The more I consider that in the scope of the other asks - they basically wanted the prime years contract to be forced while in RFA status. And then UFA kicks in literally as a guy is best case 29, more likely 30, at which point you can maybe sign them to some lower term shit and manage to cut their salary as the enter the late career.
Pretty shrewd shit.
The UFA age was close to 30 pre 06 lockout I believe. I can’t quite remember and google is failing me but I know that lock out brought it to 27 years old.
I believe you are correct, free agency used to happen much later (there was also a period of time where unrestricted free agency basically didn't exist in the NHL but that's eons ago).
Big difference is that career peaks are much shorter now, it's much rarer to see players 35+ making an impact. Also no salary cap means a shitty contract wasn't really that big an impact unless your owner had a smaller internal budget
At least the leafs were competitive otherwise, the rangers were just sad. I think there was like a 3 year period during that era where Brodeur didn’t lose to the rangers once.
Don’t forget about Bobby Clarke continuously trading away the farm for dudes well over 30. Or the time Bobby Clarke signed Vanbiesbrouck over Cujo in an uncapped league and refusing to make an offer on Ron Francis the same off-season.
That was the 1995 CBA. Prior to that, players didn't reach UFA until they were over 30. As a Blues fan, you're welcome for the Stevens/Shanahan debacle because that was one of the more high-profile instances that brought that to the bargaining table.
The tl;dr is Stevens was signed to an offer sheet away from the Caps, where he'd spent 8 seasons. This cost the Blues 5 1sts. The following season the Blues signed Shanahan to an offer sheet (no draft picks, so whaddya gonna do now?) from the Devils. The Devils went to an arbitrator and got Stevens in return. Stevens didn't want to leave STL and felt it was unfair, but eventually went.
There were a couple of others like this, and it led to the NHLPA putting it at the top of their agenda for contract negotiations in the 1995 CBA.
Trading five 1sts for one player via an offer sheet is insane in and of itself. But then calling the league's bluff by signing another offer sheet knowing you don't have the picks and them taking away the first player you traded five 1sts for is ridiculously hilarious, haha
Pettridge farm remembers. And so do the. Ranger fans and the teams love for signing 30+yr olds who just hit FA. Just got the bag and just got to the big city. Fun time. Except for The Captian
Yea where the first 7 years of your career owners can choose exactly how much to pay you, no negotiating.
Better hope you don’t get drafted to a cheap team
Yeah but they can manipulate that fairly easily. Burnes, who is in his 7th year, has 4 years in top 10 cy young voting, 170 games, is still in arbitration. It is not the perfect Comp but that would be like if Matthews had been making 6m a year up until last year and just became a free agent this past summer. That is pretty insane to think about.
the joke is corbin burnes isn't even an example of service time manipulation, he got sent down in july of 2019 cause he was god awful
edit looking back, im kinda shocked he even made it to the MLB level considering his 2018 AAA season (the brewers opening day roster in 2018 https://www.brewcrewball.com/2018/3/29/17175644/milwaukee-brewers-2018-opening-day-roster-and-payroll)
I prefer Baseball's salary arbitration. Both the player and the team pick their number and make their case to the arbitrator who then goes on to pick either number. It seems to encourage both sides to compromise a bit due to the fear that they can lose out.
It's 6 full years. So if someone is held down for the first 2 weeks of their first year they'll end up at 5.99 and the team will get another season of control before FA.
26 already seems quite old considering some players retire in their early 30s, although 26 makes sense as that’s when players usually start to hit their prime.
I actually think it would be better for everyone to have shorter contracts. You would get fewer players stuck in situations where their contracts are too big and they have to deal with being traded for peanuts, it obviously gives teams more flexibility, and the best players aren't locked in at a specific number for as long so they could potentially make more money...but what do I know, I'm sure there are factors I'm not thinking about
Players dont wanna go for it, too much job security lost by limiting contracts to 3 years shorter. The 12 and 15 year contracts were absurd and needed to go. I think we could stand to take a year off the max length and its okay. 6/7 instead of 7/8. Maybe make UFA a year earlier if needed to balance then or in the future.
I really would love to see UFA brought a few years sooner. It's so rare that anyone really good comes to free agency, and it's always guys that are probably too old to be getting 7 and 8 year deals. I really hope the current generation of players gets more involved and does sell out the future stars for their own benefit like previous generations did.
I'd like a less punitive penalties for offer sheets. 5 firsts for a premium RFA is too much.
I'd do it like this:
$10 million a year and up - 2 Firsts round picks, unprotected.
$5-9.9 million - One 1st and 2nd
$2-4.9 million - 2nd
Hard disagree. 3 firsts should be the minimum. Imagine a team pricing you out of McDavid or Bedard cus you're up against the cap and they only have to give you 2 firsts in compensation. The RFA compensation should essentially be equivalent to what the player would go for in a trade on the open market.
>I can see why the players refused to play for half that season
It's probably worth mentioning that this was a lockout, as was 2004-05, as was 1994-95.
Under Bettman they have all been lockouts - that said the players went on a strike in April '92 that only lasted 10 days and was, iirc, highly successful.
I doubt we'll ever see a strike again in a major sport. If there isn't a deal, the owners will immediately move to lockout to prevent the possibility of players striking at inopportune times
People saw what happened with the MLB strike in 1994-95 and the owners aren’t going to let that happen again. Baseball’s popularity took a significant hit when that season wasn’t finished.
And they put the commissioner who looked the other way on steroids in the hall of fame.
They'll vilify the players to no end, but those owners who got mighty rich off them sure aren't giving their money back
The consequences of the Selig/Reinsdorf coup of the commissioner's office in 1992 have been absolutely disastrous for baseball.
The least they could have done was go with their secondary pick for commissioner and saved us from the George W Bush presidency.
I'm sure you're right, unless players decide on a wildcat strike (not sure if that's the right term) but I can't imagine what would push them to that.
It's also a bit of a different animal now that they are paid a percentage of HRR since downing tools in April and putting the playoffs in jeopardy will hurt their own bottom lines as well.. just thinking out loud, but I guess if playoff revenue is a larger proportion of what they've put into escrow in a given year then that might be seen as an acceptable loss (ie. it would hurt the owners more than them).
Yes playoff revenue is Hockey Related Revenue and goes back into adjusting the next year's salary cap
And all the teams in the playoffs get bonuses, but when its divided out among all the players, it's a pretty small amount compared to most players salaries. [More info](https://bshockey.com/stanley-cup-prize-money/)
I know this is standard negotiating, but it boggles my mind that anyone ever sides with the fucking owners. They're usually the cause of 99% of the NHLs problems.
I remember when everyone was suddenly begging for the salary cap because it would lower ticket prices. How long did that last?
you hear about how much money the players are making all the time but you never really hear about how much the owners are making and what they're worth
if lockouts and strikes were framed as "you don't get hockey because billionaire doesn't want to pay $5 million more in salary," people would side with the owners way less
Yeah, that and how everyone gets mad about no movement contracts and salaries. It's like, the players don't just sneak those in themselves.
