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Drake_Marcus

NHL Investigating Hossa & Pronger's contracts

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Guest GordieSid&Ted
For starters, Steve Yzerman was 41 when he retired.

Shanahan is currently 40.

Fedorov is turning 40 this year and ended his career in the NHL.

Lidstrom is going to be 40 this coming April.

Hasek had originally retired at 38 (this first time).

Bob Probert was under 40 when he retired.

The Great One retired before 40.

Larry Murphy retired at 40.

Dallas Drake retired at 39.

Claude Lemeix retired at 38. (came back in his 40s)

Larionov is the first one to come to mind who retired at 43.

Chelios is still playing at 45 and is currently the second oldest NHLer to play.

Not substantial proof, but the majority of players that I found either retired before 40 or stopped at 40. Unfortunately that doesn't give the Holland contracts a great rap, but the odds are still much better for Holland's contract than for Tallon's.

No, what you found is that most players stopped before 40. Which if you think about it, only proves my theory correct. That it is ******* hard to reach age 40 in the NHL.

First off, Hasek is a goalie and i'm not counting goalies.

Secondly, Fedorov, Probert, Gretzky and Drake all retired prior to 40, which again proves MY POINT, that it doesn't matter if it's 42 or 40, the odds of getting to either number are miniscule.

The only players on your list that really fit into our debate are Yzerman, Lidstrom, Murphy, Larionov and Chelios....and maybe Shanny. And again, Larionov and Chelios wouldn't really help your argument as they both made it past age 42.

Mark Messier hung them up at 43 I believe just off the top of my head. Gordie Howe obviously made it into his 50's.

Look, all I am saying is that age 40 is an almost mythical number. There are so few that make it to that age that it's ridiculous to think there's any difference between 40 and 42.

If we could figure out an actual percentage of NHL players who play until age 40 or 42 I think it would look like this:

playing at age 40 = .03%

playing at age 42 = .026%

essentially, it's so small that the argument doesn't hold any water.

I doubt Hossa will play until he's 42.

I doubt Hossa will even play until he's 40 to be quite honest.

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Guest GordieSid&Ted
Don't make up percentages, because I don't think that is close to correct.

Come on Doc, you should have left well enough alone my man. You know me better than that. I was being generous and shooting from the hip. If you really want to get into it, then wrap your head around this:

Currently, Mark Recchi is the only 40+ year old skater on an active NHL roster.

Let's say the average NHL team will use around 24 skaters in any given season. Personally, I think that's a low number but whatever.

24 x 30 teams = 720 players

1 out of 720 = .001388%

Now let's add in Modano, Lidstrom, Selanne and Blake (the league's 4, 39 year old players)

5 out of 720 = .0069%

Now let's say Shanny and Chely end up on teams

7 out of 720 = .0097%

You see that. This season alone the player pool consisting of 40+ year old skaters is AT THE MOST, likely to be less than 1% of all players.

And what was I guesstimating? Something like 2 or 3%. s***, I was being generous. My guess is that this figure would be representative of most seasons.

Voila!

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Come on Doc, you should have left well enough alone my man. You know me better than that. I was being generous and shooting from the hip. If you really want to get into it, then wrap your head around this:

Currently, Mark Recchi is the only 40+ year old skater on an active NHL roster.

Let's say the average NHL team will use around 24 skaters in any given season. Personally, I think that's a low number but whatever.

24 x 30 teams = 720 players

1 out of 720 = .001388%

Now let's add in Modano, Lidstrom, Selanne and Blake (the league's 4, 39 year old players)

5 out of 720 = .0069%

Now let's say Shanny and Chely end up on teams

7 out of 720 = .0097%

You see that. This season alone the player pool consisting of 40+ year old skaters is AT THE MOST, likely to be less than 1% of all players.

And what was I guesstimating? Something like 2 or 3%. s***, I was being generous. My guess is that this figure would be representative of most seasons.

Voila!

Right on. This goes right along with what I've been saying. While all of these 10+ year deals are ridiculous, the only thing more ridiculous is that we want to now point fingers at other teams for pulling the same kind of stunts. When you get to 10+ years and/or 40 years old and up, you're splitting hairs. It's all ridiculous and it's all blatantly a way around the cap.

It's like, "we only robbed the bank of $1 million! They took $1.2 million! They're horrible people! Get 'em Sherriff Bettman!!!"

Ludicrous.

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But again - it is not the contract length that is really being disputed (though the NHL does want to apparently send a message).... Hossa's contract was approved.

New info has come forth since then implying there was collusion over an agreed upon retirement date.

Now, yes... contracts to 42 are exponentially worse than contracts to 40, no matter how you shake it.

Holland can argue the Wings have a history of playing star players until that age, and he can show numerous examples of doing so. Chicago can not show a single instance of playing a player until the age of 42 - not a single one, I believe.

