NHL Cap - Keep, Amend, Turf

[Bandwagon Surfer]

Definitely keep the cap.

Lots of great reasons already said, but I would like to add that it makes team management a lot more interesting for the fans. It adds an extra dimension to all the team transactions, which makes following what teams do off the ice so much interesting. Another resource to consider when thinking about what you want done with your team.

You can see how much is adds to the fan experience by looking at this web site. Practically every thread on the forum includes cap space discussions. If that were all to go away it would all be more boring.

[Snuffleupagus]

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.

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.

Silly and bad news for 70+% of the league

[FireGilbert]

I agree with those saying the cap is one of the best things to ever happen to the NHL. Of all the sports leagues it is the fairest system and the easiest to understand.

If I had to make some minor changes though they would be:

-The salaries in each year of a contract should be the same. AAV vs salary is confusing and even with the front loading changes still being able to pay out huge salaries in the first years of a contract gives an advantage to the bigger market teams.

-Allow bonuses for all players, not just the rookies and vets.

-Tighten up LTIR for players over 35. If you have a career ending injury on a contract signed after 35 it should be no different than retiring and the cap hit should still count.

[Cgycowboy]

With the smartest gm in the league at the helm keep the cap

[Reign of Fire]

Scrap the cap? Look at the NBA, where luxury tax is killing that league. We don't need a league of Super Teams. Cap creates parity.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by 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.

MLB and the luxury tax are both broken.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Reign of Fire

Scrap the cap? Look at the NBA, where luxury tax is killing that league. We don't need a league of Super Teams. Cap creates parity.

Actually the NBA is being killed by capping individual player Salaries. If the superstars had to give up 20 million to play together they would be much more reluctant to do it then when they give up 2-5'million. Lebron should be being paid 50 million a season instead of 20-30. Its not really the taxes fault. And the soft tax and cap allows teams to exceed the cap to pay their own players which I do think has a lot of benefits.

As for the NHL they should cut the players share by 20% and commit to not taking public money for arenas. I'd like more randomness in the draft with all non playoff teams with an equal shot and all of those picks. And a sum of consecutive year picks must be greater than 5 or go to the wheel with fixed draft picks over 30 years.

The cap overall is pretty good.

[Senator Clay Davis]

The NBA luxury tax system is actually pretty good. I don't even think the Leafs could afford it long term if the tax was as punitive as the NBA. Before the Kyrie Irving trade, the Cavs were projected to have a salary bill of around $140 million, and a luxury tax bill of around $80 million as repeat offenders. Even fielding a Finals team every year, the Cavs were apparently losing money. Only the Lakers could probably ever afford to be consistent offenders, but even then the escalators would ultimately get to the point they'd be paying more, possibly even far more, in luxury tax than in salary.

The benefit of the NBA system is it is supposed to allow teams to go over the cap when their window opens up, which would be beneficial to every team so long as they didn't stay over the cap. I actually expect the NHL to go with something like this, specifically for the Leafs who have their own potential Blackhawks run ahead, unless they run into cap hell. It's not good for business to let the Leafs only get a short window because of cap issues when the league can cash in keeping the window open.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

It's not good for business to let the Leafs only get a short window because of cap issues when the league can cash in keeping the window open.

The league is not one business entity, but 31. For the Leafs to get an extended window simply because it's good for their balance sheet does nothing for the other 30 teams, and is actively detrimental if it means that most of those teams have no realistic shot at a championship.

Anyway, look at what Chicago did with the cap. Three Stanley Cups in six years isn't enough of a window for you?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by 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 wondered this myself, and then realized that without that GM's would game the system even harder

For example if a team gets SuperCenter A to take 20M, 1M, 1M and 20M and SuperWinger B 15M, 1M, 1M and 15M, that would give them two years where the top two most expensive forwards on the team are almost free, and then load up on those years. Essentially teams could spread out their available team cap over several years, in essence minmaxing certain years as "going for it" and other as "wait" years. I think averaging out the cap is probably for the best despite it's problems.

Originally Posted by 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?

There's no need to reward teams for developing players, it's already absolutely necessary for every team. What this would do is give an even bigger reward for the teams that win draft lotteries and get those very high salary superstars.

