Players moving overseas

[Rob]

Someone asked about this and there seems to be a gray area.  Right now if a player moves to the KHL or some other league overseas you are still responsible for their contract unless they are 35 years old and are gone for at least a year.

This presents two problems:

1)  Odds are that player is going to be bought out before they're gone for 1 year, which makes the free drop useless since buyout money can't be nulled out.

2)  Whether the player officially retires or not to move overseas is semantics.  Ilya Kovalchuck is a good example since he was signed through next century, yet since he officially retired his money is off of Colorado's books.

I think the rule we have is pointless and I'm thinking players who move overseas should be treated the same as retired players and have their contracts nulled out.  Thoughts?

[snugerud]

I agree the rule doesnt really serve much purpose but i am opposite in thinking on the considering the contract null and void. 

My opinion is that we should consider changing the retirement rule.  There is already way too much available cap in the league and I think if you sign a player like alfy or Timmonen like I did full well knowing that they are probably going to retire next year we should be on the hook for their salary.   

I say simplify things , straight across the board 66.66% buyout no matter what happens with a player.  We still have the option to use available cash towards our buyouts at the end of the season which is already a huge cap management tool. 

[Rob]

I agree the rule doesnt really serve much purpose but i am opposite in thinking on the considering the contract null and void. 

My opinion is that we should consider changing the retirement rule.  There is already way too much available cap in the league and I think if you sign a player like alfy or Timmonen like I did full well knowing that they are probably going to retire next year we should be on the hook for their salary.   

I say simplify things , straight across the board 66.66% buyout no matter what happens with a player.  We still have the option to use available cash towards our buyouts at the end of the season which is already a huge cap management tool.

Wiping out free drops for retirees is a good solution too.  There is a lot of extra cap space out there so I kinda like this idea.  I know that's going to change with the cap decrease, but overall I do think the cap hasn't been a strong enough factor in this league. 

[shooter47]

I agree the rule doesnt really serve much purpose but i am opposite in thinking on the considering the contract null and void. 

My opinion is that we should consider changing the retirement rule.  There is already way too much available cap in the league and I think if you sign a player like alfy or Timmonen like I did full well knowing that they are probably going to retire next year we should be on the hook for their salary.   

I say simplify things , straight across the board 66.66% buyout no matter what happens with a player.  We still have the option to use available cash towards our buyouts at the end of the season which is already a huge cap management tool.

There is a lot of available cap space in the league right now but the Salary cap is also too high right now. When it drops 7M next year there will be some teams that will have to make some tough decisions on resigns (Including my Blues). Personally I don't mind the retirement rule as players can choose to retire from the NHL at any time and as a GM I have no control over that. Some guys hang on for years after they should be retired and other players seem to leave the game early. A team that has a player like kovalachuk leave while signed to a big contract would be forced to deal with losing a star player to retirement while at the same time still having to deal with paying his large salary or the 66% buyout. This seems to penalize those teams a lot and makes it a lot harder to rebuild.

[snugerud]

I did some quick number crunching and right now there is 235.1 million in cap still available between the 20 teams,  even after our decrease next season of 7 million per team ,  we would still have roughly 135 million available.  split between the 20 teams  you still have 6.75 million in available cap space per team. 

I would like to see the  cap playing more of a factor as well.  6.75 is still a lot of space per team. 

[Rob]

Just a thought:  What if we had a cap floor like the NHL does?  This would decrease that $6.75 significantly.

[snugerud]

There is a lot of available cap space in the league right now but the Salary cap is also too high right now. When it drops 7M next year there will be some teams that will have to make some tough decisions on resigns (Including my Blues). Personally I don't mind the retirement rule as players can choose to retire from the NHL at any time and as a GM I have no control over that. Some guys hang on for years after they should be retired and other players seem to leave the game early. A team that has a player like kovalachuk leave while signed to a big contract would be forced to deal with losing a star player to retirement while at the same time still having to deal with paying his large salary or the 66% buyout. This seems to penalize those teams a lot and makes it a lot harder to rebuild.

I would agree and disagree at the same time.  Players can choose to retire at any age and I dont have control over that but as a GM I do have control over the contracts I offer.  If a player is over 35 I am taking that risk of signing him long term vs. a short term contract offer.  If you choose to give him a long term contract to save the cap hit per year you should have to deal the with possibility of them retiring pre-maturely. 

You can also look at the players current NHL contract as an indicator.  Most players will play to the end of their NHL signed contract before they retire. 

Kovalchuk really is an exception to the rule but at the same time I still would have had the option to buy him out and at the end of the season use any of my cap space left available put towards finishing the buyout.    i would be for maybe limiting the cap hit to 3 years after they retire so you arent crippling teams long term. 

[Rob]

I would agree and disagree at the same time.  Players can choose to retire at any age and I dont have control over that but as a GM I do have control over the contracts I offer.  If a player is over 35 I am taking that risk of signing him long term vs. a short term contract offer.  If you choose to give him a long term contract to save the cap hit per year you should have to deal the with possibility of them retiring pre-maturely. 

You can also look at the players current NHL contract as an indicator.  Most players will play to the end of their NHL signed contract before they retire. 

Kovalchuk really is an exception to the rule but at the same time I still would have had the option to buy him out and at the end of the season use any of my cap space left available put towards finishing the buyout.    i would be for maybe limiting the cap hit to 3 years after they retire so you arent crippling teams long term.

There's also several players that we inherited in 2011 that are signed through 2016, 2017, 2018.  If Hossa, Franzen, Luongo, Ovechkin, etc decide to retire their teams would be stuck with the contracts when they didn't sign them in the first place. 

[snugerud]

I always wonder why their contracts didnt get trumped down to a 5 year deal which is the max contract length in Dynasty in the first place.   

There is always a few options in dealing with that, either consider their contracts grandfathered in that if they do retire before their contract ends the rule is applied as it is now. 

You could give any teams holding one of the original monster contracts a one time option to either retain the original contract or have it reduced to the 5 year max starting from when the league started.  (so league started in 2011,  so the contracts would expire 15/16) In most cases it would probably end up more in their favor to reduce it and just extend using the leagues extension rules. 

[Rob]

I always wonder why their contracts didnt get trumped down to a 5 year deal which is the max contract length in Dynasty in the first place.   

There is always a few options in dealing with that, either consider their contracts grandfathered in that if they do retire before their contract ends the rule is applied as it is now. 

You could give any teams holding one of the original monster contracts a one time option to either retain the original contract or have it reduced to the 5 year max starting from when the league started.  (so league started in 2011,  so the contracts would expire 15/16) In most cases it would probably end up more in their favor to reduce it and just extend using the leagues extension rules.

I did cut them all off at 2018.  Else Kovi would have been signed through 2055 or whatever, lol.