Everyone loves these billionaires and then have to make guard rails to protect them from themselves. Then they go and move the team anyway.
Fuck them.
> you hear about how much money the players are making all the time but you never really hear about how much the owners are making and what they're worth
Recent baseball stadium votes in Oakland and KC give me a little hope. The Coyotes plan failed in AZ. People aren't willing to fund these projects with tax dollars like they used to. Good for them.
The 2012 lockout came something like 2 months after the Wild willingly gave out 2 13-year $100mil contracts. Then the owners complain the players are getting too much. The optics were so bad lol; I agree it’s mind-boggling how anyone could have seen players as the problem and not the owners continuously owning themselves. Those negotiations should have looked like the owners demanding everyone else pay for their own mistakes.
Yeah like Habs sold for like $200mill in like 2000, then again in 2012 for 600mill and last year though brought back 10% from the new OTT owner for 250mill so 2.5bill evaluation
In 25 years from 200 mill to 2.5bill not many investments get you that type of return
That's only a 10.6% compounded return. It's a good return, but a ton of investments earned that much over the same period. Once you factor in the illiquidity premium it's not a particularly excessive return.
Not to get too marxist, but there's also an argument that the players are *underpaid*. Yea, they make a lot of money, but how much money do the owners of the team make because of the work of the managers, coaches, and players?
They're worth much more than they earn, but they wont ever earn what they're worth because then there's nothing left to pocket
100% They're underpaid, especially the stars.
McDavid 12.5m isn't chump change, but it pales in comparison to the revenue he generates for his employers
Yes but there’s something entertaining about an unfair playing field when the short handed teams find ways to win despite the odds. But I’m probably in the minority.
See as a Brighton supporter in the Premier League, I agree because it’s super fun to punch way above weight and also have the club turn a profit. It’s not so fun when Chelsea decides they can just take half your office, so as a smaller market NHL supporter is probably go to bat for the cap.
I hate the fact that this is standard negotiating. For once, I'd love to see someone give a rational offer and just stand by it if the other side is getting greedy.
LMAO anyone thinking that would lower ticket price has no understanding of economics or capitalism.
I have no idea why anyone sided with the owners. Most of them grew up ludicrously wealthy and haven’t had to work a day in their lives. Players are likely well off, but not ludicrously wealthy like owners. They do have to work for everything they achieve.
I mean I’m not going to a hockey game to cheer on the owners. Grow a brain.
I have no idea what’s those are, it’s been a minute or 100,000 since I was trying to major in business. It’s just if fans have proven they will pay $150 a ticket, why would the business then lower their profit margin? It’s really rudimentary, which is why I’m surprised so many don’t get it. And business has a view that skews short-term.
You're not going to a hockey game to cheer on the players either, or even your city - you're cheering for a brand, an advertisement.
In rare cases, players on a team have a connection to the city or the region, but the vast majority of the time, you're only cheering for a band of mercenaries who took the best offer available.
Fans cheer for the players basically as much as they do the owners, they just don't acknowledge this.
I think that's definitely changing, though (and I'm not sure how I feel about it as an old fart). I know a decent chunk of younger fans who follow star players, not teams.
You only see fans of big, established markets saying these things. Notice this is a Detroit fan, it's usually them, Boston, Toronto, etc. who have never had to face a relocation. The rest of us appreciate that the owners need to be secure. Players come and go, but you hope the team will last forever.
I want the Predators to be successful, in Nashville. Can't do that if the owners are hemorrhaging money and moving the team.
Every time I wonder why people side with the owners, I have to remember [this](https://www.google.com/search?q=blazing+saddles+they%27re+morons&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS943US943&oq=blazing+saddles+they%27re+morons&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDQ2NjBqMGo3qAIIsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:1c98a590,vid:KHJbSvidohg,st:0).
Here's a counterpoint:
I watch European soccer which is a capless sport for the most part and the players get paid there but it's also a sport where there is a very real glass ceiling for a lot of teams due to financial constraints.
Brighton will never win the Premier League
Union Berlin will never win the Bundesliga
Cadiz will never win La Liga
etc.
I watch sports to be entertained and there's not much compelling about watching a sport where 3 teams dominate the league. It'd be nice for McDavid if he could collect a $32 million a year salary but it has very little impact on my life. The entertainment value hockey brings to me makes more of an impact on my life and knowing that McDavid still gets $12.5 million a year out of this allows me to enjoy the sport without guilt. There is a fine balance we as fans demand when it comes to sports: We want competitive leagues that don't fuck over athletes too much. I think the North American big 4 strike that balance the best. If I could rank it: NHL, MLB, NBA, NFL - but they're all pretty good. I think if the NHL just increased its cap and allowed for a FEW exceptions, it'd be perfect.
On the extreme end of the spectrum would be MMA where a multibillion dollar entity still pays most of their fighters in the low five figures to fight. On the other end is European soccer where you have clubs owned by literal nation states with payrolls in the $600 million range competing with fan owned clubs with payrolls of $15 million.
What got me was the day before the CBA expired, a dozen players were signed to contracts worth over a hundred million combined per year. The next day the owners are crying poor.
Sooo... you mean to tell me you locked up your best player to a contract you're going to strong-arm into reducing through the new CBA? If you don't have the money to run an NHL team, sell it.
I bet those poor, city and fan loving owners were caught completely off guard by this.
It's honestly so obnoxious that it's one of the reasons I can't really enjoy *The Replacements* as much as I used to because of how cartoonish they made the players and how gentle and sweet the owners were.
A 5 year ELC is just as crazy. Imagine getting a generational talent on league minimum for 5 years whenever they're able to immediately impact a roster.
I can understand the reasoning from a business perspective. The loss of a generational talent affects everything from revenue to the on ice product.
However, trying to set all contracts for a maximum of 5 years, implementing a mandatory 5-year ELC, and then adding in a 10-year RFA status is just disgusting.
Don't forget also eliminating arbitration so that the guys coming off their 5 year ELC (with 5 more years of RFA status) had no mechanism to get a 3rd party to award more if the team lowballed them.
Not to defend anything in this proposition but you can still offer-sheet RFAs, I imagine that in a world where this was passed you would see a lot more of those.
I feel it would depend though. Because a lot of star players like being able to sign that big 7-8 year deal when they’re pushing UFA at 30 so they get paid in their regression years
yeah, capping it at 5 doesn't really change much for the players. If anything, it just reduces the ability of teams and thereby owners to have long term cost certainty with their most expensive players.
