2021 Rule Changes

[SharksGM]

As I promised some time ago, here are proposed rule changes for 2021 prior to the start of UFA season:

1. As I floated in some thread I can't easily find because the search terms are too common, I plan to change the minimum salaries for 2- and 3-year contract to 800k and 1.2M, respectively (up from 600k and 1.05M). These rounder numbers make for a more sensible progression and should make UFA bidding a snappier process. These minima will apply for all contracts besides ELCs (so if you already posted offers of 700k x 2, those will need to be amended down to 1 year or up to 800k per).

2. There will be a new buyout formula starting this offseason. The new buyout cost will be 75% of a player's remaining contract, minus a one-time discount of 300k (i.e. not annual). So, a 600k, 1y contract will cost 450k-300k = 150k to buy out; a 1M, 1y contract 750k-300k = 450k, and a 2M, 2y contract 3.5M - 300k = 3.2M, or 1.6M annually. Buyouts with a total cost of over 1M may be spread over one extra year beyond the player's contract length; otherwise, the buyout is spread over the remaining period of the player's contract.

This formula roughly matches the existing penalties for players acquired by the GM - at least for one year contracts. I haven't yet decided what should be done about the discounted buyouts for players not acquired by the current GM. These are potentially powerful but not actually used as often as you'd think, possibly because most new GMs aren't fully aware of the option and/or forget about it by the time they get a hang of the cap system. I'm tempted to replace it with something simpler that does not depend on who acquired the player in question, such as a one-time extra buyout discount for new GMs somewhere around 1M. I'm open to suggestions here.

3. I am open to allowing for a limited amount of salary retention in trades. The NHL's system seems fine: max 2 retentions per team, and max 50% salary retained. I would probably set a limit on either total or annual amount retained in addition, to prevent teams from committing too much money to literally nobody.

I think this can be implemented fairly easily the same way as a buyout penalty to the retaining team. The question is then whether the player's nominal salary should be reduced by the buyout in the file for cap purposes, or whether the team owning his rights should get a negative buyout. I think the former option makes more sense for LTIR and such.

4. I put off suspensions for a while and am still unsure where to go. I think regular season suspensions should generally be longer. Playoff suspensions ought to be per round; it seems absurd to let someone get taken out for the rest of the playoffs while allowing the offender to return to a game 6 or 7.

5. Vopatizing farmers still annoy me. It looks like Chicago has made progress by potentially having less of a dumpster fire on the farm next season. Still, I think we can do something like let vopatizers vanish mid-season ("retire to Europe") and be replaced by an equally shitty fast-sign who is still under 30, so GMs neglecting their farm don't get a free contract spot in the process.

Lastly, since UFA will start later than usual, the dates for acceptance of qualifying offers will be pushed back somewhat for this season only. Likewise, the preseason will begin sometime later than the in-game date. I'll need to look into which year's schedule to use; I think we can do a different one as long as I'm careful to swap teams into their correct divisions.

Thoughts?

[DetroitGM]

1. As I floated in some thread I can't easily find because the search terms are too common

Pretty sure it's this one:

- Rule changes: I'm not planning anything significant; in particular, the cap calculator formula will not change. However, there were a few things I wanted to adjust for this offseason:

So just to confirm, the new buyout rules would impact any buyouts made this off-season, except possibly not the discounted buyouts? I ask because I was planning to use a discounted one on Ian Cole, who was signed to an absurd 5-year contract by a GM back in 2017. Apparently it was for 3.3mil, though his current salary is 2.64mil with one year left, which is still about 3mil more than I want to pay him . By my calculations, the buyout, under current rules, would cost me 0.53mil vs. up to 1.755mil if the new formula applies to all players.

4. I put off suspensions for a while and am still unsure where to go. I think regular season suspensions should generally be longer. Playoff suspensions ought to be per round; it seems absurd to let someone get taken out for the rest of the playoffs while allowing the offender to return to a game 6 or 7.

