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Post by Shamrockville on Aug 4, 2023 18:51:55 GMT -7
Y'all know I love me some Tom Wilson and all, but wtf is with all these crazy long extensions for older players? I mean 7 years for Wilson seems a pretty long stretch, even for a 25-30 goal scoring power forward that's going to be 36 by the end of that contract.
I've seen quite a few of these contracts that will take guys into the mid to late 30's and can't figure out why teams are doing so.
I know the cap is expected to rise so some of these contracts may seem not as bad further down the road, but 6+ million for guys 34-38 seems like bad business no?
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Post by nash on Aug 4, 2023 20:41:43 GMT -7
When I look back I think Wilson's is a bit tough, but mainly because of his age. He's probably a unicorn in the NHL, so you have to pay for that now.
Some of the other big contracts are below:
Troy Terry. 7x7 isn't terrible for a youngish guy on a really bad team.
Aho is 8x9.75. Top player so has to be paid. Is still young
Dunn is 4x7.35. Only 4 years so isn't going to ding you if he doesn't repeat.
Jarry is 5x5.375. Probably too long and too high but Pittsburgh knows him so maybe they know more than me.
Sorokin 8x8.25. Seems well worth it. Especially for a team that relies on their goalie.
PL Dubois 8x8.5. Same as Horvat but I like Horvat better. Seems less of a whiner.
Generally I think the trend has become you save money on the bottom end of your lineup and invest it on the top end. That means you're going to overpay some of the top end.
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Post by QC Mike on Aug 4, 2023 21:21:58 GMT -7
For the older players I also think you need to look at what would the buyout/cap hit look like for their last two seasons. I think a lot of GMs when signing FAs look at older players with almost no intention of honouring the last couple of seasons unless the player find a fountain of youth and plays at a higher level longer than expected. If the cap keeps going up having a few million in dead money won't be that big a price to pay for having had that star player for 4-5 years and those big bucks were necessary to get them through the door.
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Post by nash on Aug 23, 2023 19:46:12 GMT -7
So Matthews just signed for 4 x 13.25.
I think Matthews is great, but I think this is definitely an overpay. MacKinnon makes 12.6 signed last year for longer term. I would prefer MacKinnon to Matthews at these numbers and term.
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amack17
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Post by amack17 on Aug 24, 2023 9:50:26 GMT -7
I think this is the nature of the sports business, and we will see it a bunch with the cap going up so significantly over the next few years. The next big name star to sign will likely surpass Matthews, whether or not he actually deserves it. Look at the NFL QB contracts. Consistently, the newest contract becomes the richest in the league. Whether it's Draisaitl or McDavid or whomever, the next big name to come up will come in at $14 million and the next $14.25 and so on.
I would imagine that if this is what he signed he was offered a higher cap hit for more term, but he is probably betting on himself and anticipating one more big payday.
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Post by Oxford United on Aug 24, 2023 10:14:52 GMT -7
If it helps, this contract is the same % of team cap as MacKinnon’s was when signed. I think both are bargains.
One day NHL stars will start demanding what they’re worth.
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amack17
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Post by amack17 on Aug 24, 2023 11:00:41 GMT -7
Indeed, look at the top earners in other sports and tell me McDavid isn't criminally underpaid.
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Post by nash on Aug 24, 2023 11:28:52 GMT -7
If it helps, this contract is the same % of team cap as MacKinnon’s was when signed. I think both are bargains. One day NHL stars will start demanding what they’re worth. I'd take Aho at 8x9.75 over Matthews at 4x13.25 knowing I'd have to give Matthews 4 x 15.25 in 4 years. I'm not sure I agree about your statement on NHL stars. They only impact 33% of the game. Toronto is a good example of how the top heavy roster has a bit more trouble succeeding. |
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Post by Shamrockville on Aug 24, 2023 12:46:37 GMT -7
In any team sport, if you devote over 50% of your cap to 1/6th of your roster, you are not going to be a championship team. Deficiencies in the other 5/6 of the team can't be glossed over or replaced by that top 1/6 over a long term span.
Comparing different sports is fairly pointless since they vary so much in how an individual can impact a game, in my opinion.
It's more the mentality to me, in that your supposed team leaders are more consistently seeking numbers that cripple the team as a whole. Just for example, if each of the "Core 4" in Toronto took 1.5 million less, they'd have another 6 million to help their roster in areas that everyone knows are weaknesses. And let's be honest here, that's still going to be ~ 9 million (assuming Nylander also comes in over 10 million) per year, per player. Is that such a huge difference that you couldn't possibly live on that? Would it really make that much difference in their monetary portfolios?
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amack17
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Post by amack17 on Aug 24, 2023 13:05:36 GMT -7
Or, the other option is that the owners could allow the cap to grow at a reasonable rate, the league is making money hand over fist, but the cap remains stagnant. Bettman is a clown and his hard cap is not helping the league.
Teams will build their rosters in different ways, some want the star players, others want complete rosters, both approaches have merit, one will win playoff games, one will maximize revenue.
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Post by Shamrockville on Aug 24, 2023 14:09:40 GMT -7
The cap was put in to save the league. It means that you can't have the NY Yankees winning every 2nd year because their owners have deeper pockets.
There are teams like that in the NHL too, where owners would just buy the cups, and some smaller market teams couldn't compete. You want to grow the game, not stagnate it to a cash drop to win.