That would also make trades even more impossible. Currently trades are already so difficult to come by that teams are starting to get stuck with what they draft.


As for the cap in general, it's a good system that has some issues.
- The cap is too high, as has been discussed in the arena threads. Currently teams are not profitable enough that it would make sense for them to pay for their own arenas. Longterm this is a problem.

- Fully guaranteed contracts are a problem for teams and veterans alike. It's pushing valuable veterans out of the game (together with ELCs), as teams are becoming less and less willing to take risks with older players. I also think the Brouwer situation for example is just not good for the enjoyment of the game, and can't be that great for even Brouwer himself even though's he's getting paid like crazy. I don't think anyone wants to end their career hated.

- The very low dollar ceiling on ELC contracts are IMO very problematic in the cap system. It's creating in essence a salary limit on certain positions on the team, and I feel it's another thing driving useful veterans out of the game which is a shame. It's also exploitative to the younger players.

Originally Posted by 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.

I'm not sure the bonus system hinted at there is the best possible, but in general I very much agree that a more performance based system would be an improvement. I would make a system based primarily on games played and TOI, as they're less arbitrarily counted and depend less on the role a player is playing on the team. I don't want to penalize a player for accepting a more defensive role on the team.

I would also love to see team performance based bonuses; give all players a little extra for every point and every spot in the standings. That should keep them motivated all through the season.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Keep the cap. Without it Calgary can't afford to keep their stars and they turn into a feeder system for the large market teams.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

MLB and the luxury tax are both broken.

How is the MLB broken?

Take a look at the operating income for MLB vs the NHL at least according to Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/#tabverall

https://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/list/#tabverall

Almost all franchises in the mlb are making a nice profit. The numbers don't differ much between the largest markets and the smallest. Some of the smalller revenue teams have the highest profits. The Dodgers and Tigers stand out as being mismanaged, but they have the ability to correct that by shedding payroll.

The NHL by contrast has the 3 top revenue teams making gobs of money, while the bottom 8 or 9 teams all look in trouble.

MLBs systems of revenue sharing, player controls and luxury tax has made a pretty even playing field. They've also got there with a couple decades of labour peace. There are some advantages to big markets, but the smallest markets are able to compete too if they patiently build. Even the Yankees had to do a rebuild and develop within to get to where they are.

One problem with the salary cap/floor system in the NHL is that the bottom teams don't have any way to shed costs to be financially viable, and it means another lockout is always around the corner. The only thing those teams can o is beg and blackmail their way to public assistance. The cap system is successful for on-ice parity, but it fails for financial parity. It is also is a spectacularly bad deal for the wallets of the fans and cities. The only way to increase profit is to extract as much as possible from the fans and non-fans in the city they play.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

The league is not one business entity, but 31. For the Leafs to get an extended window simply because it's good for their balance sheet does nothing for the other 30 teams, and is actively detrimental if it means that most of those teams have no realistic shot at a championship.

Anyway, look at what Chicago did with the cap. Three Stanley Cups in six years isn't enough of a window for you?

For me? Don't care about their window length. The NHL though? I'm guessing they'd like the Blackhawks window to be open until somewhere around 2399. As nfotiu points out, the luxury tax in baseball makes every team money. The NHL has tons of money losers. I betcha most of those owners would gladly trade the Blackhawks or Leafs dominating the sport for profitability. I hope people aren't offended that sports leagues number one goal isn't competitive balance or a fair system.

Business is business, and that's what sports leagues are. And if it's better for the bottom lines of all teams to have the big market clubs dominate, then that's likely the system we'll see. The NHL needed to cap before as more of a survival thing, now they probably want to move on to the next step, maximizing revenue. And that likely involves eliminating the hard cap.

[dirk diggler]

I think if you win the cup, you should be able to spend say 2 or 3 million more than the other teams the following year or perhaps two years. not a huge sum but it would reward the teams that built a cup winning team perhaps keep a player they otherwise would have lost..... just a thought. the cap does need to stay though.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by the2bears

I have no idea what you just said.