You want to argue it is "the same thing", and it's simply not. One has an exponntially higher chance of happening.

40 "artificially" brings the cap hit by about $1m and 42 artificially brings the cap hit down by about $2m. Big difference.

Make no mistake, the NHL and owners like these kinds of contracts - where players potentially stay on the same team for the majority of their careers. The fans love it and it brings down the price.

There probably should be a cut-off date, and I have a feeling there will be one in the next CBA -- 38 is probably "right", but I don't think the NHLPA or the NHL has a problem with 40 - as both sides get what they want with the "loophole" in place.

Edited by egroen

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Come on Doc, you should have left well enough alone my man. You know me better than that. I was being generous and shooting from the hip. If you really want to get into it, then wrap your head around this:

Currently, Mark Recchi is the only 40+ year old skater on an active NHL roster.

Let's say the average NHL team will use around 24 skaters in any given season. Personally, I think that's a low number but whatever.

24 x 30 teams = 720 players

1 out of 720 = .001388%

Now let's add in Modano, Lidstrom, Selanne and Blake (the league's 4, 39 year old players)

5 out of 720 = .0069%

Now let's say Shanny and Chely end up on teams

7 out of 720 = .0097%

You see that. This season alone the player pool consisting of 40+ year old skaters is AT THE MOST, likely to be less than 1% of all players.

And what was I guesstimating? Something like 2 or 3%. s***, I was being generous. My guess is that this figure would be representative of most seasons.

Voila!

All of that math is flawed - nobody cares about whether 2nd, 3rd, 4th line forwards and 2nd or 3rd pairing defenseman play until 40. We already know that if a player makes it to 40 and is still effective, he was likely a really good player in his prime. It makes no sense to compare them to the 85% of the NHL that would have never had a realistic shot at playing that long. It makes more sense to compare them to the other top players of their time.

What I'm saying is this - lowering Zetterberg's chances of playing to 40 because Maltby won't makes no sense. Compare stars to stars and the figure is probably closer to 10-15%. The only guys getting signed to those long-term contracts are top-50 NHL players under the age of 32.

Edited by digitaljohn88

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Guest GordieSid&Ted
But again - it is not the contract length that is really being disputed (though the NHL does want to apparently send a message).... Hossa's contract was approved.

New info has come forth since then implying there was collusion over an agreed upon retirement date.

Now, yes... contracts to 42 are exponentially worse than contracts to 40, no matter how you shake it.

Holland can argue the Wings have a history of playing star players until that age, and he can show numerous examples of doing so. Chicago can not show a single instance of playing a player until the age of 42 - not a single one, I believe.

You want to argue it is "the same thing", and it's simply not. One has an exponntially higher chance of happening.

40 "artificially" brings the cap hit by about $1m and 42 artificially brings the cap hit down by about $2m. Big difference.

Make no mistake, the NHL and owners like these kinds of contracts - where players potentially stay on the same team for the majority of their careers. The fans love it and it brings down the price.

There probably should be a cut-off date, and I have a feeling there will be one in the next CBA -- 38 is probably "right", but I don't think the NHLPA or the NHL has a problem with 40 - as both sides get what they want with the "loophole" in place.

First off, I don't know about any info so I am not commenting on such. But definitely, collusion would prove costly I think. However, my argument has been directed at those whose sole evidence for the "collusion" argument is based upon the contract taking him to age 42.

Second, Holland using players to age 40 does not preclude any other team from doing so and does not set forth any kind of precedence for any team other than Detroit. It may help his argument should the Wings ever come under league scrutiny. But it is hardly a smoking gun or enough "evidence" to merely say "X" team has never used a 42 year old player so their contract MUST BE some sort of sham. Those folks are reaching.

Lastly, if you really think there's a vast difference between the number of players who play until age 40, versus 42, then please show me the evidence Egroen.

Before this season is over, Recchi will be 42

If Chelios plays, he's well past 42

That's 2 players for the good guys

There are only 4 NHLers who will reach the age of 40 this year.

Comparatively speaking, just showing somebody a percentage it looks like a large disparity as you have twice as many 40 year olds as 42 year olds. But you're still only talking about a player pool that amounts to little more than a handful or half a dozen. I don't think you can extrapolate anything out of that other than the likelihood of playing to any age past 39 is slim. IN FACT, I have already shown that it is roughly no more than 1% of all active players at any given time.

So no, there ain't a big difference between 40 and 42 and I stand by that. Now 36 and 42, yes. Maybe even 37 or 38 and 42. But 40 and 42.............splitting hairs.

