Lots of teams are fucked, not the least of which being the one with 30% of its cap committed to two guys.

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I'm curious here and have been for a while. What was NHL life like pre-salary cap? As a kid I remember always hearing about how the Oilers had to break up the team because they couldn't afford them. Was that true? Did young guys sign extensions back then? What would happen to that Oiler's team in todays day and age?

And what was the Blackhawks' philosophy back then? I know the reputation for Dollar Bill but were they in line with everyone else or were they shot takers a la the Marlins? I remember the Keenan years and the President trophy disappointment but why were those teams broken up? Why was Balfour and Hasek shipped off? Why Roenick as well?

Please educate me on the labor workings of the NHL. Is the league better off now than they were back then? I want to be a better, more informed fan.

For all this, I recommend the book The Instigator by Jonathon Gatehouse, a journalist for the Canadian magazine MacLean's. It has to be the best account of the NHL since about 1990. I'll do my best to draw on that and editorialize a little, if I may.

The NHL without a salary cap was a shitshow. The rich could spend as much as they wanted (though this didn't guarantee they could), the poor were spending as much as they wanted with money they didn't always have, and Canadian teams had no safeguard against the fall of the Canadian dollar. At the same time, unrestricted free agency didn't set in until 31, so teams were dropping too much money on guys past their primes.

The league set things on a bad path in 1994 when they had their first lockout. By this time, there had been a big infusion of new money from Blockbuster Video and Disney, and salaries had begun to rise. Teams weren't happy and charged the newly hired Gary Bettman with putting in a cap. But if you can imagine this, Bettman's social graces were even worse 21 years ago than they are today, and the negotiations were a complete disaster. They would have lost the entire season had Bob Goodenow of the NHLPA not dealt directly with owners who were uneasy about losing revenue (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, among others) and kinda froze Bettman out of the dealings.

The problem there was that the 1995 CBA didn't address any of those problems: it just kicked the can down the road. Players were making too much, numerous teams got into serious financial trouble (three moved), but the influx of expansion fees ($320MM for Nashville, Atlanta, Columbus, and Minnesota) was enough to keep things going until the whole thing came crashing down and a hard cap had to be put in. I believe by 2004, there was about a $60MM gap between the Rangers and the Wild. The other side of this money gap was that teams that didn't get beaten down by the system figured out how to beat it, and as a hockey viewer, that may have actually been worse: remember, if you dare, the 2003 Minnesota Wild that scrapped their way to the third round with a neutral zone trap so stifling that it made the Devils look like the Oilers. It turns out that fighting for your life against insurmountable odds doesn't rack up style points.

As for the dynasty Oilers, they'd probably encounter the same fate as our Blackhawks: they'd have to lose some players, of course, but they wouldn't have lost the whole core, and certainly wouldn't lose them en masse to the Rangers.

Wirtz's philosophy was simply that "Stanley Cups are too expensive." Roenick was traded away because he hit restricted free agency and the Hawks weren't willing to pay him what he was worth, so they traded him to the Jets, where he held out until they became the Coyotes. They had good teams in the '90s in spite of Dollar Bill, but when it came time to give those guys their raises, they were gone.

Young guys had no choice but to sign extensions because unrestricted free agency didn't happen until age 32 or 31, and because teams colluded not to sign players in restricted free agency. (This still happens, of course.) It was practically baseball's reserve clause, except that NHL GMs were much more eager to trade guys, especially at the deadline. I remember those deadlines in '03 and '04 where the Wings would get quality guys for nothing. Sucked.

For all the bitching that hockey fans do about how things could be better, the reality is that there had to be a salary cap in place to counterbalance the unavoidable truth that some teams are going to be much better equipped to outspend others, consigning them to permanent futility. Of course, we've seen the unintended consequences of this system, like a salary floor so high that poor teams can barely afford to pay that, or that the league keeps low-revenue teams around with government subsidies to depress the leaguewide revenue figure. Me, I'd like to see a higher ceiling, a lower floor, and some kind of "franchise tag" exemption, but the real problem facing the NHL isn't one that the salary cap can fully address: it's the fact that the gap between the haves and have-nots is wider than that of any other sports league, and that can only be ameliorated with more thoughtful franchise placement, something the league is unwilling to do.

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Thank you!

I'm going to read that book.

watch them beat everybody and get a franchise in vegas, cuz you know all these people coming into town haven't had a proper week/end in vegas until they take in some NHL action!

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Are there ice rinks in Vegas? Like for Disney on Ice or The Jeffersons on Ice or something?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

The MGM Grand Garden Arena has an ice plant. They host a preseason Kings game every year and presumably other ice shows. There's going to be a new arena on the strip that has a full NHL seating bowl, though.

As for community rinks and arenas, I can't imagine that they're plentiful.

