EHEC Financial Policy Changes

[CapsGM]

What's the arbitration system for 32+ players?

[SharksGM]

Thornton and Richards are going to be 31 and UFAs, not restricted.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Thornton and Richards are going to be 31 and UFAs, not restricted.

Unless they're both testing the market, why can't they be re-signed? This policy is not exclusive to RFAs. Teams still need to be able to sign their own players to extensions.

[SharksGM]

Well why are players 32 and older being treated differently when the UFA age is 31, not 32?

And for that matter, why do 70-71 OV players who might be anything from decent 3rd-4th liners to great AHLers have the leverage to demand up to a 150% raise when in the NHL half of them wouldn't even be eligible for arbitration and would get nothing more than their qualifying offer unless they had good NHL seasons under their belt?

[Virtual Jarmo]

Well why are players 32 and older being treated differently when the UFA age is 31, not 32?

And for that matter, why do 70-71 OV players who might be anything from decent 3rd-4th liners to great AHLers have the leverage to demand up to a 150% raise when in the NHL half of them wouldn't even be eligible for arbitration and would get nothing more than their qualifying offer unless they had good NHL seasons under their belt?

Because I determined it to be that way. Didn't say the percentages were concrete. I said they were tentative until I researched enough examples to feel comfortable with them. Arbitration process puts the human element in play. Wasn't that something that was desired?

I'm done trying to please everybody.

[SharksGM]

Because I determined it to be that way. Didn't say the percentages were concrete. I said they were tentative until I researched enough examples to feel comfortable with them. Arbitration process puts the human element in play. Wasn't that something that was desired?

I'm not complaining about arbitration. I'm wondering why 31-32 year old UFAs are being given the same raises as RFAs and not being treated the same as 32+ UFAs.

The <$1M salary raises are extremely important because virtually all of the RFAs coming off ELCs have salaries of $800-900k. $850k was the minimum ELC salary in the NHL over the past few years: http://proicehockey.about.com/od/thenew ... p_expl.htm). In the NHL many of these players had Exhibit 5 bonuses that made their cap hits typically much larger (if they were good). For example, Luke Schenn's cap hit is $2.975 million right now. As far as I can tell none of the salary numbers included any of these bonuses and the current salaries are just their base ones.

So basically whatever you set the <$1M raise to in each overall bracket is going to set the minimum salary for a lot of young players coming off their ELCs. Right now only the <70 OV ones making exactly $800k are going to get $1.2 million; everyone else is due too much to play in the AHL and the 70-71 bracket is going to be making at least $2.4 million.

[Virtual Jarmo]

I'm not complaining about arbitration. I'm wondering why 31-32 year old UFAs are being given the same raises as RFAs and not being treated the same as 32+ UFAs.

I outlined above, because of our retirement policy and because of the current high salaries they're playing at not increasing/decreasing that much. The system is still going to increase RFA contracts more, or at least it should. I haven't checked all the numbers, but guys 32-36 don't seem to decline as much in EHEC as they might in real life. Their endurance may go down, but by and large, they're still producing at an effective rate.

The <$1M salary raises are extremely important because virtually all of the RFAs coming off ELCs have salaries of $800-900k. $850k was the minimum ELC salary in the NHL over the past few years: http://proicehockey.about.com/od/thenew ... p_expl.htm). In the NHL many of these players had Exhibit 5 bonuses that made their cap hits typically much larger (if they were good). For example, Luke Schenn's cap hit is $2.975 million right now. As far as I can tell none of the salary numbers included any of these bonuses and the current salaries are just their base ones.

So basically whatever you set the <$1M raise to in each overall bracket is going to set the minimum salary for a lot of young players coming off their ELCs. Right now only the <70 OV ones making exactly $800k are going to get $1.2 million; everyone else is due too much to play in the AHL and the 70-71 bracket is going to be making at least $2.4 million.

Fair. I said they weren't concrete. I wanted to give myself a base to operate off of until I looked at enough players to determine a better percentage for that bracket. I set what I thought was on the high side and then I'd go down from there, rather than have to go up and then go back down.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Apologies for giving off the impression that I'm taking out my frustrations on some of you guys. No ill will intended. Just ready for this to be out of the way so I can enjoy my Vegas getaway and then be able to get started on the draft class. On some level, I just wish that it would be acknowledged that this is a better system instead of pointing out every nitpicky detail imaginable.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Just so we're clear, Dan, are you advocating that all 31 year old players be released in to the free agency bidding war? You want guys like Joe Thornton hitting the open market? Chara obviously will because he wants to test the market. Is that what you're saying by talking about the UFA age?

Just want to clarify this.

[SharksGM]

Yeah, why not? It's something of a moot point for Thornton in particular because I'll use whatever franchise tag there is on him, but EHM is already aware he's a pending UFA. If we were to leave EHM to do the negotiations I would easily sign him for $5-5.5 per, 4 years + options with an NTC. There's no way he'd hit the open market whether he's treated as an RFA or UFA, but I also couldn't just qualify him and keep his rights in EHM because he's not an RFA.