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I'm not exactly sure why Hossa and Pronger are being singled out here. Perhaps because Holland lead the way in circumventing the cap it prevented the nhl from targeting the Wings without issuing a warning to the league first or something. Maybe Philly and Chicago are the first teams past some hypothetical and potentially non-existent warning to sign players to suspicious contracts, and that's why they're being singled out.

Perhaps the Wings history of older players helped the cause (ie Yzerman, Chelios, Hasek, Hull, Lidstrom, Draper) and allowed the league to think that Zetterberg and Franzen sincerely plan on playing to the fullest extent of their contracts.

While its true that there is little difference between 40 and 42, the correct way of approaching this in a statistical way would be to use deviations, and I admit that I haven't crunched the numbers nor do I have a convenient resource to collect the numbers, but perhaps if the NHL is using deviations in this situation (which isn't unlikely) 40 fits into the deviation of a normal retirement age, while 42 is outside of that deviation. This seems a good an explanation as any.

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Good point about the "star" players tending to last longer in the NHL - that is true (you're going to recognize most of the names listed here).

Anyways, here we go:

Players in the NHL at 40 (over the past 30 years):

Albelin

Andreychuk

Belfour

Blake (this year)

Bourque

Brewer

Burke

Carbonneau

Chelios

Coffey

Dineen

Dowd

Esposito

Fedorov (this year)

Fetisov

Francis

Gilmour

Harper

Hasek

G. Howe

M. Howe

Hull

Joseph

Keon

Lafleur

Larionov

Ledyard

M. Lemieux

C. Lemieux

MacInnis

Mellanby

Messier

Mikita

Mullen

Murphy

Nieuwendyk

Oates

Patrick

Ratelle

Recchi

Roberts

Robinson

Robitaille

Roenick

Sakic

Samuelsson

Samuelsson

Schneider (this year)

Shanahan

Stevens

Thomas

Weinrich

Wesley

Yzerman

Roloson

Players in the NHL at 42:

Andreychuk

Chelios

Hasek

G. Howe

Larionov

C. Lemieux

Messier

Recchi (this year)

Roberts

Joseph (this year)

Is one more likely than the other, by a significant margin? Are we really arguing over this?

One is over 5 times more likely than the other.

EDIT: Oh, and I hate you too :P

Edited by egroen

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You're reaching friend. You need to take of the homer glasses. 2 years is practically irrelevant. We're talking about 40 year old players. What percentage of players play into their 40's? I'd say its incredibly small likelihood than any player will play into his 40's.

The plain truth is the Hawks have followed Ken Holland's masterful loophole-ing of the CBA. There is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE between what we did for Franzen and Z and what Chicago did with Hossa in regards to setting the contract up. Years, money, blah, blah....it's the same principle.

As you stated earlier though, if they colluded beforehand, that is a different story. And frankly, I don't doubt for a second that Holland, Z and Franzen didn't "talk" about the potential of playing those final years either. I don't put anything past anybody.

That seems to be Egroen's argument and I disagree 100% with it. How many players reach age 40 and continue to play? The likelihood that you'll play to 42 is obviously very small. IMO, the difference between that and 40 is like the difference between a 89 year old man and an 87 year old man. There is no difference, they're both ******* old.

In the end, unless they find a fraggin' videotape or tape recorded conversation where Tallon, Hossa or somebody says he's not going to play out the contract and they're just trying to "circumvent the cap", nothing is going to come of this.

And frankly, nothing should. The Wings are no better than anyone else. We took advantage of the loophole and now the Hawks have.

The fact that some Wings fans will say anything to legitimize the Z and Franzen contracts and refuse to acknowledge that any impropriety could have occurred, yet waste no time pointing fingers at another organization for doing the same thing and deciding in their heads that something bad/illegal must have gone down, just shows that even in the dullness of July/August, homers are still homers.

I really hate homers.

I don't know if the two additional years tacked on to the contract had any role in triggering the investigation. I doubt that without other factors it would not have been enough, however, I there is a big difference between a contract until 40 and a contract until 42. As a tax attorney I was constantly told by my professors in law school and when I got my LLM "Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered." For example, if you have a small corporation and make sure all share holders have minority interests (less than 50% ownership) when you transfer shares to your children the valuation of your shares can be discounted for lack of control/lack of marketability thus reducing the value of the transfer. There is no set amount as to what the discount is it is up to the seller to get a valuation based upon these discounts but even that is at best an educated guess. Most of the time the attorney and the client decide on a discount somewhere in the 25-35% range but sometimes a client likes to gamble and will push it up into the 40-50% range. I have never seen a client get audited by the IRS over a discount of 25% and only heard of once that they audited at 35% but you get into the 40%+ range and audits become more and more likely increasing exponentially the greater the discount.