Suspensions are obviously tough. Maybe we can look at it as a percentage of season missed? A month injured is ~15% of the season or ~13 games. Obviously that's too long, but currently it's a 2 game suspension, so what if we say roughly 20% of what the injured player will miss?
1 month = ~15% (~13 games) = 3 games
2 months = ~30% (~25 games) = 5 games
3 months = ~45% (~38 games) = 7 games
4 months = ~60% (~50 games) = 10 games
6 mths + = ~90% (~75 games) = 15 games

That would be a very slight increase on existing suspensions (going from the roughly 20% to 25% would also be an option, if these remained too short).
Hmmmm.... in theory, are we not able to use the statistics.ehm file to figure out exactly how long a player will miss with injury? Maybe I'm wrong on that though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

5. Vopatizing farmers still annoy me. It looks like Chicago has made progress by potentially having less of a dumpster fire on the farm next season. Still, I think we can do something like let vopatizers vanish mid-season ("retire to Europe") and be replaced by an equally shitty fast-sign who is still under 30, so GMs neglecting their farm don't get a free contract spot in the process.

It might take some work, but we could manually reverse any "vopatizing", if we really wanted to, though I'm not sure they'd be worth it. The going to Europe thing is fine with me, but a 30+ guy with 40 AHL games is still probably significantly weaker. Maybe if we had two windows? Say, American thanksgiving and the all-star break? I dunno

[Dallas Stars GM]

So when we're bumping up the minimum salary from 600k to 800k, my question is, what is the max amount of salary we can bury to AHL without additional cap penalty ? Will it still be the 800k?

And when it comes to degrading AHL players, maybe we could have one week window before the off-season to perhaps, terminate two or three AHL contracts or during the All-Star break? Just a thought

[NYRNYRNYR]

3. I am open to allowing for a limited amount of salary retention in trades. The NHL's system seems fine: max 2 retentions per team, and max 50% salary retained. I would probably set a limit on either total or annual amount retained in addition, to prevent teams from committing too much money to literally nobody.

I think this can be implemented fairly easily the same way as a buyout penalty to the retaining team. The question is then whether the player's nominal salary should be reduced by the buyout in the file for cap purposes, or whether the team owning his rights should get a negative buyout. I think the former option makes more sense for LTIR and such.

4. I put off suspensions for a while and am still unsure where to go. I think regular season suspensions should generally be longer. Playoff suspensions ought to be per round; it seems absurd to let someone get taken out for the rest of the playoffs while allowing the offender to return to a game 6 or 7.

Comments on others withheld for the moment (though I have no real objections to them) as these two are the most interesting to me at first blush.

#3: Going to have to limit the bouncing, like we saw in the NHL. Yes, you limit either a total amount of $ or # of salaries retained, but also how many times a guy can have his salary limited. Otherwise you could trade a guy at 8 million, hold 50%, 3rd party team hold 50%, 4th party team, hold 50% and now you're down to 1 million. Sure you would have to pay the 3rd/4th party teams, but what's a few draft picks for 2-4 million in cap space?

#4: Can I bring back up my discussion about the player injured? I know why the NHL cannot give you more games if you injure Connor McDavid than if you injure...Jon Merrill to throw a name out there. But honestly - if Jack Eichel gets knocked out for 3 months, my season is drastically altered. If its Jimmy Lodge, I'm not happy, but really, shit happens. Is there no one else out there that feels the same? In the previous examples, if you injure Lodge for 3 months, yes I would like to see 5, 6, 7 games or something. But if Eichel is out 3 months, I want your guy out 3 months too, even if he's vastly worse than Eichel.

I dunno maybe no one wants it, but since its a video game I think its worth bringing up again. Are we all really upset if our 3rd/4th liners get banged around a bit?

[AvalancheGM]

You could set two different percentages. Like for a player 80 OA or higher, guy is out half the time the player is injured. Otherwise he's out 20% of the time he's injured.

I really like the salary retention, I think it could open up a lot more avenues for trading and player movement. If you use the same rules as NHL, plus the contract can only be retained once, it should be fine.

The buyout penalties are a little stricter than I was expecting, though I'd only buy out AHL scrubs so the 350k deduction will help.

The vopatizing fix seems good, though perhaps you should retire all 30+ guys who are scrubs (say under 60 OA) to prevent fast-signing a bunch of vopatizers to replace them.

[DetroitGM]

You could set two different percentages. Like for a player 80 OA or higher, guy is out half the time the player is injured. Otherwise he's out 20% of the time he's injured.