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Interesting breakdown. You are correct in that there are numerous teams that have to be struggling financially....that's on the NHL for putting and keeping those teams there. It can't be hard to determine which teams struggle...any team that has a long history can be bad and still likely fill the arena (Toronto, Buffalo). I'm guessing there are way too many Florida Panthers. This talk of further expansion is proof that the NHL as a league has serious issues with common sense.

But then again....even the NFL has shown to be foolish in the world of expansion, as Jacksonville still has a team.

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I agree with all of that. The NHL putting a team in Las Vegas is a very foolish idea. Liike Phoenix and Florida, no one there gives a shit about Hockey and the demo wont support an NHL team.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

Transfer agreement between the NHL and KHL reportedly on the way. I sense a return to cap relief for overseas loans. Dosvedanya, Bickell!

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That Blockbuster video made some smart investments.

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fuckin' lol at the Coyotes trading for Chris Pronger's dead cap space so they can hit the salary floor. Floor is too high. What a goatfuck.

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how in the hell can you trade someone that does not even play any more? That is fucked up

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Let's pay AZ cash to take Bickell (and his cap hit).

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Hawaii (fuck) You

That's what 7th round draft picks are for/

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Furthermore, Pronger works for the NHL now, in the Department of Player Safety, which, when you think about it, is really, really funny. He took the league job while staying nominally employed with the Flyers because he couldn't retire on a 35+ contract without forcing the Flyers to take on immovable dead cap space for the rest of his term. This is all really stupid, too, but the NHL couldn't just say "you know what, fuck it, call the whole thing off" because they already got some weird looks for punishing Jersey hard for cap circumvention and then backing out of it.

So he can't pass a physical, he can't play, he can't retire, but he can be traded. This is some NBA CBA shit here. And you know what the best part is? He hasn't played in three years, so he'll probably be nominated to the Hockey Hall of Fame today!

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Cap could go down $4MM for next year due to the utter cratering of the Canadian dollar. League's fucked.

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They really should look into another amnesty provision or creating a soft cap (aka Bird rights).

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

There used to be a minor league team that used to be in vegas if I remember.
Yup was correct from the trib

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

There will have to be compliance buyouts again if there's nowhere for all this money to go. They may have to widen the salary range. There will never be Bird rights. Can you imagine the wailing from Raleigh (one of the most powerful owners) and Phoenix (the NHL's special-needs baby) if the Hawks got to have Patrick Kane effectively not count against the salary cap?

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How about adopting a semi-NFL standard where only a certain amount of the money is guaranteed (signing bonus)? I'm sure the union would have a big problem with this but there has to be a way to get around the cap relying on the value of the Canadian dollar.

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

I think nothing is wrong. The cap is the cap. Deal with it no matter how it affects my team. That is why it is there. Of course the Canadian dollar sucks but oh well.

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Elections have consequences.

"Oh well"? The national contract with Rogers is huge for the league, and the regional TSN deals for the Canadiens, Jets, and Senators are huge as well. That contract value is disappearing into thin air. That's going to have ramifications. You're off your rocker if you think nothing is wrong.


A big problem? Yeah, we'd lose another full season.

There will have to be compliance buyouts if the cap drops this much. There will be nowhere to put the money. Teams like the Coyotes and Panthers are carrying retired players' contracts (Pronger and Marc Savard, respectively) to reach the salary floor with minimal expenses because that's all they can afford to do.

The league should not rely this much on the Canadian dollar, but it does, because it relies this much on Canadian teams. The league had a grand plan for a full national footprint in the United States, but they fucked it up at numerous turns: they ruined Phoenix from day one by forcing the Jets on them with no adequate arena followed by one that no one could be arsed to drive to. Atlanta was allowed to fall into the hands of ownership that didn't want hockey and evicted its own team. Raleigh has been a dud as befitting a mid-sized New South town that already has three semi-pro basketball teams. Denver has been under half-assed caretaker ownership for about the last ten years; Kroenke gives zero fucks about the Nuggets and less than zero about the Avs. Miami/Ft. Lauderdale was in such neglect that the telecasts did worse than infomercials. Columbus and Nashville continue on only with huge tax subsidies. And through all this, tiny little Ottawa, which isn't even that good of a hockey market, is near the top of the league with $33MM a year for their TV rights. Ottawa has to do the heavy lifting that much bigger American cities can't. That's cool, in a sense, but untenable with a currency as fragile as the CAD, because now this happens.

It was one thing when the USD dropped and Canada had to pull the rest of the NHL up. Now it's our turn and they're still made to pull the rest of the NHL up.

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The good news for the NHL is that things tend to go the opposite of how Curious Hair predicts.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I'll go out on a limb here and say the '16-'17 cap does not drop by even $3mil, much less $4mil.

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