Eastside's Hockey Elite Collide

As you know, we've been hesitant to give out a salary cap number for the 2014-15 season as teams look to build for the upcoming year. Unfortunately we don't have one to give you just yet. However, I wanted to let you know about some of the ideas that Pat, Tim, and I have been discussing over the last couple of days.

Salary cap

We want to provide a three-season sliding scale for the salary cap to account for contract inflation and what we believe will be an increase in free agency over the next couple of seasons. When we do release a salary cap figure for the 14-15 season, it will include cap figures for 15-16 and 16-17 so that teams can make long-term plans and won't have to wait to find out what the salary cap will be. We believe that this will benefit teams at various key points throughout the season, especially during free agency and the trade deadline.

Free agency

We are going to lower the free agency age to 27 in an attempt to both level the playing field and also mirror real life. Options will no longer be available in any contracts. More on that in a bit, but we feel that increasing free agency will return some of the leverage and control that GMs will lose because of what we intend to do regarding the re-signing of players.

What I envision is a maximum cap of the number of players a team can re-sign, using a bracket format for contract values, and then they will be allowed to bid on the others in the normal free agency bidding process. It's entirely too easy to maintain a strong team after acquiring certain pieces and parts and this will make things significantly more interesting for lower-tier teams, especially those with cap room. It also incentivizes paying close attention to the salary cap so that funds are available for these players.

I expect that we'll have multiple brackets and remove arbitration for players under 35. The goal is to automate the brackets so that it will just be a plug-and-play Excel spreadsheet that will accurately calculate the contract after the GM or Committee member inputs the necessary values. The end game here is two-fold. GMs will know exactly how much a player is slated to make without having to ask or miscalculate and it lessens the workload on the Commitee and the arbitrators during the offseason.

One of my ideas is to allow playoff teams to keep more 35+ players than other teams. Older players get comfortable and want to win, so their inclination would be to stay with a good team in an attempt to win a Cup prior to retirement. As a corollary to that, we may lower the number of younger free agents a playoff team can keep because non-playoff teams will be more aggressive in the bidding process and money talks when you're 28 as opposed to 37 and just want to win.

Another thing we have discussed is a salary rollback for current FAs, the ones listed in UFA tab, not the impending ones. We're slowly but surely becoming a league of draftees because of the inability to force players to bust in EHM. We would rollback the salaries for unsigned players and continue the 75% or 50% minimum contracts so that veteran players can once again find a home in the league. What the goal would be here is to find cheaper third and fourth line options of veterans.

We have decided that we will adhere to the NHL's policy of no more than 50 players under contract and we will mandate that every NHL roster must carry 22 players at all times. The up and down shuttling of players is not only a means of cap circumvention, but also unrealistic. Teams will have to keep healthy scratches on the roster in the event of injury, and thus will have to account for them in the salary cap. This will also affect how many players in juniors a team can have signed, like POT boosters.

Waivers

The entire waiver process is going to be changed. Two-ways are going to be eliminated (along with team/player options) and will have no bearing on waiver eligibility. We will adhere to most of what is in the NHL's current CBA: http://www.litterboxcats.com/2013/10/7/ ... a-panthers

The AHL salary minimum is absolutely going to go down. We'll find a way to grandfather this in, but it should work itself out naturally since teams won't want to carry a 22nd man making 1.5M.

We will also look at ways to spread out buyouts a la the NHL model and may include an amnesty buyout if these changes require one.


Other things will be discussed, but this is what has been covered so far. We have yet to tackle things like tactics, shift lengths, and the other things that have been discussed, but our ultimate goal is to streamline everything as much as possible so that the workload does not become a burden and we can simplify the Rulebook to keep from confusing the GMs on a regular basis. Spreadsheets will be a huge help and going with the NHL model in a lot of areas should help to remove loopholes and cap circumvention.

I look forward to hearing any criticism, constructive preferably, about some of these ideas and we will keep you up-to-date on what we discuss over the next week or two as we get ready for the draft and the season.

Really like the 22 players minimum rule as well as the salary cap.
Free agency I'm not really sure I understand fully, but looks good.

I'll say it again, I want to get rid of is Pro-ration and allowing certain players to play another position because of real life (Mike Fisher rule).