If we are doing this, and I'm not sure whether I like it or not, I think I'd rather see ice time (at a level set by position) than overall. I know I'm not yet chasing a playoff spot and low overalls are part of the reason, but I don't have any with 80+, compared to Montreal with 9 (based on the website - EHM shows me with 1 and Montreal with 7). So for me to lose, say, Oliver Kylington's 24min/game (aka #1 Dman), is a bit of a bigger deal than Montreal losing Brendan Warren's 12min/game (aka 3rd line winger), despite Warren being the higher rated player.

[SharksGM]

So when we're bumping up the minimum salary from 600k to 800k, my question is, what is the max amount of salary we can bury to AHL without additional cap penalty ? Will it still be the 800k?

The 600k minimum salary is not changing. You just can't sign 600k x 2 years anymore, it has to be 1 year.

And when it comes to degrading AHL players, maybe we could have one week window before the off-season to perhaps, terminate two or three AHL contracts or during the All-Star break? Just a thought

I will send vopatizing players to Europe after waiver day. We could have a second waiver day midway through the season, perhaps, to give buried AHLers a second chance.

[NYRNYRNYR]

You could set two different percentages. Like for a player 80 OA or higher, guy is out half the time the player is injured. Otherwise he's out 20% of the time he's injured.

If we are doing this, and I'm not sure whether I like it or not, I think I'd rather see ice time (at a level set by position) than overall. I know I'm not yet chasing a playoff spot and low overalls are part of the reason, but I don't have any with 80+, compared to Montreal with 9 (based on the website - EHM shows me with 1 and Montreal with 7). So for me to lose, say, Oliver Kylington's 24min/game (aka #1 Dman), is a bit of a bigger deal than Montreal losing Brendan Warren's 12min/game (aka 3rd line winger), despite Warren being the higher rated player.

Fair. Very fair. Though if you are a team that's rebuilding I'd argue you aren't as upset over a lost "good" player, but certainly would be upset over the growth-time they would lose. Could be 80OA or ELC-1st round pick, etc. etc. I don't think you'd need a lot of rules to fit it.

In fact, you could just ask for a list from teams. Anyone that doesn't submit a list waives. Teams can submit "X players" (we can do whatever we want) who are considered their current "franchise" players and are in the higher tier injury category. All others are in "normal tier".

Again I'm just trying to fit the visceral feeling to the actual action. Like, its a video game, you can't "send a message" to a player to clean up their act. It's purely punishment. I care if you injure any of my players for an extended period, but I am breathing a HUGE sigh of relief when I see it wasn't MDC or Eichel.

[Dallas Stars GM]

Sharks GM wrote: I will send vopatizing players to Europe after waiver day. We could have a second waiver day midway through the season, perhaps, to give buried AHLers a second chance.

This sounds fair and also very realistic. I like this idea.

[IslandersGM]

With regards to the increase in base salary - I have William Francis at 600k on his entry level.. does that go up to 800k now or are we grandfathering these in? Not that i'm worried about having to pay him 200k more, he likely won't be a high priced guy. Just wondering how that affects the ELC contracts that were adjusted.

Maybe i'm overthinking too?

[SharksGM]

With regards to the increase in base salary

Again, there is no increase in base salary. Please re-read what I posted more carefully.

[SharksGM]

#3: Going to have to limit the bouncing, like we saw in the NHL. Yes, you limit either a total amount of $ or # of salaries retained, but also how many times a guy can have his salary limited. Otherwise you could trade a guy at 8 million, hold 50%, 3rd party team hold 50%, 4th party team, hold 50% and now you're down to 1 million. Sure you would have to pay the 3rd/4th party teams, but what's a few draft picks for 2-4 million in cap space?

I don't really see this being a problem. You only get two retention slots, and at the end of last season 22/30 teams had less 1M in cap room, while another 4/30 had under 2M. The number of teams that are willing and able to add significant cap hits is usually pretty small.

[SharksGM]

If you have any comments on buyouts/retention, please offer them now. Otherwise, I will finalize those rules before UFA starts. Suspensions and such can wait (but feel free to continue discussing that if you want).

[DetroitGM]

If you have any comments on buyouts/retention, please offer them now. Otherwise, I will finalize those rules before UFA starts. Suspensions and such can wait (but feel free to continue discussing that if you want).

I would again like to ask for confirmation regarding whether the new buyout rules would impact discounted buyouts made this off-season.

[CoyotesInterim]

If you have any comments on buyouts/retention, please offer them now. Otherwise, I will finalize those rules before UFA starts. Suspensions and such can wait (but feel free to continue discussing that if you want).

