Tremendous Amounts of Cap Space

[GypsieDeathBringer]

Bullet Point Preface To Fix Cap:

• Too much cap space ruins free agency
• I like to tinker
• Have a minimum contract signing of 500k (excluding prospects)
• Prospects count 500k when on NHL roster
• Maybe raise defenseman salaries a bit
• Reduce the extension of prospects from 5 years to 3
• Get rid of free buyouts of contracts under 1m

I'm looking around trying to scope out the free agent market, and there isn't one.  Basically every single team will be able to retain their UFA with ease.  Maybe the only team that will have difficulty is the Coyotes.  I was a big proponent of reducing D-man salaries to make what they earn more commiserate with how they produce in fantasy terms, but now that has left a gaping hole that kind of ruins free agency.  When we started and had to deal with the real life terrible contracts from the NHL it resulted in good fantasy free agents being snapped up at a bargain. It made sense back then to reduce the D-man salaries, so guys like Jason Spezza were not contracted for 2m a season.  I think bumping their salaries back up a bit might be what we need. 
As well as getting rid of 200k contracts, no more free buyouts under 1m.  The NHL minimum salary is 550k, so we could make ours 500k.  Might make 1m of difference for each team, but it is something. 
I like our prospects getting signed at a discounted rate, as that acts like the current "bridge contract" theme in the NHL, but we might want to bring the number of years down to 3 instead of 5. 
We have almost no bad contracts because we pay what the players earn.  Hartnell and Neal are guys that are over priced, but that is pretty much it.

[Rob]

There are a few teams that are close to cap jail.  But I do see your point. Let's wait and see how extensions play out and where teams are at cap wise after that. I like all of your possible solutions except getting rid of free buyouts. Also not sure about raising dmen. I just worry that FA will be packed with dmen if we do that.

[snugerud]

I agree with Gypsie on this.   I like the ideas and would add in , rather than just increase the dmen (since I think their contracts are in proportion to what they typically bring in way of FPTS, when compared to forwards ) maybe we should consider a 10/15 or 20% increase in extensions costs across the board. 

My take on a well balanced extension system is doing an extension should be a hard choice since you get to keep the player with no risk of them being bid on by other teams,  in a fantasy based game , my personal preference is that the majority of players on ending contracts should end up in FA with only the diamonds being given an extension. 
Remember when I was trying to do trades for rental players?  If not, I do.  There are no rental players for the playoffs because extensions are too easy of a choice. 
I realize we dont want to take it too far and turn it into a keeper league where teams end up with only 5 returning players each year but a bit more turnover would be nice and bring more parity. 

[Rob]

I'm using voice here so pardon the grammatical mistakes. I agree with everything you guys are saying in a vacuum, however, just last year I had to make a lot of tough decisions on my roster. I traded away pretty much all my best players in order to feel the team under the cap. so I'm not completely convinced that we have an issue here but I would like to see what things look like after extensions and if you're right you're right I'll make some changes for sure. I think this is legible

[snugerud]

on a completely separate topic,,, Fantrax is on the ball this year and you can already renew for next season.  They have also added some awesome goodies this year.  (At least for me) I have a premium membership league and you can now assess cap hits right on the team pages, its also automated,, you can set the percentages for the types of contracts. 

[dedreger]

Put me down as sharing the concern that too much available cap space sloshing around the league is probably a bad thing but I would suggest going a little easy on the "corrections" to avoid over-correcting.   I gather that we're somewhat tracking the real life NHL cap, with a year lag?  It's been widely reported that the real-life 2015-2016 NHL salary cap might even go down because of CAD-USD exchange rate issues affecting the revenue calculation and the NHLPA possibly choosing not to invoke the right to a 5% escalator (to limit the escrow payments that players hate to see coming out of their paychecks).   Maybe wait on an announcement of the real-life 2015-16 cap before doing anything too drastic?

Just my two cents.

[snugerud]

I was just going to say that last years free agency was a bit of an anomaly due to the cap going down so part of your roster woes was due to the drop. 

[Rob]

on a completely separate topic,,, Fantrax is on the ball this year and you can already renew for next season.  They have also added some awesome goodies this year.  (At least for me) I have a premium membership league and you can now assess cap hits right on the team pages, its also automated,, you can set the percentages for the types of contracts.

Fantrax gets better and better every year.

[snugerud]

Fantrax gets better and better every year.

yup, it does.  I just hope they dont increase their costs again or i am going to regret not buying the lifetime membership last year.

[snugerud]

Bullet Point Preface To Fix Cap:

• Too much cap space ruins free agency
• I like to tinker
• Have a minimum contract signing of 500k (excluding prospects)
• Prospects count 500k when on NHL roster
• Maybe raise defenseman salaries a bit
• Reduce the extension of prospects from 5 years to 3
• Get rid of free buyouts of contracts under 1m

I'm looking around trying to scope out the free agent market, and there isn't one.  Basically every single team will be able to retain their UFA with ease.  Maybe the only team that will have difficulty is the Coyotes.  I was a big proponent of reducing D-man salaries to make what they earn more commiserate with how they produce in fantasy terms, but now that has left a gaping hole that kind of ruins free agency.  When we started and had to deal with the real life terrible contracts from the NHL it resulted in good fantasy free agents being snapped up at a bargain. It made sense back then to reduce the D-man salaries, so guys like Jason Spezza were not contracted for 2m a season.  I think bumping their salaries back up a bit might be what we need. 
As well as getting rid of 200k contracts, no more free buyouts under 1m.  The NHL minimum salary is 550k, so we could make ours 500k.  Might make 1m of difference for each team, but it is something. 
I like our prospects getting signed at a discounted rate, as that acts like the current "bridge contract" theme in the NHL, but we might want to bring the number of years down to 3 instead of 5. 
We have almost no bad contracts because we pay what the players earn.  Hartnell and Neal are guys that are over priced, but that is pretty much it.

I do disagree with one thing in this which is getting rid of the free buyouts.  scooping the wire is the one thing that keeps me engaged all season.  Getting rid of the free buyout limit would heavily reduced the ability to take some flyers on players.