The only thing that really bothers me is the ''amnesty'' buyout. I traded Armia for Morrow to get rid of Bieksa, I wouldn't find it fair.

Penguin wrote:I'll say it again, I want to get rid of is Pro-ration and allowing certain players to play another position because of real life (Mike Fisher rule).

Pro-ration will probably go away. It's not worth the time and the confusion. If you want to upgrade, either save the cap space or make the salaries line up.

The alternate position rule is definitely an interesting one. Imagine the trades that haven't gotten done because a team needs a RW and only C/LW were being offered. It's one of those situations where a player just "isn't a fit". Or if a guy is limited to RW because his alternate position is C and his FA is 65.

Personally, I think my recommendation would be to not allow changes to players' positions.

The only thing that really bothers me is the ''amnesty'' buyout. I traded Armia for Morrow to get rid of Bieksa, I wouldn't find it fair.

It shouldn't be necessary, but it's a possibility. We don't have too many awful contracts in the league right now and the cap number will be higher than this past season's.

Good, good. That's what I meant. We should NOT allow position switches.

No more AHL playoffs? I wouldn't mind that, but maybe have an incentive for teams that finish top 10 in the standings? A leadership boost to attribute to an AHLer?

From what I understand, free agency sounds good. Getting the veteran players back into the file is important. The one thing that is concerning is having a maximum number of pending free agents you can re-sign per year. When Seguin, Fowler, Smith and Nemeth have to get another deal done in the same year, it will be frustrating if I'm limited to re-signing two or three of them despite having the cap room. I'm all for increasing the leverage low-tier teams have, but I hope it's not at the expense of core-players.

I don't think the "wanting to win" factor should just be limited to veterans. I imagine most players have a strong desire to win a Cup, once they have established a yearly salary that can take care of themselves and family. In addition, since were going to be eliminating the human element from negotiations, we should try and implement real-life factors/bonuses. One thing I can think of is for every full season/calender year a player has been on a team, the more willing he would be to re-sign with the team. A small discount for teams who show loyalty to their players (1yr = 25k, 2yr=50k, 3+yr=100k) would be something to think about.

Does the NHL require a full 22 man roster? This will cause a bit of a cap crunch for cap-teams like myself, but since were getting an increase it shouldn't be to big of a deal. I remember Chicago irl constantly shuffling players back and forth from the AHL to make cap room.

Since the above post was a recap of how Adam's proposed plans effect me, myself and I, below are topics discussed in the previous thread that have yet to be decided on:

Tactics - Bern, Dan and I all submitted proposed rule changes in the previous thread. It appeared Dan and mine had the most positive response from other GMs.

Leadership - Again, this was mostly me beating the drum about how difficult it is (for playoff and non-playoff teams) to develop leadership. With the likelihood of AHL playoffs being eliminated, I think it's reasonable we discuss how to implement realistic leadership boosts. I suggested WJC LE boosts, others said we should give upcoming draft classes higher LE ratings. Also, LE boosts for activity might not be a bad idea.

Pro-Ration - Sounds like were moving in the direction of eliminating it all together. If not, why don't we have 2 or 3 cut-off calender dates that would split a players salary 25/75, 50/50, then 75/25 at the deadline?

UFA's set to retire - Are we going to save the ones who can still hack it?

Tampa Bay GM wrote:Does the NHL require a full 22 man roster? This will cause a bit of a cap crunch for cap-teams like myself, but since were getting an increase it shouldn't be to big of a deal. I remember Chicago irl constantly shuffling players back and forth from the AHL to make cap room.

It's easy with your farm team in Rockford, but it's not easy if you are Winnipeg and your farm team is in St. John's or Colorado with Lake Erie or plenty of other teams. I can't think of a NHL team carrying less than 22 players. EHM doesn't have things like illness, which often require a player to be scratched.

I don't see any downside to increasing free agency. Like I said, you can still retain your players on the open market. You would just be limited to re-signing X number of players without the free market system. Think about the Zach Parises and Ryan Suters of the world.

Why not just make the amnesty buy out part of the next off-season activity check, GMs can have a choice between a boost reward of some kind OR they get ONE amnesty clause buy out.

TorontoGM wrote:Why not just make the amnesty buy out part of the next off-season activity check, GMs can have a choice between a boost reward of some kind OR they get ONE amnesty clause buy out.