This is a maxim that hold true with these contracts as well. At some point what is seen as creatively gaming the system comes to look egregious and without merit. At some point the scales tip in the favor of violating Article 26 of the CBA "Circumventing the Cap". There has to be a point where it goes from one to the other and the NHL may have decided that in it's opinion that point is over 40 years of age. If two years is insignificant and practically irrelevant so they allow long term contracts to the age of 42 then are the next two years practically irrelevant as well and long term contracts to 44? This cycle would continue to hold true, unless at some point those two years are significant and are seen as being a hog worthy of slaughter.

Again, I am not sure that the NHL decided the difference between pig and hog is the two years between 40 and 42 but a long term contract to the age of 42 is much further along the trail of becoming a hog than a contract to 40 is and the line must be drawn somewhere.

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As many have said the NHL just had not reason to look into the Wings cause they were the first to REALLY front load a contract. Hossa's deal and Pronger's deal just gave them something to go after. But again nothing will happen because how the heck do you prove it? Yes we all know that the Wings, Hawks and Flyers are planning on at least buying these guys out if they don't retire early but you can't prove that with evidence.

Although I have to say Pronger's deal is the biggest red flag I mean the dude is making about 7.5 for the first few years, then 4mil and then 525k in each of the last 2? And again I think I said it before this is the NHL's fault. They didn't want contracts to be renegoitated mid-way, which I am all for btw, and they didn't want teams getting around the cap by having different cap hits every year so they took the average. But my guess is there will be a clause that stops certain length contracts in the next cba. At least by a certain age you cannot sign a contract for X amount of years. 23 year olds can sign for 12 years if they want but 30+ year olds can't?

Edited by StevieY9802

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Again, I am not sure that the NHL decided the difference between pig and hog is the two years between 40 and 42 but a long term contract to the age of 42 is much further along the trail of becoming a hog than a contract to 40 is and the line must be drawn somewhere.

Interestingly enough, a player is also 5 times as likely to be in the NHL at 44 than at 42.

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I don't see how Hossa signing for that deal is up for dispute. As the rules currently stand, it is legitimate. If the league wants to enact something to prevent teams from doing that in the future - they can, but they should not and cannot retroactively punish the Blackhawks for that.

I find it interesting how the Red Wings are the first to figure out how to sign guys long term with the trailing numbers near the end, to fit a competitive team under the cap. Then all of a sudden other teams have to copy-cat the strategy and now the league will likely do something to end this.

At least with the Red Wings we are finding creative ways to sign our own guys from withing the system, not tossing out ridiculous contracts to free agents.

Not sure I buy the under/over 40 argument.

These long contracts are a double-edged sword. What if Hossa gets injured, or just plain doesn't play well after a few years? Then the contract will come back to bite the Hawks in the butt (could happen to us too).

The league should stay out of it. They got the cap they wanted - now deal with it and let it run it's course....

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I don't see how Hossa signing for that deal is up for dispute. As the rules currently stand, it is legitimate. If the league wants to enact something to prevent teams from doing that in the future - they can, but they should not and cannot retroactively punish the Blackhawks for that.

Any approved SPC can be challenged, investigated and de-registered and the investigation by the NHL is not time limited.

CBA Article 26.10

(b) The Investigator's authority to investigate (i) a possible Circumvention

relating to an SPC shall in no way be limited by the fact that such SPC was approved and

registered by Central Registry pursuant to Article 11 of this Agreement; or

© The Investigator may obtain the authority, upon good cause shown to the

System Arbitrator, to require any Player, Player Actor, Club or Club Actor to produce

any relevant books and records, including without limitation, insurance records,

telephone records, e-mails, tax returns or other relevant tax materials disclosing (i) the

income or revenue information of the Player, Player Actor, Club or Club Actor and/or (ii)

any information of the Club or any Club Actor in the custody or control of the Player or

the Player Agent, which materials and information shall be treated as highly confidential.

(d) There shall be no limitation of time barring the investigation of a

Circumvention by the Commissioner.

(e) At the conclusion of his investigation, the Investigator shall issue a written

determination regarding whether or not, in his opinion, a Circumvention has occurred.

The Investigator's determination shall not be binding, but it shall be fully admissible in

any hearing commenced before the System Arbitrator pursuant to Section 26.13 below.respect to a circumvention. If it is determined that a player or his agent participated in the circumvention then the SPC can be voided.

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Or go with a soft cap. NVM.

I agree with everything you said though. Of course the Hawks and Hossa had a good idea that he probably wouldn't live out the end of that contract.

I just don't see how they can punish the Hawks w/o proving they did indeed do this.

Agreed. The weaknesses of this CBA are being revealed piece-by-piece. We're seeing absurd things happen for the purpose of trying to get around the salary cap. And as messed up as the NBA's CBA is, they actually have far more regulation in terms of max contracts, mid-level exceptions, and slotted rookie salaries. The NHL looks like the Wild freaking West, and it's embarassing to me.

