Thoughts on teams taking advantage of the salary cap rules?

[Dennis]

hmmm very true.

Could a rule about players need to be on the NHL roster to be eligible for playoffs? Make a thing like MLB with "these are the players we have eligible for this round" and do something with a cap number regarding that.

Hopefully if a change is made it's something simple like that but that proposal also opens up the possibility of players returning from injury prematurely to qualify for playoffs as well as eliminating the signing of ELCs as the NCAA/KHL/etc wrap up their seasons.

[2014olympicgold]

Hopefully if a change is made it's something simple like that but that proposal also opens up the possibility of players returning from injury prematurely to qualify for playoffs as well as eliminating the signing of ELCs as the NCAA/KHL/etc wrap up their seasons.

I would say as the NCAA/KHL thing, if you want them in, you put them on your playoff roster for that round. The amount of times a prospect makes their NHL debut in the playoffs is super rare in the Normal 82game season. But there is def going to be a push back from the NHL teams, and even NHLPA on any type of cap restrictions being implemented into the playoffs.

I would think doing a playoff roster of X number of players on it, with a total cap of 10-15% over what the cap is wouldn't eliminate any Hyman, P.Kane, Andersen, Price level of LTIR manipulation. But would stop the Tampa getting out of cap hell for a full season with Kucherov going on LTIR.

10% overage would make the following teams not cap complacent:
ST Louis and Tampa
15% overage would make the following teams not cap complacent:
Tampa

But the above could change with the Leafs LTIR activations of Hyman, Nash, and Bogosian. But I think the Leafs are far enough below that 10% overage they'd be fine.

[tweetdrivr]

If any proposed change even slightly seems like it would impact player earnings the NHLPA will have a say. The GMs/Owners cannot unilaterally change the way the players are compensated or change the cap rules without it being in the CBA because it will directly impact the players.

[kovalchuk17]

technically speaking, the players dont get paid their salaries during the playoffs. all more or less make the same small amount of money during the playoffs, a glorified stipend depending on how many rounds you win and a bonus for winning the cup.

there will be many unintended consequences if you arbitrarily add a pre-calculated cap for the playoff roster when their regular season salaries have already been paid out.

as mentioned multiple times, as long as theres a way to circumvent the cap teams are going to do it. if many teams are abusing it, that means something is wrong with the system and providing an arbitrary bandaid will not work. it would be much better to learn from what the other leagues are doing.

NBA
Bird Rights - you can exceed the cap if keeping your own player if certain conditions are met
Disabled Player Exception - you can gain some cap relief if a player goes down with a season-ending injury
Mid-level/Bi-annual Exception & Vet minimum deals - these are all ways to exceed the cap while employing more players

NFL
Franchise / Transition Tag - ways to keep your player by paying them a set salary for 1 year. unfortunately this didnt end up being used as intended as teams use it as leverage to hold a players rights
Contract restructuring - a way to borrow future cap space for the present. (probably not recommended)

theres probably more but these come to mind first. give teams more ways to circumvent the cap legally, not less. that way noone can complain haha

[newfcollins]

I still don't see an issue. This is not something that happens every season, and isn't something that is going to happen often from here on out. If Tampa does go on to win the Cup, Toronto isn't going to sit Matthews for a full season next year, Edmonton is not going to sit McDavid and Chicago isn't going to sit Patrick Kane. These teams are better with their superstars on it. Same with Tampa. They probably would have been better if Kucherov was playing all season instead of being stuck as the third seed in their division and potentially not having home ice advantage all playoffs.

[2014olympicgold]

How about a type of luxury tax implemented once you're over $X in LTIR used that gets paid to the league to help support small market teams? At least forces teams to kinda re-think it? Keep all the current cap rules, but at the end of the yr a team pays 10% LTIR tax if the $X used in LTIR is over $5mill (6%).

So Tampa, who used $17mill in LTIR, pays $1.7mill to the league, and Blues pays $864k, NYI pays $692k ($3.25mill total). No penalty to the salary cap, no penalty to the players, no penalty to the NHLPA.

But really, no team is holding a player out like Kucherov in an 82 game season.

