Experience Minor Leaguers

[Miku]

I want to discuss putting a cap space limit on our minor league rosters.

Right now as it is some teams are using the minor league to pretty much horde players and use them as trading chips.
With the FA signing period coming up and no waivers what is going to stop teams from getting lots of players and sticking them in their minor league roster with no repercussions? They could do this so that if someone gets injured or use them as players to trade for draft picks etc if teams are in need of players.

I took down numbers of all of the teams minor league players total cap, here are the numbers:

Chicago - 26.3m
Dallas - 21.4m
Montreal - 18m
Ottawa - 14.2m
Los Angeles - 12.8m
Edmonton - 10.8m
Boston - 9.3m
Vancover - 8m
Calgary - 7.7m
New York Rangers - 6.3m
Philadelphia - 5.5m
Detroit - 4.7m
Colorado - 4.5m
Buffalo - 4m
Washington - 1.4m
Toronto - 1m
Columbus - 0
Pittsburgh - 0

92.7m in the top 5 teams alone
155.9m in all teams.

I don't think teams should be able to have half a teams worth of cap or more in their minor league. It makes it so teams can't go to FA get a half decent player and the teams could just save those players, either tradeing them or just make it so no other teams can get them. Those players just sit there being inactive and not moving unless a trade happens due to teams being scared of losing them or the team can't fit the cap space(If you don't have the cap space you probably shouldn't be trading for expensive players). 155.9m could fill up 3 more teams worth of players and that is a whole division. I do think teams should be able to have a player or two down their plus actual prospects and future players and a number like 10m seems pretty fair. When you have your minor league team with players that have no contract, two-way deals and a few cheap players to bring up in case of injury and maybe one big name player(who shouldn't be down there anyways.) you shouldn't need more then 10m worth of cap. Who knows maybe if we get a big enough wait list we could even make a whole new division or add a team to a division here or there.

Anyways would love to hear everyones thoughts on this, especially before the FA period.

[Drew]

I want to discuss putting a cap space limit on our minor league rosters.

Right now as it is some teams are using the minor league to pretty much horde players and use them as trading chips.
With the FA signing period coming up and no waivers what is going to stop teams from getting lots of players and sticking them in their minor league roster with no repercussions? They could do this so that if someone gets injured or use them as players to trade for draft picks etc if teams are in need of players.

I took down numbers of all of the teams minor league players total cap, here are the numbers:

Chicago - 26.3m
Dallas - 21.4m
Montreal - 18m
Ottawa - 14.2m
Los Angeles - 12.8m
Edmonton - 10.8m
Boston - 9.3m
Vancover - 8m
Calgary - 7.7m
New York Rangers - 6.3m
Philadelphia - 5.5m
Detroit - 4.7m
Colorado - 4.5m
Buffalo - 4m
Washington - 1.4m
Toronto - 1m
Columbus - 0
Pittsburgh - 0

92.7m in the top 5 teams alone
155.9m in all teams.

I don't think teams should be able to have half a teams worth of cap or more in their minor league. It makes it so teams can't go to FA and get some players and the teams could just save those players and either trade them or just make it so no other teams can get them and they would just sit there being inactive. 155.9m could fill up 3 more teams worth of players and that is a whole division. I do think teams should be able to have a player or two down their plus actual prospects and future players and a number like 10m seems pretty fair. When you have your minor league team with players that have no contract, two-way deals and a few cheap players to bring up in case of injury and maybe one big name player(who shouldn't be down there anyways.) you shouldn't need more then 10m worth of cap. Who knows maybe if we get a big enough wait list we could even make a whole new division or add a team to a division here or there.

Anyways would love to hear everyones thoughts on this, especially before the FA period.

There is to be a waiver free period so teams can bring up these players with no worries of them being acquired by other teams and they still have to be paying them. We will see about this after waiver free period. Also some teams have so much in their minors because of the fantasy at the beginning of the season. If they weren't present the computer drafted for them without the cap in mind so some teams were well over the cap. Many teams will be losing players to FA so they will have room to recall these players as well during waiver free period.

But in general I don't believe a cap will be beneficial as say you have 10 prospects in your minors at an average of 1m per then you are already on the cap and may have to bring up prospects who are not NHL ready.

[Miku]

My main concern is I don't like to see entire teams in the minors, that shouldn't be what they are for and it's a shame that no one can use those players because they are just sitting on a teams minor league roster. Maybe not a 10m cap but at least 15 or even 20?  I mean 92.7m worth of players spread across 5 teams minor league roster is a bit much, those are all big name players just sitting there not being used.

Also most prospects can be signed for 0.2-0.8m so if 10 prospects is about 5m, and a few other players maybe just one big player sitting there worth 5m then I think we have a good minor league system. Thats not even counting players with no contracts and if you don't have to room to have these guys you might not want to be grabbing them or possibly trading for some cheaper players. (I know that some teams got some from the draft but I'm sure we could make it so that if the cap was implemented teams could drop players with no penalties to fit the cap for a little while.) Also if 10m doesn't work then possibly 12.5 or 15m. Teams would refrain from grabbing a 4-5mil player when they are already capped out and just sending a 4-5mil contract player they no longer need into the minors to sit there until traded or until their contract runs out(which could be a few years.)

Or maybe have it so that if a player is worth X certain amount or higher they would go into the FA signing period even if they still had some contract left so that teams could have a chance to pick up these players that are stuck in the minors and are only going to be moved if the owner wants them to be moved up during the one week of free waivers. This way if an expensive player gets sent down to the minors and stays there until the waiver deadline then they will lose those big name players and if they want to have those players back they will have to resign them next year and give other teams chances at signing them. If they are sending them to the minors it is probably because they don't need or want them anymore anyways.