This started with the absurd DiPietro 15-year deal. As dumb as that was, we've seen milder versions of it a dozen times over with Ovechkin, Mike Richards, and now Hossa. And the whole point is to give guys enough guranteed money that they're basically set for life, and hoping that inflation will make your investment look like a bargain years later.

But what I guess I didn't understand is that the cap hit in any given season is simply the AVERAGE of the player's contract per season. IS THAT ACTUALLY TRUE?!? To my knowledge, that is not how it works in the NFL. What possible reason could there be for using the average salary as a cap hit, instead of the actual salary? Heck, any moron can figure out that if you make 90% of your money in years 1 through 8 of a 12-year deal, that an NHL player would gladly forfeit years 9-12 (by retiring) if structuring a deal like that allows the club to pay them more and spread it out over a longer period of years.

And what the Blackhawks did was NOT fundamentally different than what Holland did with the Zetterberg and Franzen deals. To me, the difference in "degree" between 2 fake years and 4 fake years is almost irrelevant b/c if all three players retired at age 38 (and you somehow knew or expected that) then all contracts "cheat". Except that the NHL was stupid enough to allow contracts to be structured like this in the first place. Unbelievable!

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Interestingly enough, a player is also 5 times as likely to be in the NHL at 44 than at 42.

:lol: I'm not sure how that works exactly though, in order to be in the NHL at 44 they had to be in the NHL at 42 as well (unless they were a 43 year old rookie :lol: or retired and then made a comeback). It seems like that almost all the 44 year old guys would have played at 42 as well so the number would have to be smaller.

I don't see how Hossa signing for that deal is up for dispute. As the rules currently stand, it is legitimate. If the league wants to enact something to prevent teams from doing that in the future - they can, but they should not and cannot retroactively punish the Blackhawks for that.

It is not certain that as the rule stands what the Hawks did was legitimate and they did enact provisions in the current CBA regard attempts to circumvent the cap (which is what they are investigating the Hawks for). Article 26 of the current CBA has the explicit purpose and is designed "to prohibit and prevent conduct that Circumvents the terms of [the CBA:]"

26.3 Circumventions.

(a) No Club or Club Actor, directly or indirectly, may: (i) enter into any

agreements, promises, undertakings, representations, commitments, inducements,

assurances of intent, or understandings of any kind, whether express, implied, oral or

written, including without limitation, any SPC, Qualifying Offer, Offer Sheet or other

transaction, or (ii) take or fail to take any action whatsoever, if either (i) or (ii) is intended

to or has the effect of defeating or Circumventing the provisions of this Agreement or the

intention of the parties as reflected by the provisions of this Agreement, including

without limitation, provisions with respect to the financial and other reporting obligations

of the Clubs and the League, Team Payroll Range, Player Compensation Cost

Redistribution System, the Entry Level System and/or Free Agency.

(i) Any act by a Club Actor that, if committed by the Club would

constitute a Circumvention, shall be imputed to the Club and shall

be deemed to be a Circumvention by the Club.

(b) No Player or Player Actor, directly or indirectly, may: (i) enter into any

agreements, promises, undertakings, representations, commitments, inducements,

assurances of intent, or understandings of any kind, whether express, implied, oral or

written, including without limitation, any SPC, Qualifying Offer, Offer Sheet or other

transaction, or (ii) take or fail to take any action whatsoever, if the Player knows or

reasonably should have known (measured by the objective standard of the "reasonable

Player under the circumstances") that either (i) or (ii) is intended to and has the effect of

defeating or Circumventing the provisions of this Agreement or the intention of the

parties as reflected by the provisions of this Agreement, including without limitation,

provisions with respect to the Team Payroll Range, the Entry Level System and/or Free

Agency.

These long contracts are a double-edged sword. What if Hossa gets injured, or just plain doesn't play well after a few years? Then the contract will come back to bite the Hawks in the butt (could happen to us too).

If Hossa gets injured they put him on LTIR and are allowed to go over the cap by the amount of his salary while he is injured, if he doesn't play well they assign him to the minor leagues and his salary doesn't count against the cap, and if he retires (for any reason including injury or he doesn't play well any more) his salary doesn't count against the cap. The Hawks still have to pay his salary but there is no cap hit which is a team like Chicago's biggest concern.

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Agreed. The weaknesses of this CBA are being revealed piece-by-piece. We're seeing absurd things happen for the purpose of trying to get around the salary cap. And as messed up as the NBA's CBA is, they actually have far more regulation in terms of max contracts, mid-level exceptions, and slotted rookie salaries. The NHL looks like the Wild freaking West, and it's embarassing to me.

