We’ve known for a while that the salary cap would only increase the mandated $1 million … unless the players reach into their own pockets to pay off the remaining escrow debt that was incurred during the pandemic.
Players are always reaching into their own pockets under the hard-cap system. They subsidize the league when players go on injured reserve or long-term injured reserve. It’s all about 50-50. They’re kind of like the schnooks in “Goodfellas” who are in debt to Paulie.
Business bad? Pay him. Had a fire? Pay him. COVID shut down the world? Pay the NHL.
That’s how Ninth Avenue rolls.
And now we have folks trying to come up with creative ways for the players to pay off the remaining debt so that the cap might increase a mighty $3 million, but the players reach into their own pockets on every one of those ideas. They should take out a loan. They should pay some sort of tax. They should pay.
The escrow debt is supposedly somewhere around $70 million. It is impossible to pin down a hard number. Projections have fluctuated wildly the past couple of years. The flat cap is not only bad for players, it is terrible for more than half of the teams in the league. General managers are being strangled. Roster construction has met constipation.
If the shortfall is $70M, that comes to $2,187,500 per team. Does it matter where the money comes from if the debt is satisfied? Does it matter if it’s the NHLPA that makes the league whole? For the owners to win, do the players have to lose?
So here’s an idea. Why doesn’t the NHL simply add $35M to the next expansion entry fee? There’s every chance the league will expand to 34 clubs within the next three or four years. If Seattle went for $750 million in 2021, the cost will probably be in the $850M range apiece for, say, Atlanta and Salt Lake City. So hike it to $885M per.
Yes, the owners would not reap instant gratification. But which one of them is going to notice the missing $2,187,500 over the next couple of years?
You can put your hand down, “Mr. Jacobs.”
I know. You think this is funny. Funny, ha-ha. It’s actually as funny to me as suggesting that the players should reach into their pockets again.
Which reminds me, the greatest weapon awarded Vegas — knock-knock-knocking on the Stanley Cup championship door in Year 6 — was not the liberal expansion draft regulations, but the $75M in salary-cap space with which the Golden Knights were gifted upon entry to the league. The same applies to the Kraken, who made it to Round 2 in their second year of existence.
That is not to suggest that Vegas’ first GM, and now president, George McPhee did not do an uncanny job in constructing his team. That is also not to suggest that many of the Original 30 general managers were as ignorant as could be.
It is impossible to this day to figure why Florida GM Dale Tallon sent Reilly Smith and a fourth-rounder to Vegas to ensure that the Knights could select Jonathan Marchessault in the draft … apparently all so the team could protect defenseman Mark Pysyk.
Now Marchessault is in position to lift the Conn Smythe Trophy following the handshake with his former team.
If right now teams could renounce their rosters in exchange for $83.5M in cap space entering this offseason, how many do you think would stand pat with current personnel and how many would opt to begin again?
The Devils would stand pat. Of course they would. The Islanders would not, and please do not insult either of us by trying to convince me that anyone would willingly choose to run this back under any circumstance. Lou? What?
The Rangers, well, you tell me, but I am clearing the slate, then bidding whatever would be necessary to reclaim Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox while waiting for Connor McDavid to become available. Give me $83.5M in space and words would flow while composing another Letter.
Buffalo would stand pat. Boston probably would, but the decision might hinge on whether Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci were going to retire. Edmonton would be wise to renounce, but being unable to win with McDavid and Leon Draisaitl might be more palatable than explaining to the season subscribers why No. 97 is playing Broadway. What do you think Toronto would do? Retain its roster, then invest in another $9M forward, probably. Carolina would stand pat unless the owner, Tom Dundon, believed he could get a different cast at better market value.
Tampa Bay would be wise to divest. Florida would not, but Vegas likely would if it won it all. Just about everybody else should clear the decks. Not Seattle. Probably not Ottawa. Certainly not Chicago, which essentially divested all its assets over the last 11 months. What would Kyle Dubas do in Pittsburgh? Would he act rationally and start anew or would he be straitjacketed by the pressure to keep the Big 3 — that’s Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang — together for perpetuity?
It wasn’t enough that Blake Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, walked away from the bidding to buy the Senators, but now a second front-runner has left the table, as well.
Once might be a hiccup. Twice is pneumonia.
When the answer is Damon Severson for eight years at an average annual value of $6.25M per, I am not quite sure what the question is in Columbus.
It’s a year too late for sure, but it’s good to see that TV analyst Keith Jones was able to marshal support for a full rebuilding in Philadelphia.
Finally, I guess the recent hagiographies written about the Penguins’ Fenway Sports Group ownership refer to a different Fenway Sports Group than the one that traded Mookie Betts and let Xander Bogaerts get away.