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Post by nash on Aug 24, 2023 18:27:45 GMT -7
In any team sport, if you devote over 50% of your cap to 1/6th of your roster, you are not going to be a championship team. Deficiencies in the other 5/6 of the team can't be glossed over or replaced by that top 1/6 over a long term span. Comparing different sports is fairly pointless since they vary so much in how an individual can impact a game, in my opinion. It's more the mentality to me, in that your supposed team leaders are more consistently seeking numbers that cripple the team as a whole. Just for example, if each of the "Core 4" in Toronto took 1.5 million less, they'd have another 6 million to help their roster in areas that everyone knows are weaknesses. And let's be honest here, that's still going to be ~ 9 million (assuming Nylander also comes in over 10 million) per year, per player. Is that such a huge difference that you couldn't possibly live on that? Would it really make that much difference in their monetary portfolios? For me it is the responsibility of the owners to manage the salary structure. Players should try and get what they can and the owners need to push back if it is going to make the team not competitive. |
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Post by QC Mike on Aug 24, 2023 21:24:33 GMT -7
Or, the other option is that the owners could allow the cap to grow at a reasonable rate, the league is making money hand over fist, but the cap remains stagnant. Bettman is a clown and his hard cap is not helping the league. Teams will build their rosters in different ways, some want the star players, others want complete rosters, both approaches have merit, one will win playoff games, one will maximize revenue. Cap was flat because it's based on 50% of "hockey revenues". The players accepted the flat cap rather than see the cap roll back to the $60s in 2021 and then the $50s in 2022 with COVID restrictions wiping out revenue in the preceding seasons. Cap crept up until that difference was made up by agreement with the NHLPA |
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Post by amack17 on Aug 25, 2023 8:01:13 GMT -7
Or, the other option is that the owners could allow the cap to grow at a reasonable rate, the league is making money hand over fist, but the cap remains stagnant. Bettman is a clown and his hard cap is not helping the league. Teams will build their rosters in different ways, some want the star players, others want complete rosters, both approaches have merit, one will win playoff games, one will maximize revenue. Cap was flat because it's based on 50% of "hockey revenues". The players accepted the flat cap rather than see the cap roll back to the $60s in 2021 and then the $50s in 2022 with COVID restrictions wiping out revenue in the preceding seasons. Cap crept up until that difference was made up by agreement with the NHLPA I understand the excuses reasons why the cap did not grow the last few years, however, you can not convince me that the cap is a good thing in any regard. We do not see a more competitively balanced league because of it, previous history shows us that teams being able to spend whatever they want is not a match for building a winning team as any Leafs/Rangers/Blackhawks/Bruins fans can easily attest to. Ultimately, the salary cap was put in place because the billionaire owners are so bad with money that they needed protection from themselves? The only other league that has a hard cap is the NFL, both the NBA and the MLB are set up as luxury tax/soft cap systems. When Gary took over the league was primed to be the third biggest sport in North America, since then there have been numerous lockouts to "protect the owners" that have destroyed much of the league, even many hardcore fans gave up and went in other directions for entertainment. Now, the NHL is in position that the MLS is going to pass them by. It's a shame, because this sport is so great, so fast and so entertaining and bush league stuff like the hard salary cap are doing nothing but hurting the longevity of the league (not to mention squeezing out the middle and bottom six skaters and sending them overseas to make their living). Thanks for coming to my TED talk. |
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Post by QC Mike on Aug 25, 2023 11:57:28 GMT -7
Cap was flat because it's based on 50% of "hockey revenues". The players accepted the flat cap rather than see the cap roll back to the $60s in 2021 and then the $50s in 2022 with COVID restrictions wiping out revenue in the preceding seasons. Cap crept up until that difference was made up by agreement with the NHLPA I understand the excuses reasons why the cap did not grow the last few years, however, you can not convince me that the cap is a good thing in any regard. We do not see a more competitively balanced league because of it, previous history shows us that teams being able to spend whatever they want is not a match for building a winning team as any Leafs/Rangers/Blackhawks/Bruins fans can easily attest to. Ultimately, the salary cap was put in place because the billionaire owners are so bad with money that they needed protection from themselves? The only other league that has a hard cap is the NFL, both the NBA and the MLB are set up as luxury tax/soft cap systems. When Gary took over the league was primed to be the third biggest sport in North America, since then there have been numerous lockouts to "protect the owners" that have destroyed much of the league, even many hardcore fans gave up and went in other directions for entertainment. Now, the NHL is in position that the MLS is going to pass them by. It's a shame, because this sport is so great, so fast and so entertaining and bush league stuff like the hard salary cap are doing nothing but hurting the longevity of the league (not to mention squeezing out the middle and bottom six skaters and sending them overseas to make their living). Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I'll admit that a good portion of the cap was to keep stupid owners from blowing themselves up but the other large part of that puzzle was to keep small market teams relevant and alive. MLB and the NBA don't have hard caps on their salaries but they also have teams that are irrelevant in terms of the playoffs. Can't afford and wouldn't be able to lure FAs to their market so they take their TV $$$ and field a team of wanna-bes that they hope to trade for more draft picks and prospects that they can repeat the process with. Don't care about the fans because gate receipts don't move the needle enough to justify the expense. Occasionally they catch lightning in a bottle (Guardians) but they often just languish in the basement (Oakland). Since the NHL doesn't get $1B per team from their TV deals they might care about the on ice product a bit more since the gate would help but if that was to happen I'd be tempted to take the Canadian and small market teams and put them in their own division/conference so they wouldn't always be lottery teams. |
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