Wow, there's just so much to consider here. Forget the whole aspect of much money the players are getting, I don't think I'm cool with rushing into
any deal just to meet a rigid deadline, at the expense of thinking about the consequences.
I mean, in 2005, nobody was talking about long-term, front-loaded deals that would circumvent the cap. Everyone was fixated on the miniscule $39 million cap, and the assumption was that long-term deals of any kind would be too risky. But Chicago basically won Cup by exploiting the hell out of that one strategy. Philadelphia built a Cup contender out of it. Teams were able to retain star players like Luongo, Parise, Suter, and Zetterberg that otherwise could have tested the market for considerably more money.
Now we have stuff like THIS just thrown into the new proposal?
http://www.broadstre...s-paul-holmgrenWhat if players retire early due to injury? Do the Pens have 5-10 years with a Crosby-sized $8.7 million barricade in their salary cap if he gets one too many concussions? Also, I don't like the whole idea of players on other teams sending unexpected GIGANTIC cap hits to the team that originally signed them, simply by deciding to retire on a whim. What a mess.
It hurts the players. It is cap space used up whether the player is playing or not. If an $8 million dollar player retires and has 4 years left on his deal, that's $32 million that could have gone to other players, but in this case, it wouldn't.
It hurts certain owners too. It could have unpredictably devastating effects on the franchises that were viable enough to sign these deals in first place. And it retroactively punishes franchise who played within the rules (though arguably outside the "spirit" of those rules) with no forseeability that this type of consequence could ever come down on them. The Wings are one of the offenders for this type of thing, but not even close to biggest offender.
And since when did those owners care about lowering the cap? I can only read the owner's motivations by their actions - stashing Cristobal Huet and Wade Redden in the minors while paying out overall salary budgets far in excess of the actual cap hardly suggests to me that owners want to spend less. Neither do front-loaded deals or the (relatively new) trick of using signing bonuses to pay out $25 million/year deals when the CBA says that a player can only take home around $14 million a year.
Why can't the "Cap Hit" simply be calculated more accurately, say, a reflection of what that player is actually earning. Eliminate gigantic bonuses, or make them count against the cap. If Parise makes $14 million in year one of his deal, then he should have a cap hit reflecting the gigantic payday he gets THIS year.
And if you're worried about this sort of thing: (alternating deals up and down to keep the totals even)
Parise $14M $2M $14M $2M
Suter $2M $14M $2M $14M
...then do something like the NBA where you have a max deal, and there are limitations on how that deal can be structured. The NHL's CBA & Cap Structure is like the "Wild West"...it's a salary cap in name and appearance, but when you break down the rules, it basically does nothing to stop top level spending by clubs who have the resources to buy better players.
Edited by StormJH1, 17 October 2012 - 12:40 PM.
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