I would again like to ask for confirmation regarding whether the new buyout rules would impact discounted buyouts made this off-season.

https://ehec.pro/forums/viewtopic.php?f ... &start=150
There were no buyouts made this offseason before the announcement anyway and the new rule says ''2. There will be a new buyout formula starting this offseason.''
So the new rule applies for the BOS buyouts.

[DetroitGM]

https://ehec.pro/forums/viewtopic.php?f ... &start=150
There were no buyouts made this offseason before the announcement anyway and the new rule says ''2. There will be a new buyout formula starting this offseason.''

Yes, but you are ignoring this part of the original post:

I haven't yet decided what should be done about the discounted buyouts for players not acquired by the current GM. These are potentially powerful but not actually used as often as you'd think, possibly because most new GMs aren't fully aware of the option and/or forget about it by the time they get a hang of the cap system. I'm tempted to replace it with something simpler that does not depend on who acquired the player in question, such as a one-time extra buyout discount for new GMs somewhere around 1M. I'm open to suggestions here.

And while you refer to no buyouts being made this offseason before the announcement, I have planned to buyout Ian Cole for months but have been waiting for the contract roll-over, so that I'm only buying out 1 season instead of 2.

[CoyotesInterim]

The way I understand it (I’m not an English native) is that you can’t take advantage of the former rule anymore and that the new rule applies since its announcement.

[DetroitGM]

The way I understand it (I’m not an English native) is that you can’t take advantage of the former rule anymore and that the new rule applies since its announcement.

Je comprends ce que vous disez, mais je pense que quand Dan dit "I haven't yet decided what should be done about the discounted buyouts for players not acquired by the current GM", c'est pas fini, non plus clair que le nouveau regle va appuie aux ces jouers.

(Sorry for my awful French grammar)

[SensGM]

The way I understand it (I’m not an English native) is that you can’t take advantage of the former rule anymore and that the new rule applies since its announcement.

"I haven't yet decided what should be done about the discounted buyouts for players not acquired by the current GM"

Well, my understanding is that his indecision came to an end with the announcement of the new rule...

(And I’m really impressed by your French skills!! )

[DetroitGM]

Well, my understanding is that his indecision came to an end with the announcement of the new rule...

(And I’m really impressed by your French skills!! )

Ah, fair, mais je ne pense pas qu'il a repondé ou annoncé un fait complit.

(j'étais en immersion Français pour années 4e à 11e, mais 11e était 2003 et je n'étais pas un bon étudiant. I don't practice nearly enough - it used to be that 90% of my time in French was watching Habs games on RDS, but the probably illegal streams I find are usually in English now, so it's really just used when parliament's translators struggle and I need to double check what the MP/witness actually said)

[SharksGM]

I would again like to ask for confirmation regarding whether the new buyout rules would impact discounted buyouts made this off-season.

As I said before (but was unclear about here), you can use whichever buyout formula you prefer for this offseason, as I didn't want to blindside anyone. Obviously the cheaper one would be better in most cases, but since I decided to offer the option of extending them one year, you might prefer to spread it out even if the total is a little higher.

I was also unclear about which rules are applying now, besides the new minimum salaries for contract lengths, which obviously had to go into force immediately. So, I think we'll go with the first 3 (salary minima, buyouts, and salary retention). I will update the rulebook with those shortly. The

And while you refer to no buyouts being made this offseason before the announcement, I have planned to buyout Ian Cole for months but have been waiting for the contract roll-over, so that I'm only buying out 1 season instead of 2.

Okay, so I can see that there's ambiguity here, basically all because we allow buyouts throughout the year and really shouldn't (I think the trade deadline is as late as they ought to be allowed). But I think it would be inane to say that buyouts apply for the current number of years a player has left in the file. The 2020-21 season is over and everybody has been paid. Or alternatively, sure, you get a buyout for this season and next, so yes, you will have a buyout penalty for any remaining 2020-21 regular season games (oh no!).

[DetroitGM]

Okay, so I can see that there's ambiguity here, basically all because we allow buyouts throughout the year and really shouldn't (I think the trade deadline is as late as they ought to be allowed). But I think it would be inane to say that buyouts apply for the current number of years a player has left in the file. The 2020-21 season is over and everybody has been paid. Or alternatively, sure, you get a buyout for this season and next, so yes, you will have a buyout penalty for any remaining 2020-21 regular season games (oh no!).

