Where is Golden State in the standings right now? Also yeah the prime GSW team was unbelievable, but it's not like they were completely untouchable. The Raps beat them in 2019.

Smaller market teams are still wealthy enough to own a sports team. They have to get more creative than some of the bigger spenders, but there is no sport that rewards that kind of creativity more than hockey. It's a team sport where even bottom of the lineup guys are crucial to success. The NBAs soft-cap system would lend itself to the NHL very well, or at least better than a hard cap. People complain about LTIR shenanigans and teams like Arizona using half of their capspace to pay inactive players, but then turn their noses at the most obvious solution. Getting bogged down in LTIR placements and keeping guys on injury until the playoffs is so lame. Teams are already able to spend way more than the cap ceiling by jumping through a bunch of hoops, so who cares. Just abolish the hard cap, it is not good for the sport

Every team wants to win. Every team is backed by huge investors and owners with deep pockets. If you can't survive in a soft-cap league, then maybe you shouldn't have a team. There are no shortage of backers with deep pockets to take their place

Arizona, Wpg, and other teams would not be able to compete with the larger market teams. There stars would be plucked away and it wouldnt just be ticket sales or arena issues they would be having.

TOR 2.8B
MTL 2.3B
NYR 2.65B

VS.

450M ARI
610M BUF
550m FLA

The bigger market teams would dominate and the smaller markets would struggle.

Forbes goes into a good breakdown of values of teams from sport to market to brand and we can see many teams markets arent that high while some would have a serious competitive advantage in this system

🤷‍♂️ Not my problem. There are groups in Utah, Houston, and Quebec who would love to compete. You think them existing in a hard-cap world is making it any easier for them to compete? Winnipeg had to get creative and now look at them. Arizona has no problem attracting players, its just their arena situation that is stifling their reputations. Those teams are still backed by giant corporations and rich owners. If every team could spend more, you can bet your ass those two teams would also spend more.

That's why I said it's a soft cap where you can go over by 15%, then it becomes a hard cap... Essentially, teams can go up to 83.5 without luxury tax, 83.5-96 million dollars with a luxury tax, and can't go over 96 million

Exactly. My point isn't to say that the NHL should copy the exact details of the NBAs cap system, just that we should take a look at what they are doing and emulate it as it pertains to hockey.

I think when people say: "Replace the hard cap..." People automatically jump to, you need a cap for the smaller teams

WPG is still struggling to fill their arena. What creativity we talking about? Its bad enough to where Bettman has to go see whats going on

Arizona will have issues once other teams start outbidding them and are allowed to spend way over the cap for these guys

Would suggest reading the Forbes on NHL team valuations as it highlights the difference in market values of teams and what they have to work with

In the end if the NHL introduced this system it would cause more problems then it would be worth

If an NBA team was allowed to go 83m over the cap which was already at 141m then the same can happen in the NHL who cares for the tax owner wants a cup

TBL for instance without the hard cap they would probs be a Dynasty rn. Palat, Killorn, McDonagh, etc would all still be there.


Would I love for TOR to be able to spend 80m over the cap yes, but at the cost of the entire league no

1. Nobody is talking about exceeding the cap limit by 80m. Like @LeafsFan98 pointed out, it's all about perspective. The NBAs salary cap is 136m. GSW (highest spending NBA team) is exceeding that by ~52%. Nobody is talking about doing that in the NHL. An NHL team spending that % more than the cap ceiling would be 123m. It doesn't have to be THAT high. You can have a soft cap of 87.5m and starting taxing teams when they exceed that to a certain point. Stopping the spending at somewhere around 100m would work.

2. What does the salary cap have to do with Winnipeg's attendance issue? The on-ice product has been great, that's the creativity I'm talking about. They've historically had a hard time enticing players to come to Winnipeg, so they've had to get creative. Also, don't you think a soft cap would actually benefit a team like Winnipeg as they could entice people to come with more money? I don't really see what point you're making here...

3. Arizona could find ways to get creative with drafting, or they could just be sold off to some other ownership group. If you can't run a team, then don't have one. Why are we catering to a team that can't spend? That's a pre-requisite for owning a team...

4. Tampa was only able to role with that insane 2021 team because they were exceeding the salary cap by 18m! If there was a soft-cap, every team would also have that advantage of being able to spend nearly 100m.

That would cause more issues than its worth. Again the Hard cap is a necessary evil to prevent good teams from becoming OP

TBL over the years thanks to it has lost a good amount of its cup guys

Coleman
Goodorw
Killorn
Palat
McDonagh
etc

If the NHL had a soft cap most of those guys would still be in TBL rn and they would probs have a few more cups under there belt.

Like imagine those guys on the current TBL team. VGK would have competition thats for sure.


As for WPG is there was a soft cap teams would outbid WPG or other teams for the good players. Scheifele and Helle would probs have left in FA going to one of the bigger teams who thanks to the soft cap would have the space to spend on them.

Agree to disagree. A soft cap gives every team the same advantage instead of allowing one team to spend 18m over the cap ceiling due to a well-timed injury...

Avs just signed Justus Annunen to a 2-year one-way contract extension at $833k AAV

Just let teams trade Cap space then, instead of a soft cap or luxury tax; and it would have the same competitive effect, but it would limit it to what teams are willing to barter in the short-term and not create a long-term competitive imbalance. This would increase players' salaries as teams that are shooting for the floor can now leverage the cap space to get other assets (draft picks, prospects, etc) and accelerate their rebuild.