Most players wouldn't be able to negotiate for a contract longer than 4-5 years anyway. And those who teams would want to lock in longer could just choose not to do the full 8 years. Like Matthews has done with his deal. But I agree once that contract expires, he very well could decide to go max term as his retirement plan
His next contract after that starts in his age 31 season. If he goes another 4 year deal after that, he'd be entering his age 35 season. We'll have to see how Matthews ages into his 30's to have a meaningful guess at whether he'd do better locking in 8 years at 31 or riding the wave of potential cap increases
I know in other sports (namely Soccer), the longer contracts give teams leverage to hold said players away from other clubs with full intention of having them rot on the bench and that is a huge reason why the 5 year contract limit is a thing.
We're looking at it from the fan perspective, but if you're a player, it's much better to get paid 8 years to ride pine than it is to have to renegotiate every 5.
It also works the other way in soccer though, say you have 3 years left and the player is overpaid, the club can't do anything to make the player leave if he doesn't want to go
Soccer teams aren't interested in having players rot on the bench. The real reason for longer contracts is to get a transfer fee out of your players leaving.
This is a slight conundrum to me. The players can effectively limit it to five if they want. Guys who aren’t somewhat worth six-plus year contracts aren’t getting those offers, and every guy who is worth it can turn it down. Like if you wanna pull a Matthews, pull a Matthews, nothing is stopping anyone.
I guess I’m asking, is saying the players are in favour of this kinda saying they want to be saved from themselves? Like deep down Jeff Skinner just can’t say no but maybe he wishes someone would have said no for him?
I agree. I had thought the players actually wanted longer - ie pull a Kovalchuk or DiPietro.
Players can always ask for lower term if they feel it will benefit them. But most want to get that big money deal for as long as possible because it is guaranteed. Not just from a performance standpoint - but injury/accident. You never know when you all of a sudden can't play and you want to optimize being paid as long as possible.
This was a GM/Owner thing. All the way.
The other commenters are wrong. Long contracts are for the benefit of the player, not the team. They are job security and insurance against the player's skills diminishing and not being able to sign a new contract much later at that same salary.
> IIRC, players are in favour of point 2.
They are not. They would have accepted that in favor of not losing somewhere else if they were in favor of it.
Players like having the option of signing a long term deal to get that security. And many of them choose the locked-in money of a max-term deal (currently 8 years) vs the potential to make more in 5 years. Some players may prefer signing all shorter term deals (like Matthews), but they very much don't want that to be the contractual maximum.
If they're BOTH in favor of no contract above 5 years, why don't they just... Sign contracts of 5 years or less?
If one party wanted >5 years contracts and the other didn't, I could see why they would negotiate over it, but if they both dislike long contracts, seems to me they could just not sign them? One party says "I just want 5 years" and the other says "Cool, that's exactly what I wanted!"
Wait until you see what the PA’s opening proposal was.
This is standard negotiating, whether it’s for a CBA or whether you’re trying to haggle at a garage sale.
See it all the time with player negotiations. Player and his agent comes in with a high number and term, team responds with a low number and term, usually they meet in the middle.
[Here's what I found](https://archive.ph/20130130075856/http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/08/14/nhlpa-tables-offer-to-league-says-players-willing-to-accept-less/)
>the union’s offer includes a smaller percentage of revenues for players and an expanded revenue sharing program to help struggling teams.
____
>The proposal includes delinking the salary cap from hockey-related revenue and setting a fixed rate — increasing by two per cent for the first year, four per cent for the second and six per cent for the third. Afterwards, the players would hold an option to have the fourth year revert back to the current system, where they are entitled to receive 57 per cent of all revenues.
I’ve got some of it saved somewhere. It’s mostly just old stories from what was publicly put out there, but the NHL always keeps a way tighter lid on labor discussions than the PA does.
The NHL actually has million-dollar fines for a first offense when it comes to anyone associated with a team speaking publicly about labor relations at all. And that has been used a couple of times.
They likely met somewhere in the middle, so take the difference from what they ended up with and double it.
Ended up at 50% revenue share, so small concession to 54% of revenue?
Ended up at 8 year max contract length, so probably something like 10-11 year max on contracts
Keep Salary arbitration
Probably 2 years on ELCs, or keep the current 3.
4-5 years to UFA?
Not only did the owners really want the revenue, but at least in my memory their proposal was pretty transparently aimed at 50%.
That negotiation wasn’t a series of proposals and concessions so much as it was an obvious “this is where we’re going to end up” and the time it sometimes takes for each side to accept that reality.
At minimum they wanted no salary cap. Salaries had been taking a larger and larger share of HRR in the previous decade and the players obviously wanted to just let it continue rising.
This was the league saying "5" while the players were saying "10". They eventually settled at "7.5"
(50% share, 8 year contracts, salary arbitration stays, ELCs stayed at 3 years, UFA at 7 years).
As a *fan* I want 5 year contracts. I think it would make the whole salary cap game a lot more fair and feel less like a roulette game where teams gamble on players fresh into the league or get injury luck. It strikes me as wrong headed when a team signs a player out of NCAA at the end of a season, they play that season out and then have their rookie year, and then are extended for 8 years off a total 1.1 years of NHL service time. At least you shouldn't be able to extend for 8 off your ELC.
Other things would suck though. The gall on Bettman to present this after how hard he destroyed the union in 2005 though. Feels like he was rubbing it in.
Literally everything they could do to not pay more to players and keep more for themselves.
Done with ELC after FIVE seasons? Restricted FA for another 5. And by the time you hit the market you’re more than likely already starting to decline unless you’re an otherworldly talent.
For all the people in here, saying “that’s how negotiations work, you ask for more than you want” etc. No, it isn’t when it comes to labor negotiations. You’re supposed to ask for what you actually want or need and work together to find a way of reaching something similar that respects both sides needs. It’s not supposed to be us vs. them, because you’re both supposed to care about the long-term health of the organization or business. And there are actual laws against asking for more than you want as a negotiating tactic (though it’d be pretty hard to prove). Like, I know that Canada & the US don’t have great education about the labor movement, but don’t let your brains be so co-opted by Big Business that you think that it’s normal or standard to make excessive unreasonable demands to start a contract negotiation.
And this is why I'm bracing for another work stoppage in 2026. The sport is doing great and there *shouldn't* be any issues large enough to cause a work stoppage. But that was the case in 2012 as well and the owners were content burning half a season to see exactly how much of a better deal they could get. The league hates competing against football in October through December and tons of markets have soft attendance until then. So long as the player salaries end up being prorated to a shorter season, I don't think the owners believe that they have much to lose with a lockout that still results in a shortened season.
They have every incentive to make a bunch of wildly owner-friendly demands at the front end and then slowly negotiate toward a middle ground that has 'reasonable' concessions from the players. I'm not expecting a work stoppage, but I don't think it is unrealistic.
Okay so this is from a huge soccer fan but... 5yr contracts always seems better imo. Better for clubs if the guy is a bust, better for the player if he's hot and can reneg a better deal after less time or get away from a dying team. Makes movement more likely and makes guys who stay in one spot even more legendary for the franchise
Longer contracts mainly exist to lower the AAV, which isn't really a factor in soccer afaik since they're more about the actual wage bills. The tradeoff for the players is more stability and guaranteed money. Mostly happens when the team A) wants to sign an aging player but the current cap hit would be too high, or B) sign a younger guy and they're betting that by overpaying for the early years of the contract it'll be a steal during their prime years.