Haha, that's a fair point, I will happily take on the extra 530k (assuming my calculations are correct) for last season

[Jets GM]

Can someone confirm the rules around salary retention?

[NYRNYRNYR]

Can someone confirm the rules around salary retention?

I don't believe the rule has formally been set in stone yet. But I believe the general theory is:

You may retain up to 50% of a salary. And you may retain 2 total contracts. So if you retain longer-term deals, you will be stuck with that for the length of the contract. There have not been any signs that it would be limited otherwise. Which means, yes, a player's contract could, in theory, be laundered from 9m -> 4.5m -> 2.25m -> 1.12 under the current theory. I had raised some questions about this, but it seems as though because all teams are stuck at 2x total, this wasn't believed to be a problem.

While in theory I have some questions about the above, I have a bigger question about the following: I have Player A at a certain price. I trade Player A to another team for next to nothing, and they flip him back to me w/ 50% retention and I provide them futures/picks depending on how much salary they are saving me. I believe the NHL prevents this. They DO allow laundering through 3rd teams. (I want a player from Team A, Team A trades them to Team B, who retains 50%, who trades them to me, again appropriate futures involved). That happened a few times at the last NHL trade deadline.

[Jets GM]

Any chance we can firm up the financial regulations surrounding this?

Maximum 50%?

1 year or multi year deals retained? Do we have the option to do either?

[Jets GM]

Can salary being retained result in a cap hit of less than the league minimum salary?

[SharksGM]

I don't want to rush a half-assed rule change.

1 year or multi year deals retained? Do we have the option to do either?

I don't want to have only fractions of a deal covered by retention; that's unnecessary complexity when you can already choose the retention percentage. I also don't want to see retention on 5+ year deals, so I'd prefer to limit it to players with 2-3 years left on their deals.

Can salary being retained result in a cap hit of less than the league minimum salary?

I'd prefer to have retention as an option to facilitate movement of otherwise challenging contracts, not to create a new class of sub-600k players just as we got rid of the last of the 5y 480k club. So a simple fix is to only allow retention up to 600k. If you really want to retain 300k of a 900k player's contract, well, so be it.

The NHL's full rules are:

- The maximum retention % is 50%.
Fine by me.

Teams can only carry a maximum of 3 Retained Salaries at a time.
- I'd start with 2 like the NHL did, then see if it makes sense to expand it later.

An individual contract can only have a maximum of 2 teams retaining salary on it.
- Seems fine, and wouldn't be too much of a hassle to enforce since we'll keep a list of retained players along with buyouts.

The maximum amount of retained salary by a team is 15% of the Salary Cap for the current year.
- I don't foresee any team wanting to retain more than 9M per year. Maybe a tanking team would, but in that case, who really cares?

If a team retains salary on a traded player and that player is later sent to the minors, there is no change to the cap hit for the retaining team.
- That was how I was planning on implementing it anyway.

If a team retains salary on a trade, they cannot reacquire that player for one year from the date of the transaction, unless the contract ends prior to one year.
- This would be a pain in the ass to enforce, as is the similar rule on buyouts and our existing rule on waiver claims staying on pro rosters. I'm inclined to get rid of as many such rules that require manual intervention to enforce as possible, and certainly not introduce more. I also don't really see what problem this is meant to solve.

There is apparently no rule to prevent a team dumping a player to a second team with cap space, then re-acquiring the same player with part of their salary retained. I don't really see that as a problem, though.

[DetroitGM]

I don't want to rush a half-assed rule change.

There is apparently no rule to prevent a team dumping a player to a second team with cap space, then re-acquiring the same player with part of their salary retained. I don't really see that as a problem, though.