He's trying to take a childish shot at the Flames owners for the arena fiasco (even though it is not remotely relevant to this thread), but adding the idea of "turf"ing the cap just made his point confusing and stupid.


As far as the topic goes, keep. Without question. And if the players want to turf it, it is the kind of thing I'm willing to lose another season over.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

The NBA luxury tax system is actually pretty good. I don't even think the Leafs could afford it long term if the tax was as punitive as the NBA. Before the Kyrie Irving trade, the Cavs were projected to have a salary bill of around $140 million, and a luxury tax bill of around $80 million as repeat offenders. Even fielding a Finals team every year, the Cavs were apparently losing money. Only the Lakers could probably ever afford to be consistent offenders, but even then the escalators would ultimately get to the point they'd be paying more, possibly even far more, in luxury tax than in salary.

The benefit of the NBA system is it is supposed to allow teams to go over the cap when their window opens up, which would be beneficial to every team so long as they didn't stay over the cap. I actually expect the NHL to go with something like this, specifically for the Leafs who have their own potential Blackhawks run ahead, unless they run into cap hell. It's not good for business to let the Leafs only get a short window because of cap issues when the league can cash in keeping the window open.

It makes business sense when its the Leafs - less so when its Arizona or Calgary.

The owners aren't going to agree to a system that opens the door to higher spending after working so hard to get a hard cap. If the MLB or NBA could get the same hard cap that the NHL or NFL has they would in a second, but the players unions are stronger in those leagues. They aren't doing it because it makes good business sense, they are doing it because they couldn't get the players to agree to it without cancelling season after season.

[GioforPM]

Keep. Maybe tweak the CBA around contract length, bonuses, max percentage of roster in one salary. Maybe roster size (an extra skater slot would sure come in handy).

[EldrickOnIce]

Difficult to compare the NHL to other pro sports. The NHL has the highest percentage of revenue from gate receipts of all pro sports, historically close to 40%. NFL is the least at about 16% of revenue from tickets sales.
NHL likely to take a much bigger hit in overall league revenue without parity.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

It makes business sense when its the Leafs - less so when its Arizona or Calgary.

The owners aren't going to agree to a system that opens the door to higher spending after working so hard to get a hard cap. If the MLB or NBA could get the same hard cap that the NHL or NFL has they would in a second, but the players unions are stronger in those leagues. They aren't doing it because it makes good business sense, they are doing it because they couldn't get the players to agree to it without cancelling season after season.

Explain to me which MLB owners would want the NHL system?

Would it be the bottom 10 revenue MLB teams? In the MLB, that group averaged an operating income of 23 million on average revenue of $234 million. Also 3 of those teams qualified for the postseason this year in a league where only 8 teams qualify.

The bottom 10 in the NHL by revenue averaged a operating income of negative $600,000 (which was propped up by the Oilers making $15 million) on average revenues of $109 million. Only 2 of those teams qualified for the post season last year in a league where 16 teams make the playoffs.

The NHL is not a healthy league, and is headed for further labour disruptions and the bottom third of franchises are going to be in a lot of trouble when the tv money starts to dry up.

Team Revenue Operating income
Arizona Diamondbacks $253 $47.20
Baltimore Orioles $253 -$2.10
Minnesota Twins $249 $29.90
Colorado Rockies $248 $26.60
Kansas City Royals $246 -$0.90
Milwaukee Brewers $239 $58.20
Cincinnati Reds $229 $15.90
Oakland Athletics $216 $25.50
Miami Marlins $206 -$2.20
Tampa Bay Rays $205 $32.10
Average $234 $23.02

Edmonton Oilers $117 $15.40
Nashville Predators $116 -$2.20
Buffalo Sabres $116 $1.10
Colorado Avalanche $115 $6.30
New York Islanders $114 $2.70
Winnipeg Jets $112 $11.40
Arizona Coyotes $101 -$8
Florida Panthers $100 -$15.40
Columbus Blue Jackets $100 -$2.40
Carolina Hurricanes $99 -$15
Average $109 -$0.61

[Finger Cookin]

The only thing I wish was different from the current system is that there was more visibility and public understanding of how revenue sharing works within the league.