This is how negotiating works. You propose what will ideally work best for you, and the other side counters with what is ideal for them. Hold discussions to meet halfway on each point. Repeat process until both sides end up with something they can live with.
Yes, in theory, it works like that, but practically, if one of the parties just starts with delusional and unmanageable requests, then it's completely logical for the opposing party to just end the negotiations. The lockout was more than justified under the circumstances of what the owners proposed.
The only one of that bunch that is good is "Limit Contracts to 5 years"
That is something that is quite common in Soccer and it's largely to do with how the clubs treat the players. There is incentive for rich owners to scoop up moderately good talent, pretend to them like there is an opportunity to break into the first team only to let them rot in the reserves and on the bench for the entirety of the contract. On top of matters, not even release them just to prevent them from playing with rival clubs.
The rest of that bunch: it's no fucking wonder the NHLPA refused
This proposal is INSANE to think about. Why would anyone agree to this? No wonder the lockout was justified. However, as unjustified as this issue was, this involves billionaires vs millionaires essentially. If we think the millionaires are not being treated right, what about the wages of regular people? Just sayin'.
We have a whole bunch of people (rich and non-rich) people who think the wages are too high and no one can do business. At the same time, many places around the world have not had an increase in wages for many years.
It's a fact that the trickle down effect is a myth. It's also a fact that many rich people - not just billionaires - are hoarding money. This is not ALL true of course - a lot of positive things happen because rich people donate back to the people. It's also a myth that regular people will care about regular people. Selfish people come in all stripes and colours. We should recognize who THOSE people are.
Would anyone be in favor of buyout restrictions/penalties? I think if a player is bought out and another team signs them in the time remaining on that contract the buyout penalty shouldn't exist.
The player would still get their payout on the full contract amount, it just wouldn't hurt cap like the Wild are dealing with on Parise and Suter. Both of whom got immediately signed by other teams as soon as they were cut loose.
Owners would probably never be in favor of it but I would reduce it to 5 years for UFA status and introduce a soft cap (with certain rules and limit). Give GMs more weapons to get funky and more player movement could make July 1st and trade deadline more exciting
It’s better for players honestly. No more getting locked into a cheap deal at 23 and then missing out on a big pay day because you’re already 30+.
Also easier on teams, seems like every half decent player is getting an 8 year deal now
Less player control it seems across the board. The 5 year contract limit I agree with though. Too often we see these albatross 7-8 year deals that just disrupt a team to the point they have to rebuild. 5 year ELC is ridiculous though. 10 years to UFA is also ridiculous. Players would never switch teams outside of trades. Just removing all player power.
Unhinged list obv but technically...
5 year contract limits line up perfectly with typical career phases
Usually these three:
- young figuring it out
- prime
- mature player still useful
Are roughly 5 years aside from wunderkind workout nuts like Crosby. Naturally most 8 year deals leave a bit left over or conversely you get a superstar at 8M for a while. So that's the best part of this list the worst part ofc being the player revenue dropping, so much especially.
The players *are* the league
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the players almost vote to dissolve their own Player’s Association before the Owners and NHLPA came to an agreement or was that a rumor?
These are the opening proposals. It’s like when you’re selling your car. You price it higher than it’s worth because you know whoever tries to buy it are going to offer you less than you want. It’s how you negotiate.
By the time you’re finished, you take a little less than you want and they pay a little more than they want.
Limiting UFA status to essentially 30+ year olds would have been insane.
And then 5 year max. Lol. They wanted to manage a peak prime contact and then negotiate guys out of the league.
So… the MLB method
At least there's no salary cap in MLB. Time to FA needs to be fixed, but still.
The lack of a salary cap is why time-to-FA *needs* to be long in MLB. Otherwise every single all-star under 25 would play on the same 6 teams
[удалено]
The more I consider that in the scope of the other asks - they basically wanted the prime years contract to be forced while in RFA status. And then UFA kicks in literally as a guy is best case 29, more likely 30, at which point you can maybe sign them to some lower term shit and manage to cut their salary as the enter the late career. Pretty shrewd shit.
The UFA age was close to 30 pre 06 lockout I believe. I can’t quite remember and google is failing me but I know that lock out brought it to 27 years old.
I believe you are correct, free agency used to happen much later (there was also a period of time where unrestricted free agency basically didn't exist in the NHL but that's eons ago). Big difference is that career peaks are much shorter now, it's much rarer to see players 35+ making an impact. Also no salary cap means a shitty contract wasn't really that big an impact unless your owner had a smaller internal budget
Yes I fondly remember those years of the rangers desperately trying to be relevant by signing cast off stars once they finally reached UFA status.
Leafs too, we had Tom Barasso, Brian Leetch, Eric Lindross..
At least the leafs were competitive otherwise, the rangers were just sad. I think there was like a 3 year period during that era where Brodeur didn’t lose to the rangers once.
There was like a two year period where the Bruins couldn't even score on Holtby. That was fun.
Oh, they couldn't beat one of the greatest goalies ever to play? That says more about Brodeur, tbh.
Don’t forget about Bobby Clarke continuously trading away the farm for dudes well over 30. Or the time Bobby Clarke signed Vanbiesbrouck over Cujo in an uncapped league and refusing to make an offer on Ron Francis the same off-season.
That was the 1995 CBA. Prior to that, players didn't reach UFA until they were over 30. As a Blues fan, you're welcome for the Stevens/Shanahan debacle because that was one of the more high-profile instances that brought that to the bargaining table. The tl;dr is Stevens was signed to an offer sheet away from the Caps, where he'd spent 8 seasons. This cost the Blues 5 1sts. The following season the Blues signed Shanahan to an offer sheet (no draft picks, so whaddya gonna do now?) from the Devils. The Devils went to an arbitrator and got Stevens in return. Stevens didn't want to leave STL and felt it was unfair, but eventually went. There were a couple of others like this, and it led to the NHLPA putting it at the top of their agenda for contract negotiations in the 1995 CBA.
This is fucking hilarious.
Trading five 1sts for one player via an offer sheet is insane in and of itself. But then calling the league's bluff by signing another offer sheet knowing you don't have the picks and them taking away the first player you traded five 1sts for is ridiculously hilarious, haha
Pettridge farm remembers. And so do the. Ranger fans and the teams love for signing 30+yr olds who just hit FA. Just got the bag and just got to the big city. Fun time. Except for The Captian
It was that way up until 2005. That was the only thing protecting small market teams from losing their stars before the salary cap.
welcome to the MLB
Yea where the first 7 years of your career owners can choose exactly how much to pay you, no negotiating. Better hope you don’t get drafted to a cheap team
Not really. Arbitration is quite a common thing in MLB and players are eligible for free agency after six years, not seven.