I wondered about that, because it sounded like a fun loophole for someone with cap space but not roster space to exploit. So I looked around a bit, found this on reddit (I haven't double checked the cited part of the CBA because it's 12:30am)

From the CBA:

(C) Under no circumstances may a Club:

(3) Reacquire within one (1) calendar year from the date of that Retained Salary Transaction an SPC the Averaged Amount and Player Salary and Bonuses of which that Club agreed to retain as part of a Retained Salary Transaction;
Illustration: If Club A Trades a Player to Club B and retains 30% of the Averaged Amount of such Player's SPC in a Retained Salary Transaction, Club A cannot reacquire such Player's SPC within one (1) calendar year from the date of the Trade. However, if such Player's Retained 273 ARTICLE 50 50.5-50.5 Salary SPC expires or is otherwise terminated prior to one (1) calendar year from the date of the Trade such that it no longer exists, Club A may reacquire the Player since the Retained Salary SPC no longer exists.

or

(4) Reacquire as part of a Retained Salary Transaction the SPC of a Player who was on that Club's Reserve List within the past calendar year;
Illustration: If Club A Trades the SPC of a Player to Club B (the "Initial Trade"), Club B cannot subsequently Trade an SPC of such Player back to Club A within one (1) calendar year from the date of the Initial Trade and retain a portion of the Averaged Amount of that SPC pursuant to a Retained Salary Transaction. However, Club B may Trade an SPC of the Player back to Club A within one (1) calendar year from the date of the Initial Trade if Club B does not retain any portion of such Player's SPC.

SPC means contract and Reserve List is all the players a team has rights to (including players under contract and unsigned draft picks).

TL;DR for your question of "immediately" getting the player back with salary retained, no, teams can't do that. They need to wait a year.

[AvalancheGM]

Yeah, that last rule SJ brought up is the one that prevents you from getting the player for less money. That should probably be enforced unless we want teams paying picks or prospects to lower their contracts. Might be less work to say they can't be dealt back till the next rollover, like con booster trades.

Makes sense to follow NHL rules, though I like limiting it to shorter contracts and 600k.

[Jets GM]

I don't want to have only fractions of a deal covered by retention; that's unnecessary complexity when you can already choose the retention percentage. I also don't want to see retention on 5+ year deals, so I'd prefer to limit it to players with 2-3 years left on their deals.

Minimum retention is 1 year and maximum is 3 years?

So a simple fix is to only allow retention up to 600k.

- The maximum retention % is 50%.

2 retained salaries per team

An individual contract can only have a maximum of 2 teams retaining salary on it.

Meaning that it could be the current team (Team A) and two other teams retaining salary (Team B and C)? Or that only two teams total could be paying the players salary (Team A and Team B)?

If it is the former (Team A/current and Team B & C/retained), are we allowed to do 3-way trades where player is traded and "flows through" one team team and ultimately lands with a another?

i.e Player X earns $3.0m and plays for Team A

Team A, B and C announce a trade:

To Team A: 1st Round Pick (50% Player X Retained at $1.5m)

Team B: 3rd Round Pick (50% Player X retained at 750k)

Team C: Player X (50% Player X retained at 750k)

Player X flows through Team B on the way to Team C. I know some people won't like this, but whats to prevent 3 teams from organising this and then posting two separate deals over a week or two? Might as well get it over with. And the above mentioned re-acquiring rules prevents a player from round tripping through 2 teams back to the original team.

[AvalancheGM]

I agree with that too, it's happened several times in the NHL.

[Jets GM]

Can orphan teams with an interim GM take on salary?

[NYRNYRNYR]

Can orphan teams with an interim GM take on salary?

Would likely meet the stricter scrutiny by the committee if they do so. If it's just 1 year, that's less bad, and as always depends on the return.

[Jets GM]

As we approach the end of the pre season, can we please confirm the regulations surrounding retention?

Every regular season game matters for cap space!

[AvalancheGM]

I think he pretty much did a few posts up.
https://ehec.pro/forums/viewtopic.php?p=78024#p78024

[Jets GM]

I think he pretty much did a few posts up.
https://ehec.pro/forums/viewtopic.php?p=78024#p78024

Just waiting on the verdict for the "flow through" 3 way trades and whether there will be formal, informal regulations on orphaned teams retaining salary (or prohibited altogether).

[SharksGM]

Player X flows through Team B on the way to Team C. I know some people won't like this, but whats to prevent 3 teams from organising this and then posting two separate deals over a week or two?

Nothing, but it's not a three way trade. It's two independent deals that should be posted separately. If the first one is rejected, the second trade is moot.

Can orphan teams with an interim GM take on salary?

We haven't explicitly forbidden interim GMs from doing anything besides trading with their main team. However, we do give their trades extra scrutiny and general rules for reasonableness and against collusion apply.

[AvalancheGM]

Both team A and team B would be getting assets from team C, so how would it work as two separate trades?

