The NHL Salary Cap Exposed
Did anyone ever really believe that the NHL lockout was all about saving the low-budget teams? That the salary cap would be a security blanket for towns like Edmonton and Ottawa, allowing them to build dynasties instead of watching their stars run away to the Big Bad Rangers and Fat Cat Red Wings? Apparently, some folks did.
After dismantling a big chunk of the roster that recorded 113 points last season, the general manager in Ottawa knows better. He told the Ottawa Sun that the salary cap is designed to kill elite teams.
Senators GM John Muckler told reporters that fans had better get used to the fact that under the CBA there are going to moves where the club doesn't get players of equal value in return.
"This is the new collective bargaining agreement and I guess we're being punished because we have too many strong players," said Muckler. "When you have a cap system, you are going to have movement."
The fat cats aren't happy either. Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press warns the Hockeytown faithful that the Red Wings are no longer the Yankees of the NHL.
The New NHL, remember, was designed to do a few things: speed up the game, send somebody to the penalty box every 12.7 seconds and keep high-revenue teams like the Wings from dominating forever...
Get used to it, Wings fans. One hundred-point seasons are no longer a given. And when the Wings send a young, low-salaried defenseman out on the ice, remember that everybody does that. That's how the league works now.
What this summer's player movement proves is that salary caps are all about enforced mediocrity, a system that eliminates very good and very bad teams, forcing everyone to the middle. By limiting salaries and giving poor teams a chance to rebuild quickly, it also helps maximize revenues.
That doesn't necessarily make it better or worse than the pre-lockout system, or any other economic structure. But it is what it is.
Comments
I love how the Ottawa Senators are blaming the salary cap for the dismantling of their team. It seems to me that this team has never spent $44M on payroll pre-lockout so it is hard to believe the Sens would have kept the likes of Chara, who probably would have been signed for $9M per year under the old system and Havlat if the salary cap did not exist. But hey, I guess now Melnyk can say it is the salary cap that is responsible for the Sens not retaining their key players versus his unwillingness pay them.
HockeyGuy…. I’m glad someone else sees it.
Melnyk would have had to spend north of $60M to keep his entire team together under the old system and we all know that would have never happened.
Too many people take what Tom Benjamin says as gospel without really thinking it through themselves…
The point is not whether the Senators would have paid to keep the roster together under the old system, or whether this version of the team is even worth keeping together. The point is that under the new CBA those choices no longer exist. For better or worse, the partial dismantling of a team like Ottawa is now legislated.
It doesn’t matter if there’s a salary cap or not because the same thing happens every season, they choke in the playoffs!
What’s the problem with the salary cap?
You want people to feel sorry for the Sens or Wings???
No more guaranteed 100 point seasons? Who cares?
No more teams who have to sell their best players because of the economic realities of their market?
Everyone should care.
Parity?
Finally.
NOBODY wants a situation like they have in baseball where the Yanks and Red Sox spend a $200M in salaries.
MOST people however do seem to like the NFL system (some even the NBA system). Each of these successful leagues have a cap.
Enforced mediocrity? No. Enforced economic sanity? Yes.
If there’s “parity” in the league, why are my beloved, lowly Flyers wallowing in the basement of, well, the league with 24 points with guys like Forsberg and Gagne?! Oh, because Clarke “burnt out” and couldn’t (or wouldn’t) find appropriate talent for the new NHL. BAH!!!
You just said that the salary cap is doing exactly what it was intended to do, but stated that what it is intended to do is not a good thing.
God for bid we change this sport into a sport instead of a game of Monopoly.
Ottawa and Edmonton could not keep their teams together before so they are really just blaming the salary cap for their own situations. Let’s cry for a team that has Alfredsson, Spezza, and, Heatley, just to name a few.
Everyone will have these choices to make. You think Buffalo is going to be able to sign all their players and remain under the cap? Not going to happen but they’ll make due. Oh and they already lost McKee and Dupont this past season and some how the still go on.
Detroit is at this time 2pts behind Nashville for the top of their division … oh AND THEY PLAYED IN 2 LESS GAMES. They have given up the least amount of goals in the league and are 5th in the league after winning the Presidents trophy last year so let’s cry for them and the Rangers who are second in their division with 2 of the top players in the league, Jagr and Shannahan.
What the salary cap has done is allow hockey teams who can play as a TEAM compete with teams that can PAY for a team … Detroit isn’t going to suffer much because they play hockey.
The league now belongs to organizations not owners. It’s for teams that have good coaching, players, GM and scouting staff instead of the team with the deepest pockets and copy of the leagues leading scorers.
Besides this is a business and the league wants to get more fans in the seats it only makes sense to fill seats that don’t already have butts in them. People don’t like losing teams in their cities. They won’t even follow the league to go see when Detroit is coming to town. But when you have a team that competes you want to see them compete against the best, and there will be seats empty when those cellar dwellers come to town, because they don’t have the world class players the top teams can afford with out a salary cap.
Pittsburgh is a prime example. Mario, Jagr, Crosby equal attendance. They draw fans in a non-hockey town. If they can’t afford to keep players like this then there is not attendance and the team fails and the league loses a market. The league wants superstars on these small markets because they draw fans and make those markets more stable and they grow the market and generate life long hockey fans like Ryan Malone and RJ Umberger. Kids will grow up watching and playing hockey, be life long fans, and someday these small markets might have a following as large as Canadian teams have.
It’s good for the sport even if an elite team has to lose one or two of its’ half dozen elite players.
This is retarded. The Red Wings didn’t go out and just buy players, they went out and recruited overseas and also drafted well enough. Their payroll was high becuase they kepted their players and this is how the NHL should be. I missed seen players stay on a team for 10-15 years. It was great! Now they just go to whom ever pays the most, which has ruined the NFL. Players can’t stay and retire with their team because of this.