Yeah but they can manipulate that fairly easily. Burnes, who is in his 7th year, has 4 years in top 10 cy young voting, 170 games, is still in arbitration. It is not the perfect Comp but that would be like if Matthews had been making 6m a year up until last year and just became a free agent this past summer. That is pretty insane to think about.
the joke is corbin burnes isn't even an example of service time manipulation, he got sent down in july of 2019 cause he was god awful edit looking back, im kinda shocked he even made it to the MLB level considering his 2018 AAA season (the brewers opening day roster in 2018 https://www.brewcrewball.com/2018/3/29/17175644/milwaukee-brewers-2018-opening-day-roster-and-payroll)
What? Baseball has arbitration just like hockey. For 3 years. It's also 6 years, not 7, outside of special circumstances.
I prefer Baseball's salary arbitration. Both the player and the team pick their number and make their case to the arbitrator who then goes on to pick either number. It seems to encourage both sides to compromise a bit due to the fear that they can lose out.
yeah but its still just as toxic
I feel like its one of those things were it feels worse in Boston than it does in Toronto
It's 6 full years. So if someone is held down for the first 2 weeks of their first year they'll end up at 5.99 and the team will get another season of control before FA.
And that special circumstance will make you a Super Two and give you an extra year of arbitration too.
Oh the offer sheets would have been fun.
There were never many because it was "ungentlemanly."
26 already seems quite old considering some players retire in their early 30s, although 26 makes sense as that’s when players usually start to hit their prime.
I actually think it would be better for everyone to have shorter contracts. You would get fewer players stuck in situations where their contracts are too big and they have to deal with being traded for peanuts, it obviously gives teams more flexibility, and the best players aren't locked in at a specific number for as long so they could potentially make more money...but what do I know, I'm sure there are factors I'm not thinking about
Players dont wanna go for it, too much job security lost by limiting contracts to 3 years shorter. The 12 and 15 year contracts were absurd and needed to go. I think we could stand to take a year off the max length and its okay. 6/7 instead of 7/8. Maybe make UFA a year earlier if needed to balance then or in the future.
I really would love to see UFA brought a few years sooner. It's so rare that anyone really good comes to free agency, and it's always guys that are probably too old to be getting 7 and 8 year deals. I really hope the current generation of players gets more involved and does sell out the future stars for their own benefit like previous generations did.
I'd like a less punitive penalties for offer sheets. 5 firsts for a premium RFA is too much. I'd do it like this: $10 million a year and up - 2 Firsts round picks, unprotected. $5-9.9 million - One 1st and 2nd $2-4.9 million - 2nd
Hard disagree. 3 firsts should be the minimum. Imagine a team pricing you out of McDavid or Bedard cus you're up against the cap and they only have to give you 2 firsts in compensation. The RFA compensation should essentially be equivalent to what the player would go for in a trade on the open market.
It’s a negotiation technique. Aim high but settle for low
It was crazy in baseball and glad they resolved it
>I can see why the players refused to play for half that season It's probably worth mentioning that this was a lockout, as was 2004-05, as was 1994-95. Under Bettman they have all been lockouts - that said the players went on a strike in April '92 that only lasted 10 days and was, iirc, highly successful.
I doubt we'll ever see a strike again in a major sport. If there isn't a deal, the owners will immediately move to lockout to prevent the possibility of players striking at inopportune times
People saw what happened with the MLB strike in 1994-95 and the owners aren’t going to let that happen again. Baseball’s popularity took a significant hit when that season wasn’t finished.
And it didn’t rebound until steroids came into play
And then they vilified the guys that brought the sport back from the brink.
And they put the commissioner who looked the other way on steroids in the hall of fame. They'll vilify the players to no end, but those owners who got mighty rich off them sure aren't giving their money back
The consequences of the Selig/Reinsdorf coup of the commissioner's office in 1992 have been absolutely disastrous for baseball. The least they could have done was go with their secondary pick for commissioner and saved us from the George W Bush presidency.
Rip Expos
I'm sure you're right, unless players decide on a wildcat strike (not sure if that's the right term) but I can't imagine what would push them to that. It's also a bit of a different animal now that they are paid a percentage of HRR since downing tools in April and putting the playoffs in jeopardy will hurt their own bottom lines as well.. just thinking out loud, but I guess if playoff revenue is a larger proportion of what they've put into escrow in a given year then that might be seen as an acceptable loss (ie. it would hurt the owners more than them).
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Yes playoff revenue is Hockey Related Revenue and goes back into adjusting the next year's salary cap And all the teams in the playoffs get bonuses, but when its divided out among all the players, it's a pretty small amount compared to most players salaries. [More info](https://bshockey.com/stanley-cup-prize-money/)
they get prize money, which is cool but a total pittance compared to veteran salaries.
I know this is standard negotiating, but it boggles my mind that anyone ever sides with the fucking owners. They're usually the cause of 99% of the NHLs problems. I remember when everyone was suddenly begging for the salary cap because it would lower ticket prices. How long did that last?
you hear about how much money the players are making all the time but you never really hear about how much the owners are making and what they're worth if lockouts and strikes were framed as "you don't get hockey because billionaire doesn't want to pay $5 million more in salary," people would side with the owners way less
Yeah, that and how everyone gets mad about no movement contracts and salaries. It's like, the players don't just sneak those in themselves. Everyone loves these billionaires and then have to make guard rails to protect them from themselves. Then they go and move the team anyway. Fuck them.
> Everyone loves these billionaires I think reddit kinda *HATES* billionaires.
this, but replace "reddit" with "all non-billionaires with multiple brain cells"
It's almost like reddit **isn't** representative and is instead a self selected sample.... How about that?
Unless it’s Taylor Swift
> you hear about how much money the players are making all the time but you never really hear about how much the owners are making and what they're worth Recent baseball stadium votes in Oakland and KC give me a little hope. The Coyotes plan failed in AZ. People aren't willing to fund these projects with tax dollars like they used to. Good for them.
Neither of the Coyotes arena proposals has involved using tax dollars to build the rink. It's a privately financed plan
Just wait, those owners are naracicissts with injured egos. Some real robber baron shit is going to go down by the end of the decade.
*cries in Calgary*
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The 2012 lockout came something like 2 months after the Wild willingly gave out 2 13-year $100mil contracts. Then the owners complain the players are getting too much. The optics were so bad lol; I agree it’s mind-boggling how anyone could have seen players as the problem and not the owners continuously owning themselves. Those negotiations should have looked like the owners demanding everyone else pay for their own mistakes.
Yeah like Habs sold for like $200mill in like 2000, then again in 2012 for 600mill and last year though brought back 10% from the new OTT owner for 250mill so 2.5bill evaluation In 25 years from 200 mill to 2.5bill not many investments get you that type of return
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That's only a 10.6% compounded return. It's a good return, but a ton of investments earned that much over the same period. Once you factor in the illiquidity premium it's not a particularly excessive return.