This started with the absurd DiPietro 15-year deal. As dumb as that was, we've seen milder versions of it a dozen times over with Ovechkin, Mike Richards, and now Hossa. And the whole point is to give guys enough guranteed money that they're basically set for life, and hoping that inflation will make your investment look like a bargain years later.

But what I guess I didn't understand is that the cap hit in any given season is simply the AVERAGE of the player's contract per season. IS THAT ACTUALLY TRUE?!? To my knowledge, that is not how it works in the NFL. What possible reason could there be for using the average salary as a cap hit, instead of the actual salary? Heck, any moron can figure out that if you make 90% of your money in years 1 through 8 of a 12-year deal, that an NHL player would gladly forfeit years 9-12 (by retiring) if structuring a deal like that allows the club to pay them more and spread it out over a longer period of years.

And what the Blackhawks did was NOT fundamentally different than what Holland did with the Zetterberg and Franzen deals. To me, the difference in "degree" between 2 fake years and 4 fake years is almost irrelevant b/c if all three players retired at age 38 (and you somehow knew or expected that) then all contracts "cheat". Except that the NHL was stupid enough to allow contracts to be structured like this in the first place. Unbelievable!

Yes it is just the average of the contract. That's why Hank can get paid 7.4mil next year but his cap hit is just over 6mil because he's only getting paid 1mil a year in each of the last 2 years. The NHL WANTED it this way. They didn't want teams getting around the cap by renegotiating or to have players get paid differently each year so teams can get around the cap that way knowing when they will have more cap space then others. In theory it's good until the Wings figured out just front load the heck out of a contract. So this is the NHL's fault not the players, the teams or the NHLPA's.

I wouldn't take the NBA's model. Keith Van Horn had to come out of retirement, sign a deal with NJ so that Nets had a enough salary going the other way to Dallas. Then Van Horn sat on the bench in Dallas. They have their own ways around the cap it's just they don't hide it with the mid-level exception and all of that.

The next CBA teams will find ways to get around it too. It'll be interesting to see what happens when the CBA expires. I'm just waiting for another lock out.

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Guest Four

Why don't they just make a rule that someone can't be signed for over 3 years if it means they are going to be over 40 by the time the contract ends if they are going to investigate this crap?

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Guest GordieSid&Ted
Good point about the "star" players tending to last longer in the NHL - that is true (you're going to recognize most of the names listed here).

Anyways, here we go:

Players in the NHL at 40 (over the past 30 years):

Albelin

Andreychuk

Blake (this year)

Bourque

Brewer

Carbonneau

Chelios

Coffey

Dineen

Dowd

Fetisov

Francis

Gilmour

Harper

G. Howe

M. Howe

Hull

Keon

Lafleur

Larionov

Ledyard

M. Lemieux

C. Lemieux

MacInnis

Mellanby

Messier

Mikita

Mullen

Murphy

Nieuwendyk

Oates

Patrick

Ratelle

Recchi

Roberts

Robinson

Robitaille

Samuelsson

Samuelsson

Stevens

Thomas

Weinrich

Wesley

Yzerman

Players in the NHL at 42:

Albelin

Andreychuk

Brewer

Chelios

G. Howe

Larionov

C. Lemieux

Messier

Recchi (this year)

Roberts

Is one more likely than the other, by a significant margin? Are we really arguing over this?

One is over 5 times more likely than the other.

EDIT: Oh, and I hate you too :P

:hehe: I'm going to have to take issue with your figures my good friend. And you have some mistakes as well I believe.

1st off, I stated skaters, not goalies, so I am removing all those players from the list.

2. Sakic retired at age 39 so he comes off your list

3. Sergei Fedorov is not in the NHL and left the NHL at age 39, playing in the KHL doesn't count anymore than playing in any other non NHL league so he comes off your list.

4. Shanahan comes off your list as he is not on an active NHL roster and was 39 during his last game.

5. Matt Schnieder comes off your list as he is not on an active NHL roster and played his last game at age 39.

6. Roenick comes off your list as he is not on an active NHL roster and played his last game at age 39.

7. I added Albelin to my list because he played until 2006, the year he turned 42, not sure what month his final game was in.

8. I added Carl Brewer to my list because he played until 1980, the year he turned 42, not sure what month his final game was in.

9. I'll give you Kevin Dineen even though he only played 4 games in 2003 and I think was only 39 years old. To be perfectly honest, a number of the guys on your list retired during the year they turned 40 but may not have actually been 40 years old upon their last game played. But whatever.

10. Who is the 2nd Samuelsson? I know Kjel is one, who is the other?

I stopped going through your list at this point but my guess is I could whittle away a bunch of names based on the fact that those players never played a game at age 40.

And the point about it being superstars or star players only being used in this exercise? How is that scientific in the slightest? How would you determine who was a star and who wasn't a "star". Would anyone seriously consider Grant Ledyard a star? He wasn't a star by any stretch of the imagination and therefore not somebody you could use in favor of your list if you believe in the "only star players should be counted in the math" reasoning of hillbillies.