[SharksGM]

I suppose it can't if you mean for both of those picks to come from Team C, but then team A and B end up exchanging nothing with each other so it's not really three way in that sense either.

I'd say my concern there is partly with the mostly unnecessary complexity of the deal but more so with the notion of getting a 3M player for close to league minimum. That's trending more towards outright trading for cap space than giving a somewhat overpaid player a second shot on a contender. I said earlier that I didn't envision this being a problem with only two retention slots per team but on second thought it can add up to quite a lot of bonus room if there's no limit on how many players with retained contracts a single team can have on their roster.

[Jets GM]

Leave it up to that Winnipeg GM to take things to far....

That guy is a real jerk.

[NYRNYRNYR]

Leave it up to that Winnipeg GM to take things to far....

That guy is a real jerk.

Lol yes. But in fairness it's legit questions to ask.

We also could do a tentative rule change with an agreement that the rules committee will review use of it with stricter scrutiny and until it starts actually shaking out people should just accept that it's far more hands on than normal deals.

[AvalancheGM]

I suppose it can't if you mean for both of those picks to come from Team C, but then team A and B end up exchanging nothing with each other so it's not really three way in that sense either.

I'd say my concern there is partly with the mostly unnecessary complexity of the deal but more so with the notion of getting a 3M player for close to league minimum. That's trending more towards outright trading for cap space than giving a somewhat overpaid player a second shot on a contender. I said earlier that I didn't envision this being a problem with only two retention slots per team but on second thought it can add up to quite a lot of bonus room if there's no limit on how many players with retained contracts a single team can have on their roster.

Take the Foligno trade:
CBJ retains 50%, gets a 1st round pick.
SJ retains 50% of the remainder, gets 4th round pick.
TOR gets Foligno from CBJ and Noesen from SJ.

CBJ/SJ aren't exchanging anything so it couldn't work as two separate trades.

The key would be to include which team each asset is coming from, when posting.

[Jets GM]

Let the cap hit flow through you

insert star wars dark side gif

[SharksGM]

Okay, here is my final salary retention proposal v3.5 (Final), which differs in some respects from the NHL:

- Every team has 2 retention slots.
- Teams can retain up to 50% of a player's cap hit for up two seasons. They may retain on a player who is signed for more than 2 seasons, but the retention would end in year 3.
- Teams may choose to spread the retained cap over either 1 or 2 seasons (half each). The total amount retained will not change, nor will the player's remaining salary cap charge, but the retaining team may opt to spread 1-year contract's retention over 2 years, or compress a 2-year contract into one (freeing up another retention slot earlier).
- Players may not have more than 50% of their cap hits retained (they may have two teams retaining at 25%), and may not have retention reducing their cap hit below league minimum.
- Teams may not acquire via retention any player whose rights they owned in the current or previous season.*
- Teams may not re-acquire a player that they are retaining salary on, in order to prevent cap reshuffling via the retention spread option (point #3). **

* I think this is worth ruling against but it's going to be a pain in the ass to verify so I'm somewhat amenable to modifying this.
** I think this would be less of an issue without that option in point #3, but it would still permit strange player leasing situations. I guess they're not vastly different from normal deadline rentals, and the main reason I objected to JC's infamous Bouwmeester "Option" was the notion of forcing a player to return to their original team, so this is negotiable.

Flow-through trades or whatever: If you can convince me that they are "normal" three-way trades, and can be entered in-game via three transactions between each pair of teams in a specific order, then fine. I don't want to think about this too hard.

[SharksGM]

Lastly, intent to injure suspensions. They're too short. The current formula is basically 2 games per month. I'd rather 1 game per week (starting at 2 games for 2 weeks), capped at 24 games for a 6 month+ injury. I would at least automate checking for new injuries, though I probably won't get around to fully automating actually entering suspensions because you have to check the boxscores to find the guilty party and while parsing boxscores is on my to-do list, it's not near the top.

Playoff suspension rules can wait, but I'd probably base it around series instead of games. It seems silly for someone to knock out a guy for a month (potentially two series) and then come back for series-deciding games.

