NHL Salary Cap next year

[Mr. Guru]

This will certainly mess with revenue.......Those figures posted earlier (88M) seems like a pipedream now.

[kovalchuk17]

88m seems unlikely but i can see them setting a reasonable cap number for next year and adjusting at the end of the year with escrow

[ericdaoust]

I doubt they settle on 88 but I don't think it'll drop either. They negotiate the amount so it'll be some kind of prorated formula. Nobody saw this coming. If anything they will probably rethink their idea of setting the cap in advance for future years.

[Axeman33]

I don't think we'll see a big jump in the cap until Seattle comes on board. I figured next year would have been around $84M but even that has to he questioned at this point.

[2014olympicgold]

If they miss 6 weeks (my guess), and come back to an adjusted playoff schedule, I'll say the salary cap is only going to be 83mill.

[Pengwin7]

Yeah... count me among those that think it'll be much, much lower than proposed.
The owners are losing pure-profit here, as they still have to pay lease & player costs. (the big $$$)
They have (I think) every right to recapture their losses by not being set to pay to higher player costs.
I don't think the NHLPA has strong argument to counter, because players are still being paid this season, regardless. (not sure if that is thru insurance-clause kick-in... or standard)

If live playoff attendance goes, the losses are absolutely enormous for competitive team owners.
The owners could both:
i) Claim that a hold at $81.5m is reasonable, because they lost profits, while
ii) Realize that their GMs have been pacing contracts on assumption of standard rise

$82m-$84m... that'd be my guess.

[*Closest comparable is from the 08-09 season to the 09-10 season. The stock market plummeted in fall 2008 - when 08-09 cap was already set. The 09-10 season was then set at only $0.1m higher than previous, rising from $56.7m to $56.8m... this season is much, much, much worse - considering owners have lost investment prices AND attendance income.)

[Eskimo Brother]

^I agree with all you said Pengwin. I think it's going to be closer to 82M than anything.

What do we think the odds are though that with all of this craziness that it actually goes down to 80M or so?

[DusterDave]

I can’t remember who said it (I want to say Chris Johnston but I could be wrong), but someone did say he could see the cap next year be as low as $75M. That number would likely only be if play doesn’t resume but I wouldn’t be surprised if the season is just canceled at this point.

[Eskimo Brother]

Now that would be fun for some of the more restrictive cap leagues.

[DusterDave]

Now that would be fun for some of the more restrictive cap leagues.

We would both be screwed in UHL. I have a feeling we’ve seen the last of the 2019-20 season and I’m more than okay with that. Let’s get our planet and lives back in order and worry about the fun and games later.

[LawMan]

The cap is going to be really interesting and tricky because this situation is unprecedented in so many ways.

As I understand it: the Cap is set a year in advance based on projections of Hockey Related Revenue ("HRR") for that upcoming season. So ordinarily the NHL would be setting the cap for next season based on what they project HRR to be next season. Once the NHL picks a number, the NHLPA can then use the "escalator clause" in the CBA to bump that number 5% (maybe 10%??) higher. From there the league sets the salary cap and salary floor. But even then the salary cap is just a made-up place-holder used to for the purposes of budgeting and team restrictions.

Players actually net earnings are based upon the actual HRR that is earned over the season by the 31 teams. Players pay 15% of their salary into escrow during the season, if the HRR number is hit exactly (and the 31 teams pay on average the mid=point between the cap ceiling and floor) then the players get all 15% back, if the HRR is short players lose escrow and if its over players get escrow plus more $$.

So, if the teams lose the final 15 games of the regular season than HRR is going to be well short of what was estimated, under the CBA they would likely lose all their escrow payments, and still might be short?? We're talking about losing 18% of the season.
At the same time, if society magically returns to normal by October and the 2020-21 season is 82 games, interest very likely could be up, so the 2020-21 season could see HRR equal to what this season was on pace for. That would mean a flat cap, maybe a slight bump with the escalator clause.

But going back to this season, if the owners are still short money after keeping the 15% escrow the owners will likely want compensation. Does that mean players pay back a share of the income they have received? Are their final 3 cheques even smaller? Report that NHL players are getting their final 3 cheques. https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/...cks-end-season

Do the NHL and NHLPA agree to make up any shortfall out of next year's escrow??

If the league went with a cap rollback they would have to rollback all salaries by a similar percentage I would think? Man UFA's this off-season went from looking to cash in, based on the weaker free agent pool, to possibly signing under a very restrictive cap and team hit structures.

[Tanker64]

Eh, so they'll introduce revenue caps? This isn't a bad idea, the only downsides are that it's still high and that it won't be expanded to other sports.
I mean, hockey's great and I love watching and playing it, but come on, it'd be good to stop throwing so much money on this.