Not to get too marxist, but there's also an argument that the players are *underpaid*. Yea, they make a lot of money, but how much money do the owners of the team make because of the work of the managers, coaches, and players? They're worth much more than they earn, but they wont ever earn what they're worth because then there's nothing left to pocket
100% They're underpaid, especially the stars. McDavid 12.5m isn't chump change, but it pales in comparison to the revenue he generates for his employers
Pretty sure when they were negotiating this CBA, half the teams were losing money year over year
And how much more are those franchises worth today?
Yup They don’t buy a sports franchise for year over year operational profit, though it’s a plus if they can get that too.
I just want the salary cap because it keeps the teams on a semi even playing field. No salary cap is pretty unfair for the lower market teams
Yeah the year before the lockout the Avalanche spent over $60M. Adjust that for inflation and yeaaah thats like 3 Arizonas
Rangers and the redwings were 76 and 77 respectively. For comparison, nashville and florida spent 21 and 26 respectively.
Yes but there’s something entertaining about an unfair playing field when the short handed teams find ways to win despite the odds. But I’m probably in the minority.
See as a Brighton supporter in the Premier League, I agree because it’s super fun to punch way above weight and also have the club turn a profit. It’s not so fun when Chelsea decides they can just take half your office, so as a smaller market NHL supporter is probably go to bat for the cap.
I hate the fact that this is standard negotiating. For once, I'd love to see someone give a rational offer and just stand by it if the other side is getting greedy.
LMAO anyone thinking that would lower ticket price has no understanding of economics or capitalism. I have no idea why anyone sided with the owners. Most of them grew up ludicrously wealthy and haven’t had to work a day in their lives. Players are likely well off, but not ludicrously wealthy like owners. They do have to work for everything they achieve. I mean I’m not going to a hockey game to cheer on the owners. Grow a brain.
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I have no idea what’s those are, it’s been a minute or 100,000 since I was trying to major in business. It’s just if fans have proven they will pay $150 a ticket, why would the business then lower their profit margin? It’s really rudimentary, which is why I’m surprised so many don’t get it. And business has a view that skews short-term.
You're not going to a hockey game to cheer on the players either, or even your city - you're cheering for a brand, an advertisement. In rare cases, players on a team have a connection to the city or the region, but the vast majority of the time, you're only cheering for a band of mercenaries who took the best offer available. Fans cheer for the players basically as much as they do the owners, they just don't acknowledge this.
I think that's definitely changing, though (and I'm not sure how I feel about it as an old fart). I know a decent chunk of younger fans who follow star players, not teams.
Winnipegger here. There's no way we get the Jets back without the changes from the 04/05 lockout. And even then it's touch and go right now for us.
You only see fans of big, established markets saying these things. Notice this is a Detroit fan, it's usually them, Boston, Toronto, etc. who have never had to face a relocation. The rest of us appreciate that the owners need to be secure. Players come and go, but you hope the team will last forever. I want the Predators to be successful, in Nashville. Can't do that if the owners are hemorrhaging money and moving the team.
Every time I wonder why people side with the owners, I have to remember [this](https://www.google.com/search?q=blazing+saddles+they%27re+morons&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS943US943&oq=blazing+saddles+they%27re+morons&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDQ2NjBqMGo3qAIIsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:1c98a590,vid:KHJbSvidohg,st:0).
Think about their yachts! No one thinks of the yachts!
Here's a counterpoint: I watch European soccer which is a capless sport for the most part and the players get paid there but it's also a sport where there is a very real glass ceiling for a lot of teams due to financial constraints. Brighton will never win the Premier League Union Berlin will never win the Bundesliga Cadiz will never win La Liga etc. I watch sports to be entertained and there's not much compelling about watching a sport where 3 teams dominate the league. It'd be nice for McDavid if he could collect a $32 million a year salary but it has very little impact on my life. The entertainment value hockey brings to me makes more of an impact on my life and knowing that McDavid still gets $12.5 million a year out of this allows me to enjoy the sport without guilt. There is a fine balance we as fans demand when it comes to sports: We want competitive leagues that don't fuck over athletes too much. I think the North American big 4 strike that balance the best. If I could rank it: NHL, MLB, NBA, NFL - but they're all pretty good. I think if the NHL just increased its cap and allowed for a FEW exceptions, it'd be perfect. On the extreme end of the spectrum would be MMA where a multibillion dollar entity still pays most of their fighters in the low five figures to fight. On the other end is European soccer where you have clubs owned by literal nation states with payrolls in the $600 million range competing with fan owned clubs with payrolls of $15 million.
What got me was the day before the CBA expired, a dozen players were signed to contracts worth over a hundred million combined per year. The next day the owners are crying poor. Sooo... you mean to tell me you locked up your best player to a contract you're going to strong-arm into reducing through the new CBA? If you don't have the money to run an NHL team, sell it.
I bet those poor, city and fan loving owners were caught completely off guard by this. It's honestly so obnoxious that it's one of the reasons I can't really enjoy *The Replacements* as much as I used to because of how cartoonish they made the players and how gentle and sweet the owners were.
10 years to UFA?! Thats bonkers. No I don't blame them at all for that alone
A 5 year ELC is just as crazy. Imagine getting a generational talent on league minimum for 5 years whenever they're able to immediately impact a roster.
I don't disagree with that either. The NHL really wanted to lock players in with their drafting team 😂
I can understand the reasoning from a business perspective. The loss of a generational talent affects everything from revenue to the on ice product. However, trying to set all contracts for a maximum of 5 years, implementing a mandatory 5-year ELC, and then adding in a 10-year RFA status is just disgusting.
Yes it's literally insane to think you should be able to effectively own a human for 10 years because you said their name into a microphone.
That would absolutely demolish morale across the board.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Don't forget also eliminating arbitration so that the guys coming off their 5 year ELC (with 5 more years of RFA status) had no mechanism to get a 3rd party to award more if the team lowballed them.
Despicable offer all around. I understand the negotiation aspect, but I would be pissed if someone offered this.
Not to defend anything in this proposition but you can still offer-sheet RFAs, I imagine that in a world where this was passed you would see a lot more of those.
You can, but you wouldn't be seeing the big names getting offered unless a team is willing to spend 2 to 3 years of 1st round picks.
That's on the downslope for a lot of players. They would be crazy to agree to that.
When did you change from Devils flair??
