2012/2013 Salary Cap

[Rob]

This might be a futile suggestion but please try to vote based on what's best for the league instead of what's best for your team.  The results here are non-binding, I'm just trying to gauge opinion on this.  Please post your reason for voting either way. 

[E.J.]

I think yes. Why, beacuse you will see less decent players get cut due to bad contracts, then them going for cheaper over waivers/fa.

[GypsieDeathBringer]

I say yes, but based on if the NHL salary cap increases.  That way the league can kind of stay in touch with the NHL.  So, if the NHL raises their cap by 1m we would raise ours by the current ratio of 70m(our cap)/64.3m(nhl cap) or 1.088m.  Already starting off with 70m has made it pretty easy to field a 30 man roster.

[snugerud]

I would say yes and no. 

No, because i think that the cap will take care of itself in the next 1 to 2 seasons.  people will set players values themselves through the Free Agency and having a lower cap will create more churn on players and having a more exciting league because teams can drastically change from year to year. 

On the other hand Yes, because honestly my strategy going into the next off season was to extend maybe 4 or 5 players.  The rest I felt I could land cheaper alternatives through the free agency bidding process.  Which i think says the renewals on players contracts are too high compared to the market value on FA.

I personally find FA the most fun of the year its where you make and break your team.  You get a bargain, so for that reason i would lean towards no. 

[snugerud]

i dont know carolina,  most teams i am looking at are pretty cap crunch and the only way they are staying under is by fielding half of their active roster with prospects.  I will hand it to you, st. louis and a couple others that had the foresight to see a Free agency easy picking for those with money.  You managed your 30 man roster easily because you got some ridiculous bargains in FA that would not have happened if most teams were not completely cap crunched. 

However,

The more i think about it, i am a NO.  Most of the "bad contracts" will have disappeared by 13/14 at the latest.  If you still have a bad contract on the books by then it is probably your own fault.  So by increasing the cap even more it will only lead to almost all players being extended and leaving a very weak FA each year. 

I dont think it's a good idea to increase when the NHL increases either since our extensions have nothing to do with players actual nhl salaries. 

[Rob]

I say yes, but based on if the NHL salary cap increases.  That way the league can kind of stay in touch with the NHL.  So, if the NHL raises their cap by 1m we would raise ours by the current ratio of 70m(our cap)/64.3m(nhl cap) or 1.088m.  Already starting off with 70m has made it pretty easy to field a 30 man roster.

Not a bad idea keeping ourselves relatively in-line with the NHL, though if we do that we'll also want to update extension prices on a yearly basis to keep them consistent with the NHL as well.  If we keep our extension prices constant then there's really no need to increase the cap; our market will differ from the NHL but it will be consistent with our cap.  Though, like Jared mentioned the cap will take care of itself as our bidding will flesh out the market. 

I know a lot of us are tight but our inherited rosters are a big part of this.  The question going forward is does the cap make sense relative to our extension prices?  FA bidding will take care of itself but if our extension prices are too high, forcing managers to release players they would otherwise extend in order to get them cheaper in FA, then we need to address it either on the cap side or the extension side. 

[snugerud]

I really think this a vote that would be better addressed after next years Free Agency.  I dont think this years Free Agency was a good indicator since most of our players are still based on NHL contract and nothing to do with our extension guild lines.

Someone would have to sit down and run through every player on their team as if they needed to extend them this year and see where their cap works out.  That would probably give you the best indicator.

I dont have time to do that right now but wouldnt mind sitting down some evening and hashing it out for a few of the teams. 

[Rob]

Another variable regarding extension prices is, if we keep them constant, in time they'll start to make less sense.  The extension prices right now are based on actual NHL salaries per position, loosely.  If in 5 years there's less good defensemen, more good LW's, etc etc, our prices won't represent what's out there very accurately.  We should aim to have salaries for players acquired through FA and extended players be relatively in-line.  Right now it's hard to tell if things will shake out this way or not.  It's unavoidably lopsided right now with inherited contracts.  If we think things will even out over time, we shouldn't change the cap.  If we think this won't even out, we should make a change.

[Rob]

I really think this a vote that would be better addressed after next years Free Agency.  I dont think this years Free Agency was a good indicator since most of our players are still based on NHL contract and nothing to do with our extension guild lines.

Completely agree.  I voted No on the poll for this reason exactly.

[GypsieDeathBringer]

  Yep, just like the real NHL.  Some teams spend big on resigning players and get into a bad cap situation leaving teams that didn't sign those big money guys to duke it out in the FA.  I could've resigned Cole, Pitkanen and Jokinen before the draft but that would've cost me almost 16m.  The teams that got boned the most Penguins, Bruins, Blackhawks who had a bunch of people with inherited contracts still faired pretty well and have good teams now through trades and the draft.  It is all in the strategy and we'll see whose pays off when the season starts. 

I mainly just thought we should raise the cap, so that next years free agency you don't have such low ball contracts.  Koivu for 3m a year, Weber got half of what he got in the real world, just thought it would help out there.