Most of these teams are going to get worse as they get more players and drop more players to the minors. What is 26.7m worth of players now could be 40m the same time next year.

I checked a few more numbers and - 29.9m (11 players worth a mil or higher.) worth of the 155.9m of players will be going into the FA pool. 126m will still be in peoples minor league teams. Some might get called up during free waiver period, but a lot of them will probably stay there as the teams sign more players in FA season and stick even more players down in the minors causing teams to have even more players stuck in the minors.

[Drew]

My main concern is I don't like to see entire teams in the minors, that shouldn't be what they are for and it's a shame that no one can use those players because they are just sitting on a teams minor league roster. Maybe not a 10m cap but at least 15 or even 20?  I mean 92.7m worth of players spread across 5 teams minor league roster is a bit much, those are all big name players just sitting there not being used.

Also most prospects can be signed for 0.2-0.8m so if 10 prospects is about 5m, and a few other players maybe just one big player sitting there worth 5m then I think we have a good minor league system. Thats not even counting players with no contracts and if you don't have to room to have these guys you might not want to be grabbing them or possibly trading for some cheaper players. (I know that some teams got some from the draft but I'm sure we could make it so that if the cap was implemented teams could drop players with no penalties to fit the cap for a little while.) Also if 10m doesn't work then possibly 12.5 or 15m. Teams would refrain from grabbing a 4-5mil player when they are already capped out and just sending a 4-5mil contract player they no longer need into the minors to sit there until traded or until their contract runs out(which could be a few years.)

Or maybe have it so that if a player is worth X certain amount or higher they would go into the FA signing period even if they still had some contract left so that teams could have a chance to pick up these players that are stuck in the minors and are only going to be moved if the owner wants them to be moved up during the one week of free waivers. This way if an expensive player gets sent down to the minors and stays there until the waiver deadline then they will lose those big name players and if they want to have those players back they will have to resign them next year and give other teams chances at signing them. If they are sending them to the minors it is probably because they don't need or want them anymore anyways.

Most of these teams are going to get worse as they get more players and drop more players to the minors. What is 26.7m worth of players now could be 40m the same time next year.

I checked a few more numbers and - 29.9m (11 players worth a mil or higher.) worth of the 155.9m of players will be going into the FA pool. 126m will still be in peoples minor league teams. Some might get called up during free waiver period, but a lot of them will probably stay there as the teams sign more players in FA season and stick even more players down in the minors causing teams to have even more players stuck in the minors.

Ya I would like to see where we are after the waiver free deadline.

[Jesselton]

Teams are not purposely "hording" players in their minor league system...with only 18 teams and the same cap space as the teams in the real NHL, most of us have had no choice but to send high salary players down to construct competetive teams. I for one am not for putting a cap space on the minor league roster unless you also decide to raise the cap space on our major league rosters.

[Miku]

I know teams may not purposely be hording players, most teams are just placing players down there they may no longer need. For instance if a player got injured or one player just took up too much cap space you would send him to the minors and pick up a player or two from the FA market, as the season goes on this may keep accumulating and next thing we know we may have teams with 40m worth of good players stuck in the minors. You may not be keeping them for any particular reason other then the fact that you don't want them anymore but soon we might have teams with tons of money worth of players in their minor leagues just sitting there doing nothing until their contracts expire in a few years.

Maybe a cap isn't the way to go, but maybe a way to lose these players if you leave them down there too long. Also if there was a cap teams would be much more worried about cap instead of possibly being at max cap and trading for players that are going to put you over the cap, so you just send one expensive player down to the minors. If it keeps up we might have a few teams with tons of players with no way to move them and no cap space, and some teams with few players and tons of cap space and no way to get these players except for trading for them. Neither team benefits from it the way it is now and it may continue to slide this way unless we figure out some way to move these players, a week with no waivers is a great start to move these guys back up, but some of those teams may just go get some cheaper guys from FA and leave their expensive cap players in the minors to wait until their contracts expire leaving them with no minor league room and other teams will have to fight for mediocre at best players in the FA.

[Jesse]

I see what your saying Miku but I think we should wait until after the waiver free period to implement a rule like this to see what teams are going to do I know that most of the players in my minor leagues got there because of cap reasons and will be gone at seasons end. But we should wait until after the waiver free period.

[favo_zomg]

I agree with everyone else: lets wait and see what happens with the free waiver period. I know there are a few teams trying to pull up their big guys from the minors, and this free waiver period is going to help immensely with freeing up the minor league space.

Miku:

Don't forget, experienced players sitting in the minor leagues cannot be signed to contract extensions. If a player sits there for the entirety of his contract, they will eventually move to free agency.

Also, these teams cannot just pull a big man from the minors to fill a hole... They need to clear the cap space for the relief guy while the injured player is recovering. It would be easier to keep cheaper players in the minor system that can come up to fill a whole rather than a big contract guy.

[Miku]

I agree that we should probably wait until after no waiver period and see what happens and I know that eventually those players signed will eventually move to free agency but at the same time we might have to wait 2-3 years for all of that to happen and in that 2-3 years more and more players are going to be dropped down there and we might have a way bigger problem by then. Also in the mean time we have some of the best players in the league, Iginla, Thorton, etc in the minors not able to be used by anyone, not even the teams who own them because of waivers and that helps no one and just locks these players in the minors. Ideally teams will be having two-way contract players to bring up and down when people get injured etc. So most teams will never even try to touch these players and they are just wasting space and being held from other teams being able to sign these players. The no waiver period will help but some teams might just go out and try to sign a FA for 3-4m and leave their 5-6m contract players in the minors creating an even bigger problem. We should probably wait and see what happens but it is something we might want discuss in the mean time, I'd rather see these players being used and making teams like PHI more competitive then seeing them waste away on a minor league roster list.

[Drew]

Tabled till after waiver free period