A Luxury Tax idea was brought up in a podcast with Steve Dangle (Eye roll, guys annoying as hell).

[newfcollins]

I feel like a rich team would be able to exploit that. $1.7 million would be nothing to Toronto, or Montreal or the Rangers.

Plus, look at Arizona. For years, they've traded for guys on LTIR in an effort to get better to help other teams shed their cap headaches. This would essentially put an end to that.

[2014olympicgold]

I feel like a rich team would be able to exploit that. $1.7 million would be nothing to Toronto, or Montreal or the Rangers.

Plus, look at Arizona. For years, they've traded for guys on LTIR in an effort to get better to help other teams shed their cap headaches. This would essentially put an end to that.

You can make it exponential penalty the higher over you go.

Like Arizona can bad teams can still do it, just set the number before you start the tax high. Like I feel if you use over like 8% of your cap towards that LTIR stuff, you are no longer using the LTIR the way it was originally intended. So for like every percent over you go from 8%, get taxed. if you go over 10%, get taxed way more than going over 8%.

The whole situation is sticky and I don't see a way to control LTIR use. But we shouldn't over react because of 1 major issue (Duchene offside). I do think this is something the league should look at, but I don't want them to go crazy over 1 incident. Maybe if it continues like the Kucherov example, then start looking at penalties. I kinda like the taxing teams, but I dont' want it overkilled because of 1 incident like the offsides,.


I'd be curious how many teams would in in favour of more money coming from teams going to support them. Curious if the owners that would like a tax system outweighs the ones that don't.

[newfcollins]

Wouldn't this make poor teams not use the LTIR? Say, the Coyotes again. They have Hossa on LTIR. If OEL and Keller both suffer major injuries, then Arizona wouldn't put them on LTIR or else pay a high penalty.

I'm also not sure if that makes an impact for insurance payouts. I think a player on LTIR is paid for by the insurance company, but I'm not sure on that.

[ericdaoust]

I'm also not sure if that makes an impact for insurance payouts. I think a player on LTIR is paid for by the insurance company, but I'm not sure on that.

My understanding is it depends if the contract has insurance. Not all players are able to get it but the vast majority can.

[newfcollins]

My understanding is it depends if the contract has insurance. Not all players are able to get it but the vast majority can.

If a player is injured and not on LTIR, does the insurance company pay or the team?

[ericdaoust]

If a player is injured and not on LTIR, does the insurance company pay or the team?

I don't know if it requires LTIR because that's an NHL rule. If I had to guess it would be similar to insurances we get. If you're sick/injured and have to miss more than X days you make an insurance claim. I don't know this as a fact though. Someone feel free to correct me with facts.

[snowball]

I like the idea of having a designated roster, either on a weekly/round/series and league determines the max amount CAP space or AAV a team can't exceed.

for instance, if NHL agrees that in playoffs, the AAV of a 24 roster team is 80 million, then the team has to submit a list of eligible players within that max cap space. They bench or healthy scratch whoever they want as long as they respect the cap space during that specific game/series.

that way:
- Teams do whatever they want. they are responsible to be within the CAP space for that game. If you have to bench Kucherov or make him healthy scratch because you exceed the cap, then thats on you.
- both teams on the ice have a fair playing field with the same amount of Cap space, regardless of what it was yesterday, or tomorrow.

[2014olympicgold]

Insurance Companies paying hurt players:

I thought it was if a player is on IR the insurance company would pay for it, depending on the contract obviously.


I did find this from a 2012 article which very well could be out-of-date:

The NHL requires teams to insure roughly 80 per cent of the value of their top five player contracts through BWD Group, a New York insurance company. Rates have more than doubled from about 2 per cent in 2004 to more than 5 per cent of a contract’s value, Hubbard and others said.
That means it can cost a team about $250,000 to insure a player — one with a blemish-free medical history — with a $5 million contract.

https://www.thestar.com/sports/hocke...0others%20said.


There's def some rules that aren't easily available about insurance on contracts.

[newfcollins]

I thought it was if a player is on IR the insurance company would pay for it, depending on the contract obviously.

So that's another potential issue when dealing with penalizing teams for putting players on LTIR.