This is a pretty solid idea. I like that.

Penguin wrote:The only thing that really bothers me is the ''amnesty'' buyout. I traded Armia for Morrow to get rid of Bieksa, I wouldn't find it fair.

Never mind that since that Dallas GM is gone, the current GM is free to buy him out at 20% of his salary. Wow, it would be sooo unfair to give him an extra 1.1M cap for 3 years.

Tampa Bay GM wrote:The one thing that is concerning is having a maximum number of pending free agents you can re-sign per year. When Seguin, Fowler, Smith and Nemeth have to get another deal done in the same year, it will be frustrating if I'm limited to re-signing two or three of them despite having the cap room. I'm all for increasing the leverage low-tier teams have, but I hope it's not at the expense of core-players.

I wanted to address this point a little bit further. I understand that you want to keep the team that you built, but also, one of the problems plaguing the league has been the inability to make transactions because GMs are set with their teams and it made trading difficult. One of the best elements about these leagues is being able to manipulate your roster. If you lose a core player, trade for another one. Outbid somebody on the open market to retain your player. Like I said, the max signings is you signing them on your own with no other bidders. Basically like how players sign a contract extension before free agency. Once free agency hits, nearly every player wants to see what he's worth on the open market.

Another reason for this is that we're taking away the GM's leverage and bargaining power with arbitration cutbacks and this is a way we came up with to restore some of that.

Commissioner (CBJ) wrote:It's easy with your farm team in Rockford, but it's not easy if you are Winnipeg and your farm team is in St. John's or Colorado with Lake Erie or plenty of other teams. I can't think of a NHL team carrying less than 22 players. EHM doesn't have things like illness, which often require a player to be scratched.

I don't see any downside to increasing free agency. Like I said, you can still retain your players on the open market. You would just be limited to re-signing X number of players without the free market system. Think about the Zach Parises and Ryan Suters of the world.

Fair enough, were getting plenty of time to adjust regarding minimum roster size. It will be interesting to see how GMs handling playing time. Players who are regular healthy scratches tend to have bad attitudes, and people have different opinions on how that can effect a teams overall performance.

The reason I was concerned about "x amount of players" was it's kind of random. If the limit is two per-season, one team might have 4 of their 5 core players contracts expire one off-season. If their 27 or older, they are unable to even start the negotiation process with them until free agency starts. In the NHL, teams would at least have a window to talk before other teams can start making phone calls. However, if a team has their core players contracts expire at different points (i.e 2 one year, 1 another year, 2 after that), they would avoid losing anyone to free agency as long as they could afford them.

I'm okay because I can control the length of Seguin, Fowler, Nemeth and Smith's next contract so I don't risk losing any of them. However, other teams might not be in that sort of situation.

We might want to consider a different solution to increasing the quality of UFA's. How about after re-signing one or two pending UFA's to the formula determined salary, you start to have to pay above formula value to keep re-signing other pending UFA's. Your essentially paying extra money to avoid the chance of losing that player, but risk overpaying for what he would of garnered on the open market. This extra charge could be in sequential form (i.e 1st UFA=0, 2nd UFA=5%, 3rd UFA=5%, 4th UFA=10%) or determined by the pending UFA's greed (<100=0, <110=5%, <120=10%, >130=15%). The greed idea would be cool because it would be one more thing you have to factor in when building your team. This would start to add up, and force GM's to make some decisions. Also, would GMs still be allowed to trade a pending UFA's rights? How would that work?

In short, I just really didn't like the idea of not being able to retain the core of the team you have built despite having the cap room to do so. However, I full support the league as they try to improve the GM experience and won't protest any decision that feel makes the league better.

The above post was made before Adam's.

Adam, you make good points and I understand what you are trying to accomplish. I agree that most players would want to see what they are worth; however, some may not. Yzerman, Sundin, and Sakic are some of the players that come to mind who wanted to play their whole career for one team. Anyway, I'm sure the league will make a fair decision.

Tampa Bay GM wrote:The above post was made before Adam's.

Adam, you make good points and I understand what you are trying to accomplish. I agree that most players would want to see what they are worth; however, some may not. Yzerman, Sundin, and Sakic are some of the players that come to mind who wanted to play their whole career for one team. Anyway, I'm sure the league will make a fair decision.