[AvalancheGM]

Okay, here is my final salary retention proposal v3.5 (Final), which differs in some respects from the NHL:

- Every team has 2 retention slots.
- Teams can retain up to 50% of a player's cap hit for up two seasons. They may retain on a player who is signed for more than 2 seasons, but the retention would end in year 3.
- Teams may choose to spread the retained cap over either 1 or 2 seasons (half each). The total amount retained will not change, nor will the player's remaining salary cap charge, but the retaining team may opt to spread 1-year contract's retention over 2 years, or compress a 2-year contract into one (freeing up another retention slot earlier).
- Players may not have more than 50% of their cap hits retained (they may have two teams retaining at 25%), and may not have retention reducing their cap hit below league minimum.
- Teams may not acquire via retention any player whose rights they owned in the current or previous season.*
- Teams may not re-acquire a player that they are retaining salary on, in order to prevent cap reshuffling via the retention spread option (point #3). **

* I think this is worth ruling against but it's going to be a pain in the ass to verify so I'm somewhat amenable to modifying this.
** I think this would be less of an issue without that option in point #3, but it would still permit strange player leasing situations. I guess they're not vastly different from normal deadline rentals, and the main reason I objected to JC's infamous Bouwmeester "Option" was the notion of forcing a player to return to their original team, so this is negotiable.

Flow-through trades or whatever: If you can convince me that they are "normal" three-way trades, and can be entered in-game via three transactions between each pair of teams in a specific order, then fine. I don't want to think about this too hard.

So does this mean you can retain just one year of a two-year contract?

[SharksGM]

Okay, here is my final salary retention proposal v3.5 (Final), which differs in some respects from the NHL:

- Every team has 2 retention slots.
- Teams can retain up to 50% of a player's cap hit for up two seasons. They may retain on a player who is signed for more than 2 seasons, but the retention would end in year 3.
- Teams may choose to spread the retained cap over either 1 or 2 seasons (half each). The total amount retained will not change, nor will the player's remaining salary cap charge, but the retaining team may opt to spread 1-year contract's retention over 2 years, or compress a 2-year contract into one (freeing up another retention slot earlier).
- Players may not have more than 50% of their cap hits retained (they may have two teams retaining at 25%), and may not have retention reducing their cap hit below league minimum.
- Teams may not acquire via retention any player whose rights they owned in the current or previous season.*
- Teams may not re-acquire a player that they are retaining salary on, in order to prevent cap reshuffling via the retention spread option (point #3). **

* I think this is worth ruling against but it's going to be a pain in the ass to verify so I'm somewhat amenable to modifying this.
** I think this would be less of an issue without that option in point #3, but it would still permit strange player leasing situations. I guess they're not vastly different from normal deadline rentals, and the main reason I objected to JC's infamous Bouwmeester "Option" was the notion of forcing a player to return to their original team, so this is negotiable.

Flow-through trades or whatever: If you can convince me that they are "normal" three-way trades, and can be entered in-game via three transactions between each pair of teams in a specific order, then fine. I don't want to think about this too hard.

So does this mean you can retain just one year of a two-year contract?

No. You are retaining for both years and the cap hit for the receiving team is reduced equally for both. It's only the team doing the retention that gets to choose how they spread their cap hit (and what percentage to retain).

Example: 2y 2M contract.

Trading team retains 50% and chooses whether to pay 1y x 2M or 2y x 1M. Recipient gets player at 2y 1M either way.

[Jets GM]

Ahh, so we dont have the option of retaining 1 year of a 2+ year deal?

Teams can retain up to 50% of a player's cap hit for up two seasons. They may retain on a player who is signed for more than 2 seasons, but the retention would end in year 3.

The way I interpreted that was we have the ability to, not that we are required to if the deal is longer than 1 year.

[SharksGM]

I don't want to allow retaining over just part of the length of a contract - that means that the player's cap hit might go up one year, and there's be no way to tell without checking the list of retained players, which would make shopping around very annoying.

On the other hand, I also don't want to allow retaining for more than 2 years at a time, because GMs tend not to care what happens 3 or more years from now (probably rightfully so). That means either no retaining on 3+ year contracts at all, or some other kind of partial retention. I think I'll write it up that way and see how it goes.

[SensGM]

4. I put off suspensions for a while and am still unsure where to go. I think regular season suspensions should generally be longer. Playoff suspensions ought to be per round; it seems absurd to let someone get taken out for the rest of the playoffs while allowing the offender to return to a game 6 or 7.

I'd definitely recommend a change for the next playoffs