If you gave any credence to that irresponsible logic you'd have to strip away even more players from your list like Jim Dowd, Eric Weinrich, Glen Wesley and possibly Kevin Dineen. none were stars IMO.

The entire player pool has to be considered. You can't pick and choose which players you want to be a part of the list. There would be too much debate over who to include on a "stars" list. Therefore, the data should include all players. And when the data includes all players you wind up with a list you can scribble down in 5 minutes all of the names of players who have made it to age 40 or more out of the countless thousands of players who have put on an NHL jersey.

You say a difference of 5x greater like it's some huge difference. Fact of the matter is its probably somewhere around 3-4 times greater at the most. And even then, you're talking about a whole number difference of about 40 players tops.

So if that's your definition of significant difference, then I don't know what to tell you.

Either way, age 40 or 42, the percentile chance of playing at either age is too small to be of any relevance.

Feel free to keep trying though, i'm just not going to buy it.

Edited by GordieSid&Ted

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:hehe: I'm going to have to take issue with your figures my good friend. And you have some mistakes as well I believe.

Zetterberg and Franzen will be 39 at the start of the final season on their contracts so I used that as my initial cutoff (should have clarified).

Hockey-reference.com is my first stop for stats typically -- their "power play" feature is invaluable.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pp/psl_fin...c=&offset=0

107 seasons played at 39 or greater.

57 at 40 or greater. 34 players.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pp/psl_fin...;order_by=goals

29 seasons played at 41 or greater.

14 at 42 or greater. 8 players.

Over 4 times as many players have played at 40 or greater than 42 or greater.

1st off, I stated skaters, not goalies, so I am removing all those players from the list.

Did you want to eliminate defenseman as well? That should further help your case!

And the point about it being superstars or star players only being used in this exercise? How is that scientific in the slightest? How would you determine who was a star and who wasn't a "star". Would anyone seriously consider Grant Ledyard a star? He wasn't a star by any stretch of the imagination and therefore not somebody you could use in favor of your list if you believe in the "only star players should be counted in the math" reasoning of hillbillies.

I guess i assumed it would not take a rocket scientist to determine a star player at 50% of his prime at the age of 40 is much better than a standard player at 50% of his prime at 40 -- the star player has a greater chance of still being good enough to play in the league. Nothing scientific about it, and just common sense.

For every "Ledyard" there are 5 Yzermans, Hulls, Howes, Messiers, Oates, etc.

The point, I think, was that a long-term contract out to 40 for someone like Hossa is a lot more realistic than a long term contract out to 40 for someone like Kyle Calder (both 30). I agree with that.

If you gave any credence to that irresponsible logic you'd have to strip away even more players from your list like Jim Dowd, Eric Weinrich, Glen Wesley and possibly Kevin Dineen. none were stars IMO.

The entire player pool has to be considered. You can't pick and choose which players you want to be a part of the list. There would be too much debate over who to include on a "stars" list. Therefore, the data should include all players. And when the data includes all players you wind up with a list you can scribble down in 5 minutes all of the names of players who have made it to age 40 or more out of the countless thousands of players who have put on an NHL jersey.

Either way, plenty more players play to 40 than 42.

You say a difference of 5x greater like it's some huge difference. Fact of the matter is its probably somewhere around 3-4 times greater at the most. And even then, you're talking about a whole number difference of about 40 players tops.

Looks like '4 times' is about right. 400% - seems significant to me.

So if that's your definition of significant difference, then I don't know what to tell you.

Either way, age 40 or 42, the percentile chance of playing at either age is too small to be of any relevance.

Feel free to keep trying though, i'm just not going to buy it.

You're not going to buy that significantly more players play at 40 than 42?

The cap difference is also significant. Detroit saves $1m in cap space on Zetterberg and Franzen by tacking on two cheap years while Chicago saves $2m in cap space by tacking on 4 extra cheap years to Hossa's contract -- I think this is the biggest beef from most GMs pointing fingers at Chicago.

So where would you draw the line?

973 players played in the NHL last year.

108 were 34 or greater: 11%

54 were 36 or greater: 3.5%

26 were 38 or greater: 2.7%

7 were 40 or greater: .7%

3 were 42 or greater: .3% (The most ever in the history of the NHL)

1 was 44 or greater: .1%

35 seems the most realistic.

But I would argue it is advantageous for both the players, franchises and fans if GMs and players could agree to long-term contracts beyond that age. 38 would be a good idea - but either way you slice it, 42 is worse than 40.

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Any approved SPC can be challenged, investigated and de-registered and the investigation by the NHL is not time limited.

