Cap Question

[Stevie Y 0]

The other day I was discussing the whole cap situation with a friend and he came up with an idea / question that I don't have the answer too. I hope someone here can tell me whether this would actually work or if not which rule I forgot about.

I will exagerate the idea deliberately to make the point more clear.

Suppose you have a player that is 35 and is THE superstar. You and he both know that he will only play for 3 more years and that he demands 8 mil per year for the last three years of his career. Your obvious problem is the limited cap space. Now from what I understood it is the average salary of a contract that counts againts the cap. So let's assume you would offer this guy a 13 years contract that pays 4.6 millions in the first 3 years and 1 million in the last 10 years (it could even pay a bit more up front and the league minimum in the last years). The player would still earn his 24 millions. Your average cap hit would be 1.85 millions for next 13 years. Now you could easily fit this player into your team. After three years (and hopefully at least one cup ) the player would retire. Now you have to free up the roster spot which means that you have to waive that guy. Obviously the money would still count against the cap but the retired player would no longer block a roster spot.

Now of course you wouldn't want to be stuck with 1.85 millions for the next 10 years without a player that is actually working for it. But I am interested whether the basic idea would work or if there is some sort of rule against it.

Could you give a player a heavily frontloaded contract that runs longer than he wants to play in order to decrease your average cap and fit that player into your current roster?

[i_like_cheese_2001 0]

I know there is a rule that the salary of the player can't drop more than 50% per year, so your contract would have to go from 4 to 2 to 1, then it could stay at one mil, but I don't know about the rest.

[Johnny Diamonds 25]

Seems Bettman wants to make the NHL like the NBA. He needs to install the Larry Bird type rule in the NHL. Where you can exeed the cap to re-sign your own players. You would have to pay the luxury tax, match a dollar for every dollar over the cap.

[Stevie Y 0]

I know there is a rule that the salary of the player can't drop more than 50% per year, so your contract would have to go from 4 to 2 to 1, then it could stay at one mil, but I don't know about the rest.

ok thanks. that means that you would have to spread the money more equally then...