Right now the Nhl takes the AAV of contracts, but allows team and players to front or back load contracts. I wonder what a rule would look like if instead contracts are based by yearly payouts. The Nhl would just need a rule were the contract can only have a 10%, either higher or lower, from the previous year.

So today's contract of a 7 year for $49 million is a straight up $7 million AAV cap hit.

But what if he could be broken down as:
Year 1=$10 or $4
2=$9 or $5
3=$8 or $6
4=$7 or $7
5=$6 or $8
6=$5 or $9
7=$4 or $10

Wouldn't Nhl owners/managers like the different cap hits. For rebuilding teams they can frontload the contracts to reach the floor and than when they're ready to compete the cap hit would be lower, or contending teams can backload contracts to stay competitive now and worry about the raises later.

Obviously a loophole would be what to do about trading of those contracts. I guess the clear solutions is that this type of contracts can only to be for NMC and will never be traded.