Chip McCleary: The NHL, NHLPA, and the new CBA: Making it up as they go along (again) It really shouldn't surprise anyone, either. Sadly, some are - and will be again later.

Good blog. It also amazes me how many loop holes are left within a new NHL CBA. Is it written with crayon by children under 6? Jesus H Christ do both sides not have many labour lawyers that look at these type of issues? If they do these lawyers should be terminated. Unreal!!

I wonder what else was rushed and has massive issues in this new 8, 9, or 10 year CBA?

Buying him out will still cost the Leafs $3,850,000 against the cap; under my proposal, it would have been only $750,000 (his cap hit is $4.75 million, he was scheduled to make $4 million this year). I leave it to others to decide which way would have been more fair.

In my opinion, the latter.

Look at it this way: teams with all sorts of money are already driving up costs for lower market teams. If high dollar teams want to offer massive contracts, fair is them having to deal with the consequences, and having that cap hit. If a team makes a decision a player is worth a certain cap hit for a certain number of years, the team should have to live with that decision. The entire idea of the salary cap is built around a desire to have more parity in the league. Well, giving high spending teams the ability to sign players then, if they do poorly, drop their cap hit and sign someone else, is counter productive.

Ultimately, you think "The entire cap system as it was drawn up in the 2005 CBA (and arguably as it’s designed to work now) is that at the end of a player’s contract, the dollars paid to a player while he was in the NHL and playing should equal the dollars teams incurred against the cap." I disagree. It's currently designed so that NHL caliber players salaries count against the cap, regardless of where they are playing.

You really think the PA would want to take those dollars away from Gomez/Redden/whoever and make them UFA's?

Those two players got exactly what they wanted.

You really think the PA would want to take those dollars away from Gomez/Redden/whoever and make them UFA's?

Those two players got exactly what they wanted.
- Lahey

Did the NHLPA want those guys to get paid? Sure they did, especially if they weren't going to count against the Players Share. (Hint: they still don't.) However, if the NHLPA is really that concerned with Gomez and Redden (or other similar players) actually playing in the NHL, surely they could have thought ahead about how teams might approach compliance buyouts and thought, "wow - these guys may not be wanted, their teams might actually send them home, ... we need to do something to ensure they have a chance to play in the NHL or somewhere else instead of being parked on the couch."

So ... why didn't the NHLPA do that? The same reason we're going to see other issues in this CBA - no one thought ahead to actually fix problems without creating new ones, they just rushed to get pen on paper and scribble something down so they could say, "see, we're not so bad - we saved (what's left of) the season!" and grab every last dollar possible in the process, without actually worrying about protecting the rights of the players in areas that were a known issue in the 2005 CBA.

Did the NHLPA want those guys to get paid? Sure they did, especially if they weren't going to count against the Players Share. (Hint: they still don't.) However, if the NHLPA is really that concerned with Gomez and Redden (or other similar players) actually playing in the NHL, surely they could have thought ahead about how teams might approach compliance buyouts and thought, "wow - these guys may not be wanted, their teams might actually send them home, ... we need to do something to ensure they have a chance to play in the NHL or somewhere else instead of being parked on the couch."

So ... why didn't the NHLPA do that? The same reason we're going to see other issues in this CBA - no one thought ahead to actually fix problems without creating new ones, they just rushed to get pen on paper and scribble something down so they could say, "see, we're not so bad - we saved (what's left of) the season!" and grab every last dollar possible in the process, without actually worrying about protecting the rights of the players in areas that were a known issue in the 2005 CBA.
- Chip McCleary

But in the end they aren't going to be parked on the couch and are getting more than a regular buyout, so maybe the PA knows what they are doing?

PA probably knew all along that there was going to be issues, but wanted to see what the teams would actually do.

Chip McCleary: The NHL, NHLPA, and the new CBA: Making it up as they go along (again)
It really shouldn't surprise anyone, either. Sadly, some are - and will be again later.
- Chip McCleary

Wait, you're Irish Blues, right?

But in the end they aren't going to be parked on the couch and are getting more than a regular buyout, so maybe the PA knows what they are doing?
- Lahey

The catch is that even if they got bought out this summer, they'd get their '12-13 pay in full (pro-rated to 48 games) and then 2/3rds of the rest of the contract as usual. They're not getting any more money either way solely from the buyout being exercised now.

The only real difference is that (unless they also changed this in the agreement) by exercising the buyout now, the money paid for this season counts against the Players Share. The NHLPA was already likely to get over 50% of HRR this season, meaning the players were going to be subject to escrow; this just makes it that much worse. If anything, those three will take a hit by having the buyout money for this year subject to escrow (which causes all the other players to have to pay some more escrow because the amount they were receiving in aggregate just got pushed up). If any of those 3 can land another contract for this season, that's dollars going into the pockets of those three that potentially offset the amount lost to escrow, but which necessarily have to come out of the pockets of the rest of the NHLPA - which means even more escrow on everyone else.

In short: anyone getting bought out now who can find another contract can double-dip at the expense of the rest of the NHLPA.

I won't say you're definitely wrong when you say the NHLPA was wanting to see how this played out, but I suspect you're giving the union far too much credit - especially if what I describe here is in fact accurate.

The catch is that even if they got bought out this summer, they'd get their '12-13 pay in full (pro-rated to 48 games) and then 2/3rds of the rest of the contract as usual. They're not getting any more money either way solely from the buyout being exercised now.

The only real difference is that (unless they also changed this in the agreement) by exercising the buyout now, the money paid for this season counts against the Players Share. The NHLPA was already likely to get over 50% of HRR this season, meaning the players were going to be subject to escrow; this just makes it that much worse. If anything, those three will take a hit by having the buyout money for this year subject to escrow (which causes all the other players to have to pay some more escrow because the amount they were receiving in aggregate just got pushed up). If any of those 3 can land another contract for this season, that's dollars going into the pockets of those three that potentially offset the amount lost to escrow, but which necessarily have to come out of the pockets of the rest of the NHLPA - which means even more escrow on everyone else.

In short: anyone getting bought out now who can find another contract can double-dip at the expense of the rest of the NHLPA.
- Chip McCleary

Their salaries for this year count against the players share regardless. If they sat at home, they were still getting paid, still against the cap, still against the players share. Nothing changes in that regard by them being bought out, unless the buyout of subsequent years counts against this years player share.

If they sign a contract elsewhere as a result of the buyout, that is new money going to them from players share and effecting escrow for everyone as you described. But their salaries for this year form current contracts are on the books from player share regardless of it being buyout or not.

there is no such thing as circumventing the cap.
If there are loopholes etc in the cba then its playing by the rules, but using the rules to your advantage. how is that cheating/circumventing? bettman set up the cba and if he screwed up by omitting clauses that would prevent teams from using for eg front loaded contracts then there is nothing wrong with it.
I gaurentee that there will be contracts signed in the next few months that will USE the current cba to their own advantage and some will call( Burke ) circumventing the cba.

there is no such thing as circumventing the cap.
- grumpyone

Semantics. People say "circumventing the cap" and it is generally understood what is meant is circumventing the intentions of CBA rules.