regionally like they used to do supplemented by an import draft. I would love to see more local players and investment in local hockey. It will never happen I know.

[the2bears]

Originally Posted by Backlunds_socks

TUrf , obviously the terms with the players are not economic in the sense that teams need civic contribution to capital costs.

I have no idea what you just said.

[White Out 403]

Scrap the cap? Cool. Long live the Leafs/Hawks/Rangers dynasty

[Corral]

I would have preferred a luxury tax over the salary cap. Thus penalizing owners who spend too much, but allows them to do so if they choose. Like many things in league organization, MLB gets it right.

[Enoch Root]

The cap is the best thing to ever happen to the league.

No cap or draft? The Leafs win every year.

Luxury tax? The Leafs and Rangers (and maybe one or two others) dominate every year.

The cap makes for a level playing field for all 31 teams. Why on earth would anyone (outside of Toronto) not want that?

[Canada 02]

I've wondered why the system was set up so that a players cap hit was the contracts AAV rather than the actual salary paid out that season. Seems to me that it's an unnecessary layer of complexity that GMs can exploit with back diving contracts

I think buyouts should be eliminated so GMs can't get out of bad contracts at a 33% discount.

Something to prevent long-term contracts that extend into a players mid- to late 30s. Counter-intuitive, but maybe lowering UFA age to ~25 so the 8 year contract ends in a players early 30 rather than mid 30s

[Parallex]

I'd want some changes. I feel like LTIR is being used as a cap dodge loophole it should be changed. LA got off way to easy on the Richard's scam... basically I think they should eliminate the cap loopholes by using the template on AHL buried deals... you get 925K in cap space to get a farm hand no more.

I also think they should raise the floor and lower the ceiling And put in a luxury tax between the midpoint and ceiling that goes into revenue sharing.

[EldrickOnIce]

I expect this:
The next cap battle lines will be drawn (again) around HRR. I do not know what is and isn't currently included in HRR, but owners will demand the players share be reduced, either by changing the 50/50 split or not including things currently included in HRR.
This will cost the loss of at least a significant portion of a season.
That aside, in its current form I approve the cap completely - assuming cap circumvention is held in check.

[Huntingwhale]

Keep da cap

[Dion]

Scrap the cap???

Say goodbye to the Edmonton Oilers - interesting .....

Seriously the cap creates parity and forces GM's to build their teams via the draft and through shrewd trades.

Gone are the days of the teams with the most money signing all the good players smaller market teams drafted and developed.

[Chingas]

The one thing that I thought might be a good idea would be to give teams a cap discount when signing their own drafted players. Something like a 20 percent reduction in cap hit on those contracts.
Would this help to reward teams that develop their own players and help them to retain them if they have done a good job? Or would this artificially raise the price of their own players resulting in a net zero gain?

[NiklasSundblad]

Originally Posted by Matty81

I would like to see the cap and the draft turfed. Artificial parity is lame. Teams with bigger support should be allowed to have at least some kind of advantage.

The Leafs are paying their head coach as much we pay Gaudreau. There are lots of ways to use a financial advantage without scrapping a hard salary cap.

I'd like to see AAV scrapped for actual salary. I think it's sad that we have had so many lockouts to protect owners from themselves, and it's still a race to see who can find the most creative ways to bend the very rules they locked out the players to get instated.