I still don't see anything in there that they could prove the Hawks/Hossa were purposely circumventing the cap. They cannot see into the future - maybe he does play for 12 years, who is to say? Wouldn't be that unusual as others have been pointing out.

The whole thing is dumb. The whole point of the cap is to find ways to fit all your players under it. If that means teams have to offer top guys 10-12 year contracts that are front-loaded, that's what teams will do to get the deals done. The NHL made the cap, now they have to live with teams finding creative ways to squeeze under it.

Not that I wish the Hawks any success at the expense of the Wings, but I'd be pissed if I were a fan for being singled out.

Why doesn't the league attack something like the Jeff Finger contract by the Leafs as being ludicrous and outlandish, driving up salaries for journeymen players? Now that would be a better use of their time. :lol:

Edited by RockyMountainWingGal

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I still don't see anything in there that they could prove the Hawks/Hossa were purposely circumventing the cap. They cannot see into the future - maybe he does play for 12 years, who is to say? Wouldn't be that unusual as others have been pointing out.

The whole thing is dumb. The whole point of the cap is to find ways to fit all your players under it. If that means teams have to offer top guys 10-12 year contracts that are front-loaded, that's what teams will do to get the deals done. The NHL made the cap, now they have to live with teams finding creative ways to squeeze under it.

Not that I wish the Hawks any success at the expense of the Wings, but I'd be pissed if I were a fan for being singled out.

Why doesn't the league attack something like the Jeff Finger contract by the Leafs as being ludicrous and outlandish, driving up salaries for journeymen players? Now that would be a better use of their time. :lol:

As the CBA is right now, there is next to no definition of what "circumventing the cap" actually is, and just a broad-based allowance that the NHL can stop it and punish those that do it... whatever "it" is.

In this case, it may not really be the length of the contract called into question (or they would not have approved of it in the first place), it is allegations (from whom?) that "retirement" before the contract transpired was brought into the contract talks... or also possibly the "structure" of it.

It could also be the NHL responding to bitching from the other teams (read: Burke) to put a stop to it -- and they are sending out a message. That message would pretty cleary be: 40 - ok. 42 - not ok. They'll make it as difficult as possible for any team signing long-term contracts on players out to 42 - that's the message. If they did not do this, what is there to stop teams from signing players until 46 (chelios is still playing) or even 50 (Gordie Howe was still playing)? Hell, with 10 extra years tacked onto Zetterberg's contract we could have had him at a cap hit of $3.5m!

I am sure this is an area that will be addressed and further clarified in the next CBA. Until then, this is their only means of combatting that.

Edited by egroen

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And the point about it being superstars or star players only being used in this exercise? How is that scientific in the slightest? How would you determine who was a star and who wasn't a "star". Would anyone seriously consider Grant Ledyard a star? He wasn't a star by any stretch of the imagination and therefore not somebody you could use in favor of your list if you believe in the "only star players should be counted in the math" reasoning of hillbillies.

In an argument centering around long-term contracts past 40, why in the hell wouldn't we cut the field down to stars or superstars? How many 10+ year contracts have been given to players who aren't easily identifiable top players?

In this situation, it doesn't make sense to figure EVERY player into the numbers, when it's plainly obvious that the top 50 players in the NHL will play much longer on average.

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I still don't see anything in there that they could prove the Hawks/Hossa were purposely circumventing the cap. They cannot see into the future - maybe he does play for 12 years, who is to say? Wouldn't be that unusual as others have been pointing out.

The whole thing is dumb. The whole point of the cap is to find ways to fit all your players under it. If that means teams have to offer top guys 10-12 year contracts that are front-loaded, that's what teams will do to get the deals done. The NHL made the cap, now they have to live with teams finding creative ways to squeeze under it.

Not that I wish the Hawks any success at the expense of the Wings, but I'd be pissed if I were a fan for being singled out.

Why doesn't the league attack something like the Jeff Finger contract by the Leafs as being ludicrous and outlandish, driving up salaries for journeymen players? Now that would be a better use of their time. :lol:

The bolded part is the crux of the matter. As it was, it was approved because no one knew how long he could/would play, as you said. However, now someone is saying that they did know; that there was conversation about Hossa not finishing the contract and just signing the "extra" years on the end so that they could lower the cap hit.

If the rat is blowing smoke, then there is nothing there and the contract is perfectly legitimate and will (or should) stand.

If the rat is right, and Hossa and Someone sat down and agreed that Hossa would just sign a bunch of garbage years at the end so that it would bring the cap hit down and then he would retire, then what we have here is collusion and an attempt to circumvent the cap.

It's a conspiracy. The question is who is conspiring against whom. Is the rat trying to hurt the Hawks? Are the Hawks trying to cheat the CBA? Tune in next week... Like sands through the hour glass, so are the Days of our Lives.

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