Trading cap space would make no sense. No league does that nor should they it makes 0 sense.

That seems like a league killer right there and would be something no team would agree on for a CBA

Cap space is already being used as a weapon when it comes to cap dump players. No need for it to be traded

The NHLPA would/should want it so they can actually get all the teams to max their cap

There is plenty of cap space that doesn't get used every year already despite the cap dumps; about $50 million this year.

If Chicago could have traded $10.5 million of cap space to Toronto for picks/prospects it would have helped both teams; but it would only be for 1 year and not a perpetual transaction like a soft cap/luxury tax would create.

All ownership would have to be an agreement for it to be implemented as Bettman will not introduce it without their approval. It then goes to the NHLPA to decide yes or no. NHLPA dont decide everything they dont have the power ownership leaders do. And when we look at it on a short term or long term basis it makes 0 sense

Nobody, not even the weaker teams would agree to trading cap space it makes no sense even if temporary. The cap dump system is already what teams be using as a cap weapon. If it was something practical every sports league with a cap would be using it but they dont

Its like LTIR NHLPA wont change a thing as ownership groups are fine with it. We as fans can complain but owners like the system as when they want to they can abuse it

In a cap dump, the team receiving the player has to take on a contract, pay some of his actual salary, and possibly take ice time away from other players; not to mention the player's life/family gets uprooted.

If they just traded the cap space it would be cleaner.

It really wouldnt. It would cause more problems than its worth. We see in all sports cap dumps or buyouts are how teams shed salary and gain more cap space. They dont trade cap away

As said before if it was practical other leagues would be using it from NFL, NBA, MLB etc but they dont. You want to increase the space trade or buy a guy out

Owners don't "abuse the LTIR". If any abuse of LTIR is happening, is that players know how the system works and milk their recovery to help their team's cap situation. There is no way that an owner can command doctors and players to cheat the system without something coming out about it later or upon investigation.

Owners and their management groups abuse LTIR when they want. They know the system is broken but most dont care


Ask VGK, TBL, etc.

Why you think there are talks to try and change it recently that fell apart thanks to Bettman and the boyz above. As long as owners and most teams dont care nothings gonna be done

LTIR will continue to be abused and until it gets really really bad nothing will be done

That's what the escrow system is for. The players get 50% of the HRR regardless of what cap space is used or not used. The salaries are tied to revenue, not cap or even the specific dollar amounts in their contract. If the NHL had an unexpected amazing season (financially) and had not adjusted the cap accordingly, then players would conceivably make more money than their contracts. As it happens, the NHLPA consistently votes to keep raising the cap regardless of the revenue situation, so they are constantly ****ing about the escrow taking "their" money.

But if every dime of cap was spent every year by every team, the players collectively still make the same amount of money that season.

I think the problem with changing away from the nhls hard cap, including trading the cap, is because of the precedent used for so long to derive player compensation.

I think the league will eat itself within 5 years if the cap leaves.

As soon as somebody like Auston Matthews -can- be paid what he is worth (about 30-50% more than his current pay in my estimation), he will be paid that much. Once that precedent is established, the next versions of Matthew’s would rightfully demand the same. As this trickles down, the league will be split into 2 - teams that are competitive and teams that are not. At this point, a luxury tax could keep teams afloat financially, but you’re going to lose a lot of your market if you’re a team who simply isn’t competitive. Any wiggle room given to the teams will be gobbled up by elite players as they’re currently underpaid.

If anything, I personally would prefer the league to be more rigid and adjust to the financial differences from taxes and such. The healthiest version of the nhl is one where any team can win, not the ones with the most money OR the most favorable tax situation for the athletes. Everybody makes more money in a high parity league while artificially keeping wages lower than a free market would. All the teams values would increase more in an extreme parity, cost controlled environment than any other.

The only way I’d see the league lose the hard cap and do well is if it split in half, similar to some european football leagues, whereby there was a lower and upper division, and only the upper division teams fought for a championship, lower division teams only fighting for a chance to join the upper league. In this environment you could lose the hard cap but not lose the fringe franchises ability to exist.

In general and I hate doing it to them over and over for TBL it makes sense why there is a hard cap

Look at the players they have lost

Coleman
Goodorw
Killorn
Palat
McDonagh
Savard
Rutta
etc

If NHL had no hard cap those guys would still be there rn and we would have a juggernaut

Hagel-Point-Kucherov
Killorn-Cirelli-Stamkos
Palat-Paul-Coleman
Jeannot-Goodrow-Duclair

Hedman-Rutta
McDonagh-Cernak
Sergechev-Savard

And I also feel 5 or 6 teams would disappear as a result of this system due to issues with retention and other factors.

They should just say if you are on LTIR (as opposed to regular IR) at anytime in the last two weeks of the season, then you are ineligible for the first two weeks of the playoffs. Won't completely plug the hole because the cap prorated for a week won't be much, but it would help stop the teams several million over the cap whose players magically return ready for game 1.

But then what if the player broke his foot but was ready for round 2. Its not fair for them

Legit injuries do happen to they just get lost in some of the abuse. Sometimes teams have to put these guys on LTIR to have enough just for a single call up to field 20 players.

IMO this is an issue with no real fix rn as non of the ownership or others will come to a full agreement. The NHL cap increasing should help with this so its a wait and see

As to me with the cap now not stagnant or just going up 1m cap space will start increasing for everyone


87.7 is 2024 and 92.1 is 2025 after 0 idea but if it keeps going up by that should see an LTIR abuse decrease