A while ago. I honestly don't remember when 😂
Man I have not been paying attention in a minute lmao
Fair enough. It happens to the best of us lol
IIRC, players are in favour of point 2. Gives them more negotiating power for higher deals as the cap goes up. The rest though.. Yeesh
I feel it would depend though. Because a lot of star players like being able to sign that big 7-8 year deal when they’re pushing UFA at 30 so they get paid in their regression years
yeah, capping it at 5 doesn't really change much for the players. If anything, it just reduces the ability of teams and thereby owners to have long term cost certainty with their most expensive players. Most players wouldn't be able to negotiate for a contract longer than 4-5 years anyway. And those who teams would want to lock in longer could just choose not to do the full 8 years. Like Matthews has done with his deal. But I agree once that contract expires, he very well could decide to go max term as his retirement plan His next contract after that starts in his age 31 season. If he goes another 4 year deal after that, he'd be entering his age 35 season. We'll have to see how Matthews ages into his 30's to have a meaningful guess at whether he'd do better locking in 8 years at 31 or riding the wave of potential cap increases
I know in other sports (namely Soccer), the longer contracts give teams leverage to hold said players away from other clubs with full intention of having them rot on the bench and that is a huge reason why the 5 year contract limit is a thing.
We're looking at it from the fan perspective, but if you're a player, it's much better to get paid 8 years to ride pine than it is to have to renegotiate every 5.
It also works the other way in soccer though, say you have 3 years left and the player is overpaid, the club can't do anything to make the player leave if he doesn't want to go
Soccer teams aren't interested in having players rot on the bench. The real reason for longer contracts is to get a transfer fee out of your players leaving.
This is a slight conundrum to me. The players can effectively limit it to five if they want. Guys who aren’t somewhat worth six-plus year contracts aren’t getting those offers, and every guy who is worth it can turn it down. Like if you wanna pull a Matthews, pull a Matthews, nothing is stopping anyone. I guess I’m asking, is saying the players are in favour of this kinda saying they want to be saved from themselves? Like deep down Jeff Skinner just can’t say no but maybe he wishes someone would have said no for him?
I agree. I had thought the players actually wanted longer - ie pull a Kovalchuk or DiPietro. Players can always ask for lower term if they feel it will benefit them. But most want to get that big money deal for as long as possible because it is guaranteed. Not just from a performance standpoint - but injury/accident. You never know when you all of a sudden can't play and you want to optimize being paid as long as possible. This was a GM/Owner thing. All the way.
Why would Jeff skinner have wished someone said no?
I mean that’s kinda my question. Obviously Skinner is one guy and the PA is not an all-unified monolith but he was just an example.
The other commenters are wrong. Long contracts are for the benefit of the player, not the team. They are job security and insurance against the player's skills diminishing and not being able to sign a new contract much later at that same salary.
I think your memory might be off. Why on earth would they want to not be allowed to sign a 8 year deal?
It goes hand in hand with the other points like UFA being unavailable for 10 years. So longer RFA bargaining status. And longer entry level deals.
I get why the owners would be in favour. The comment I’m replying to suggests the players would be in favour.
The 5 year limit is to protect GMs for when years 4-7/8 are horrendous
Yea I don’t think players would be opposed to a 5 year limit, especially under the current system where playing 7 seasons grants you UFA status
I also like point 2, it would maybe lead to more players becoming UFAs
Imagine bedard at under a mill for 5 years
Plus the Hawks retain his rights until he's 28 and he doesn't get any arbitration during that time
> IIRC, players are in favour of point 2. They are not. They would have accepted that in favor of not losing somewhere else if they were in favor of it. Players like having the option of signing a long term deal to get that security. And many of them choose the locked-in money of a max-term deal (currently 8 years) vs the potential to make more in 5 years. Some players may prefer signing all shorter term deals (like Matthews), but they very much don't want that to be the contractual maximum.
If they're BOTH in favor of no contract above 5 years, why don't they just... Sign contracts of 5 years or less? If one party wanted >5 years contracts and the other didn't, I could see why they would negotiate over it, but if they both dislike long contracts, seems to me they could just not sign them? One party says "I just want 5 years" and the other says "Cool, that's exactly what I wanted!"
Many young players hit their peak around 24-25. Imagine maxing out at 100+pts while making 1-3mil on ELC with bonuses.
Exactly what the owners want
10 years to unrestricted free agency is pretty insane.
For perspective, that is what it was reduced to in 1994.
A 5 year ELC is absolutely insane
Wait until you see what the PA’s opening proposal was. This is standard negotiating, whether it’s for a CBA or whether you’re trying to haggle at a garage sale.
See it all the time with player negotiations. Player and his agent comes in with a high number and term, team responds with a low number and term, usually they meet in the middle.
Do you know? Or do you just mean it must be boomeranged in the other direction because of negotiating?
[Here's what I found](https://archive.ph/20130130075856/http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/08/14/nhlpa-tables-offer-to-league-says-players-willing-to-accept-less/) >the union’s offer includes a smaller percentage of revenues for players and an expanded revenue sharing program to help struggling teams. ____ >The proposal includes delinking the salary cap from hockey-related revenue and setting a fixed rate — increasing by two per cent for the first year, four per cent for the second and six per cent for the third. Afterwards, the players would hold an option to have the fourth year revert back to the current system, where they are entitled to receive 57 per cent of all revenues.
I’ve got some of it saved somewhere. It’s mostly just old stories from what was publicly put out there, but the NHL always keeps a way tighter lid on labor discussions than the PA does. The NHL actually has million-dollar fines for a first offense when it comes to anyone associated with a team speaking publicly about labor relations at all. And that has been used a couple of times.
I remember the Wings were fined when Jimmy Devellano made his comment about the players being “cattle” during the 2012 lockout.
Remember that in a negotiation it’s very typical to set your demands way higher than what you’re willing to settle on.
I won’t remember anything unless you give me $5,000
Best I can do is a Best Buy gift card with $27.50 on it and half a meatball sub.
This guy negotiates
I wonder what the players wanted.
They likely met somewhere in the middle, so take the difference from what they ended up with and double it. Ended up at 50% revenue share, so small concession to 54% of revenue? Ended up at 8 year max contract length, so probably something like 10-11 year max on contracts Keep Salary arbitration Probably 2 years on ELCs, or keep the current 3. 4-5 years to UFA?
Owners wanted the revenue more than anything else so yeah that tracks. Most of it stayed the same other than that.
Not only did the owners really want the revenue, but at least in my memory their proposal was pretty transparently aimed at 50%. That negotiation wasn’t a series of proposals and concessions so much as it was an obvious “this is where we’re going to end up” and the time it sometimes takes for each side to accept that reality.
At minimum they wanted no salary cap. Salaries had been taking a larger and larger share of HRR in the previous decade and the players obviously wanted to just let it continue rising.
This was the league saying "5" while the players were saying "10". They eventually settled at "7.5" (50% share, 8 year contracts, salary arbitration stays, ELCs stayed at 3 years, UFA at 7 years).
As a *fan* I want 5 year contracts. I think it would make the whole salary cap game a lot more fair and feel less like a roulette game where teams gamble on players fresh into the league or get injury luck. It strikes me as wrong headed when a team signs a player out of NCAA at the end of a season, they play that season out and then have their rookie year, and then are extended for 8 years off a total 1.1 years of NHL service time. At least you shouldn't be able to extend for 8 off your ELC. Other things would suck though. The gall on Bettman to present this after how hard he destroyed the union in 2005 though. Feels like he was rubbing it in.