Apologies for giving off the impression that I'm taking out my frustrations on some of you guys. No ill will intended. Just ready for this to be out of the way so I can enjoy my Vegas getaway and then be able to get started on the draft class. On some level, I just wish that it would be acknowledged that this is a better system instead of pointing out every nitpicky detail imaginable.

I'm not going to deny that I have a personal stake in the issue and I'm quite happy to see a new system in place, because with no changes I would just re-sign everybody to discounted 6-year deals and never have to worry about the cap. But there's a happy medium between the EHM nonsense and everybody getting large raises. I'm worried that if all RFAs are due significant raises many of them will be let go by their teams with no chance at arbitration like the NHL, or they'd just be signed anyways in the hopes of getting something in return from the few teams that are still a long way from the cap.

Also I'm a nerd and think too much about this stuff so I like to see brackets that work like the way real tax brackets work (they do not make you pay more by moving up into a new bracket, contrary to some popular perception).

[CapsGM]

A couple clarifying questions:

Can the franchise tag be used on a player that will already be under contract?
Exhibit 5 bonuses apply to "players under 25 that were signed to contracts after EHEC began". Does this mean that if they're 25 now (or 26, depending on if you meant 25 and under) but signed a contract after EHEC began, they are excluded from receiving Exhibit 5 bonuses?
Also, do the bonuses apply retroactive to the 2011 season? i.e. Backstrom is 23 and signed a contract after EHEC began. He would have reached all of the goal/assist/point bonuses in 2010 but he's barely on pace for hitting 20-30-50 this year.

[Jets GM]

I apologize if my remarks came off to critical, I think this sounds like a much better system then what is in place currently. My reasoning for arguining about the length\salary for fringe to mediocre players is because those are the ones u draft in late rounds. Good teams draft well and have players that can fill in when injuries occur. GMs who take the time to scout for prospects that fit there system in the 4th and beyond are no longer going to be rewarded because they'll b to expensive to keep in the AHL. Even in offline sims I always like having my AHL team filled with draftees.

Could an AHL cap be considered? It would allow possible stashing of overpaid players but teams would suffer even more if there giving up spots to cheap AHL filler players that could be prospects.

[Bruins]

Damn I know I should be paying attention while reading everything but I have to be the one to type the collective 'what the fuck is going on'?

[Penguin]

Damn I know I should be paying attention while reading everything but I have to be the one to type the collective 'what the fuck is going on'?

Like

[Virtual Jarmo]

A couple clarifying questions:

Can the franchise tag be used on a player that will already be under contract?

No.

Exhibit 5 bonuses apply to "players under 25 that were signed to contracts after EHEC began". Does this mean that if they're 25 now (or 26, depending on if you meant 25 and under) but signed a contract after EHEC began, they are excluded from receiving Exhibit 5 bonuses?

25 & under when they signed the contract.

Also, do the bonuses apply retroactive to the 2011 season? i.e. Backstrom is 23 and signed a contract after EHEC began. He would have reached all of the goal/assist/point bonuses in 2010 but he's barely on pace for hitting 20-30-50 this year.

This is a reasonable question. I want to say no because the policy is just now being implemented. I think that, over the 3 or 4 year period, maybe even 6 year period of the contract, then the player should reach enough of these incentives to make this system work. I have to decide on a cap for these bonuses.

I apologize if my remarks came off to critical, I think this sounds like a much better system then what is in place currently. My reasoning for arguining about the length\salary for fringe to mediocre players is because those are the ones u draft in late rounds. Good teams draft well and have players that can fill in when injuries occur. GMs who take the time to scout for prospects that fit there system in the 4th and beyond are no longer going to be rewarded because they'll b to expensive to keep in the AHL. Even in offline sims I always like having my AHL team filled with draftees.

Could an AHL cap be considered? It would allow possible stashing of overpaid players but teams would suffer even more if there giving up spots to cheap AHL filler players that could be prospects.

I see your point, especially in regards to 3rd-5th rounders. The idea of this plan is to fix issues in the short-term. If something needs to be addressed again further down the line, it will. Odds are, it will. But I want to solve the short-term here before looking long-term because of the slow sim schedule. Any issues on the horizon can be resolved once we put a financial system in place. It can be tweaked from there or amended once the contracts are better representative of a player's skill level.

There is an AHL cap, but it's largely irrelevant right now. I think the best thing to do would be to wait and see what the AHL salaries add up to with the new system in place. Perhaps upping the AHL limit to 1.5M would do the trick in the meantime.

Again, you're looking long-term. Right now, I'm not. I'm looking over the next year or year and a half. That's my only concern right now. Amendments can be made at any time and I'll reserve the right to do that.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Damn I know I should be paying attention while reading everything but I have to be the one to type the collective 'what the fuck is going on'?

Right now, it's just a discussion on altering the policies laid out in the first post. By Friday, I'll have everything typed up and stickied in one nice, neat thread, have the Rulebook amended, and all discussion on the policy will be tabled until a really pressing issue comes up.

[Jets GM]

I'm not going to bother quoting the whole post, but 1.5m sounds very reasonable and I look forward to the new thread so I can better understand the system.