Bruins looking to trade Savard in the offseason.....

[deantime419]

His salary is only a half mil so i don't think they need the cash relief. With a four mil cap hit would it help get teams to the cap floor without overpaying underachievers that might stall the development of other players?

[chuckcouples]

His salary vs cap hit makes him a very attractive player for teams on a tight budget. They would get a $4million cap hit for only $525,000 in salary for each of the next two seasons. That could save the owner almost $7,000,000. Any team that flirts with the salary floor will definitely be willing to give up draft picks/prospects for this savings.

[2014olympicgold]

Ya Savard’s contract is like the Anti-Horton. It would be a low market team wanting him for the reasons stated above.

To use his full salary cap hit tho, he’d have to be on the roster, and not even on IR right? Even when on IR teams get a bit of a pro-rated caphit relief at deadline day?

[roenick27]

Unless i m missing something, while the above posts were helpful, it still doesn't address the point about NHL teams trading assets (picks etc) for a player that will not be playing. If they need to get to the cap floor, there are plenty of contracts they can trade for that will provide a positive effect (other than reaching the floor on a bargain deal etc). I'd rather see an exception made by the league for relief due to ltir etc than to see teams purposely taking on contracts of players not playing? Why not give a contract to (any retired player) then? To me it just is detrimental to the state of the league. For clarkson, he has the honor of being traded for not even a late round pick, but a player that can't even play. That's deplorable.
Again, if this deal went through in a $100 fantasy league, it would get vetoed etc. Imagine real life with millions of dollars at stake. Fans at stake.
To me, and I get the reasons, this just shouldn't happen and is basically no different than any other type of cap circumvention. There needs to be a better way

[2014olympicgold]

They can take on Savard (cap hit of 5mill), meet the floor by 1mill, and play a rookie with a cap hit of (at max with bonuses) 3mill.

Let’s say Buffalo wasn’t going to be able to meet the cap floor with it (just an arbitrary number) of a total cpa hit of 55mill and the floor being 60mill. So instead of signing like David Booth for 4mill and Bernier for 4mill to get to a total cap hit of 63mill; which is an overpayment on both. But instead they take on Savard’s contract (technically just press box him all yr, bringing their cap hit total to 60mill), and ice 2 rookies with small cap hits (1.5mill each with bonuses) and have a cap hit total of 63mill and have the ability to develop 2 rookies instead of having their spots taken up by overpaid free agents.

Pretty much it’s letting bottom teams avoid what Florida had to do a few yrs back with Fleishman and a few other players. The FA may allow the rebuilding team to win 5 more games, but they delay some rookies’ development a few yrs possibly, or they take away minutes from Hube/Barkov who are now on the PK/PP more.

The best way to do this would be if a player has been on LTIR for more than X amount of games, he can be traded, but until he plays for his new team his old team pays his salary. So Horton missing the limit of games, can be traded to Toronto, but until he suits up for X amount of games with Toronto, CBJ still pay his salary. Or pays Toronto, who pays Horton to get around conflict of interest issues.

[roenick27]

They can take on Savard (cap hit of 5mill), meet the floor by 1mill, and play a rookie with a cap hit of (at max with bonuses) 3mill.

Let’s say Buffalo wasn’t going to be able to meet the cap floor with it (just an arbitrary number) of a total cpa hit of 55mill and the floor being 60mill. So instead of signing like David Booth for 4mill and Bernier for 4mill to get to a total cap hit of 63mill; which is an overpayment on both. But instead they take on Savard’s contract (technically just press box him all yr, bringing their cap hit total to 60mill), and ice 2 rookies with small cap hits (1.5mill each with bonuses) and have a cap hit total of 63mill and have the ability to develop 2 rookies instead of having their spots taken up by overpaid free agents.

Pretty much it’s letting bottom teams avoid what Florida had to do a few yrs back with Fleishman and a few other players. The FA may allow the rebuilding team to win 5 more games, but they delay some rookies’ development a few yrs possibly, or they take away minutes from Hube/Barkov who are now on the PK/PP more.

The best way to do this would be if a player has been on LTIR for more than X amount of games, he can be traded, but until he plays for his new team his old team pays his salary. So Horton missing the limit of games, can be traded to Toronto, but until he suits up for X amount of games with Toronto, CBJ still pay his salary. Or pays Toronto, who pays Horton to get around conflict of interest issues.

Correct. In essense you are circumventing the floor instead of the ceiling. It still stinks.
This isn't the purpose of the floor. Its to force teams to be competitive at least somewhat and manage resources properly. This combing with seeing buffalo etc tank is just bad for hockey. I actually don't mind the tanking at all, as assets were traded for futures etc, but the combination of the two will be frowned upon.

[ericdaoust]

Reminds me of the Tim Thomas situation which I covered two years ago:

http://hockey.dobbersports.com/Cappe...g-island-style

[2014olympicgold]

Correct. In essense you are circumventing the floor instead of the ceiling. It still stinks.
This isn't the purpose of the floor. Its to force teams to be competitive at least somewhat and manage resources properly. This combing with seeing buffalo etc tank is just bad for hockey. I actually don't mind the tanking at all, as assets were traded for futures etc, but the combination of the two will be frowned upon.

In a way it is managing assets, but once these guys are gone from the league we won’t be seeing it much really. Like LTIR guys in the last 10 yrs that had this situation being possible were Horton, Savard, and Pronger. It’s a one off situation.

I do find it a weird loop hole, but hey whatever, in a league that has an odd contract situation and very player driven (contract wise), I’m fine with seeing something that helps out GMs.

[roenick27]

In a way it is managing assets, but once these guys are gone from the league we won’t be seeing it much really. Like LTIR guys in the last 10 yrs that had this situation being possible were Horton, Savard, and Pronger. It’s a one off situation.

I do find it a weird loop hole, but hey whatever, in a league that has an odd contract situation and very player driven (contract wise), I’m fine with seeing something that helps out GMs.

I still see it (and the others) as a rather large ding on how the NHL does business (looking at it from other sports etc). What's to stop more loopholes from happening or re-circumventing on the ceiling side?
It sucks for a team like BOS where Savard got hurt. I just think it should be done in a different way. Maybe some of the fine money should be re-allocated for situations like this?(I'm guessing that would violate the players union side somehow, but something like that).

[deantime419]

So do you essentially have a choice on whether or not a guy on IR counts towards your cap or not? Small market teams can then stay alive the cap floor and other teams can get cap relief?

[The Comish]

It's just good business. Sure it looks bad, but that's on the NHL/NHLPA. Individual teams who've found/exploit loopholes should be applauded because they are smarter than all the NHL/NHLPA lawyers combined! Taking advantage of this until they close the loophole is just smart asset management.

[ShawneePanthers]

They should trade him for a gritty enforcer type. Matt Cooke, anyone?

[The Comish]

They should trade him for a gritty enforcer type. Matt Cooke, anyone?

Umm, definitely too soon! Especially since the Bruins still have two years left to pay on Savard's salary.

[Laendarian]

This will be interesting to see, obviously it will be closed in the next CBA, but will this fall into the "Kovalchuk circumventing the standards of the CBA" category that NJ got dinged with. The same argument could have been made with Horton, but in his case at least it wasn't 4 years after the fact with clearly no intent to ever play again.