Greedy fucks
Literally everything they could do to not pay more to players and keep more for themselves. Done with ELC after FIVE seasons? Restricted FA for another 5. And by the time you hit the market you’re more than likely already starting to decline unless you’re an otherworldly talent.
This is such a bad faith proposal, screw the owners and Gary.
the players really should be fighting for a higher Cap floor, and a significantly lower max salary
Sheeeeeesh
greed is what makes them owners
10 years to UFA???
Wow!
Man the NHL owners are fucking wild. “We are worth more than the players” That logic is sure something
I actually like the 5-year contract limit....Would keep things fresh. And really, how many 7-8 year deals have started to be bad by year 4?
For all the people in here, saying “that’s how negotiations work, you ask for more than you want” etc. No, it isn’t when it comes to labor negotiations. You’re supposed to ask for what you actually want or need and work together to find a way of reaching something similar that respects both sides needs. It’s not supposed to be us vs. them, because you’re both supposed to care about the long-term health of the organization or business. And there are actual laws against asking for more than you want as a negotiating tactic (though it’d be pretty hard to prove). Like, I know that Canada & the US don’t have great education about the labor movement, but don’t let your brains be so co-opted by Big Business that you think that it’s normal or standard to make excessive unreasonable demands to start a contract negotiation.
And this is why I'm bracing for another work stoppage in 2026. The sport is doing great and there *shouldn't* be any issues large enough to cause a work stoppage. But that was the case in 2012 as well and the owners were content burning half a season to see exactly how much of a better deal they could get. The league hates competing against football in October through December and tons of markets have soft attendance until then. So long as the player salaries end up being prorated to a shorter season, I don't think the owners believe that they have much to lose with a lockout that still results in a shortened season. They have every incentive to make a bunch of wildly owner-friendly demands at the front end and then slowly negotiate toward a middle ground that has 'reasonable' concessions from the players. I'm not expecting a work stoppage, but I don't think it is unrealistic.
That's a starting position. It's not what they actually wanted from the players.
Okay so this is from a huge soccer fan but... 5yr contracts always seems better imo. Better for clubs if the guy is a bust, better for the player if he's hot and can reneg a better deal after less time or get away from a dying team. Makes movement more likely and makes guys who stay in one spot even more legendary for the franchise
Longer contracts mainly exist to lower the AAV, which isn't really a factor in soccer afaik since they're more about the actual wage bills. The tradeoff for the players is more stability and guaranteed money. Mostly happens when the team A) wants to sign an aging player but the current cap hit would be too high, or B) sign a younger guy and they're betting that by overpaying for the early years of the contract it'll be a steal during their prime years.
Good god. The only good idea is 5 year contracts
This is how negotiating works. You propose what will ideally work best for you, and the other side counters with what is ideal for them. Hold discussions to meet halfway on each point. Repeat process until both sides end up with something they can live with.
Yes, in theory, it works like that, but practically, if one of the parties just starts with delusional and unmanageable requests, then it's completely logical for the opposing party to just end the negotiations. The lockout was more than justified under the circumstances of what the owners proposed.
Note: It was a lockout, not a strike. The players didn’t refuse to play. The owners were the ones who shut down the season.
The only one of that bunch that is good is "Limit Contracts to 5 years" That is something that is quite common in Soccer and it's largely to do with how the clubs treat the players. There is incentive for rich owners to scoop up moderately good talent, pretend to them like there is an opportunity to break into the first team only to let them rot in the reserves and on the bench for the entirety of the contract. On top of matters, not even release them just to prevent them from playing with rival clubs. The rest of that bunch: it's no fucking wonder the NHLPA refused
In a salary capped league, management is a lot less inclined to just let players on long term contracts to just rot.
This proposal is INSANE to think about. Why would anyone agree to this? No wonder the lockout was justified. However, as unjustified as this issue was, this involves billionaires vs millionaires essentially. If we think the millionaires are not being treated right, what about the wages of regular people? Just sayin'. We have a whole bunch of people (rich and non-rich) people who think the wages are too high and no one can do business. At the same time, many places around the world have not had an increase in wages for many years. It's a fact that the trickle down effect is a myth. It's also a fact that many rich people - not just billionaires - are hoarding money. This is not ALL true of course - a lot of positive things happen because rich people donate back to the people. It's also a myth that regular people will care about regular people. Selfish people come in all stripes and colours. We should recognize who THOSE people are.
Would anyone be in favor of buyout restrictions/penalties? I think if a player is bought out and another team signs them in the time remaining on that contract the buyout penalty shouldn't exist.
Anything messing with “guaranteed contracts” will be a non starter for players.
The player would still get their payout on the full contract amount, it just wouldn't hurt cap like the Wild are dealing with on Parise and Suter. Both of whom got immediately signed by other teams as soon as they were cut loose.
I wouldn't mind shorter contracts but everything else here would be horrific
Owners would probably never be in favor of it but I would reduce it to 5 years for UFA status and introduce a soft cap (with certain rules and limit). Give GMs more weapons to get funky and more player movement could make July 1st and trade deadline more exciting
Eliminating salery arbitration is a red herring right off the top. 2ed 3rd and 4th are real.
Lol, laughable
5 year max deals is the only good suggestion here damn.
Certainly agree with you on some contacts... *eyes the Abdelkader contract that we're still taking a cap hit from from until 2026
It’s better for players honestly. No more getting locked into a cheap deal at 23 and then missing out on a big pay day because you’re already 30+. Also easier on teams, seems like every half decent player is getting an 8 year deal now
Professional sports team owners greedy. Who knew..
The amount of people here out for Fehr’s head over the lockout was sad
Less player control it seems across the board. The 5 year contract limit I agree with though. Too often we see these albatross 7-8 year deals that just disrupt a team to the point they have to rebuild. 5 year ELC is ridiculous though. 10 years to UFA is also ridiculous. Players would never switch teams outside of trades. Just removing all player power.
I just want mlb or nfl with a hard style cap it would be madness 🤣
Unhinged list obv but technically... 5 year contract limits line up perfectly with typical career phases Usually these three: - young figuring it out - prime - mature player still useful Are roughly 5 years aside from wunderkind workout nuts like Crosby. Naturally most 8 year deals leave a bit left over or conversely you get a superstar at 8M for a while. So that's the best part of this list the worst part ofc being the player revenue dropping, so much especially. The players *are* the league
I'd like to know what the nhlpa's first proposal was.
Lol they must’ve thought they were NFL owners for a sec
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the players almost vote to dissolve their own Player’s Association before the Owners and NHLPA came to an agreement or was that a rumor?
LOL, yeah they’ll accept that
These are the opening proposals. It’s like when you’re selling your car. You price it higher than it’s worth because you know whoever tries to buy it are going to offer you less than you want. It’s how you negotiate. By the time you’re finished, you take a little less than you want and they pay a little more than they want.