Sure. And Crosby, Malkin, and Ovechkin will probably be others. But 15-20 guys out of around 650 is a very small margin. Plus there's still the franchise tag.

Commissioner (CBJ) wrote:

Tampa Bay GM wrote:The above post was made before Adam's.

Adam, you make good points and I understand what you are trying to accomplish. I agree that most players would want to see what they are worth; however, some may not. Yzerman, Sundin, and Sakic are some of the players that come to mind who wanted to play their whole career for one team. Anyway, I'm sure the league will make a fair decision.

Sure. And Crosby, Malkin, and Ovechkin will probably be others. But 15-20 guys out of around 650 is a very small margin. Plus there's still the franchise tag.

All three of those guys have been traded in EHEC

Those were just guys off the top of my head. I'm sure there are a lot more that played the majority of their career with one team, whether it was getting traded early on or going to contender late in their career for a chance at the Cup (i.e Iggy and Ray Bourque). When Ryan Murray becomes a UFA at age 27, I'm sure he would take a small paycut to stay with the team who drafted him and who he has played for the last eight seasons.

I guess it depends on the number of players you are able to re-sign via the formula system, and how many you have to let go to UFA. I did some research around the league, the following are teams that have players I would hate to lose to UFA and have expiring contracts in the same year:

BOS (Hedman, Rask, Lucic)*
CHI (Kane, Hossa, Sharp)
LA (Perron, Mason, Statsny)
MTL (Hemsky, Backes, Frolov)
NSH (Suter, Kuznetsov, Shipley)
NJ (Cuma, Helenuis, Tedenby, Wheeler)
PIT (Iginla, Kopitar, JVR, Edler)
TOR (MAF, Hickey, Yandle)
WSH (Datsyuk, Varlamov, Parise, Wolski)

*not using a franchise tag currently

If I was one of the GMs of those teams, and I was told I could only keep two of the three or four players listed I wouldn't be to happy. Especially if I had managed my team well enough to afford all them via the formula system. I'd be curious to see what other GMs think about this.

I would be kinda pissed, but I know they can have a hell of a return, if that comes to fruition.

More UFAs! I hope we are faced with those tough decisions in the near future!

Bruins_GM wrote:I would be kinda pissed, but I know they can have a hell of a return, if that comes to fruition.

Yes, if we have a rights trading system similar to the one we have now. If they are going to walk and test the market regardless, there would be no way to recoup the players value through trade.

Tampa Bay GM wrote:

Bruins_GM wrote:I would be kinda pissed, but I know they can have a hell of a return, if that comes to fruition.

Yes, if we have a rights trading system similar to the one we have now. If they are going to walk and test the market regardless, there would be no way to recoup the players value through trade.

Then I'd have to make some deals earlier.

Don't like the "testing the market" thing already........Losing Gaborik is gonna really hurt my team.

Bruins_GM wrote:

Tampa Bay GM wrote:

Bruins_GM wrote:I would be kinda pissed, but I know they can have a hell of a return, if that comes to fruition.

Yes, if we have a rights trading system similar to the one we have now. If they are going to walk and test the market regardless, there would be no way to recoup the players value through trade.

Then I'd have to make some deals earlier.

And get significantly lower value for what the player is worth.

Anyway, I've said my piece. I'm all for making it more difficult to retain your players, but not as black and white as it's being proposed here (keeping allowed to keep X amount per year). That rule would hurt some teams, and not others, all randomly based off who's contract expires in what year.

I'm sure the league office will make the appropriate decision.

Tampa Bay GM wrote:The above post was made before Adam's.

Adam, you make good points and I understand what you are trying to accomplish. I agree that most players would want to see what they are worth; however, some may not. Yzerman, Sundin, and Sakic are some of the players that come to mind who wanted to play their whole career for one team. Anyway, I'm sure the league will make a fair decision.

For what it's worth, Sakic signed an offer sheet with the Rangers and there were rumors of an Yzerman/Yashin trade way back in the day when Yzerman's rep was a playoff choker. It's very rare to find a player who wanted to stick around for a long time.

On top of that, it's rare to find superstars that HAVEN'T changed teams a couple times in fantasy leagues. EHEC is no different.

Tampa Bay GM wrote:All three of those guys have been traded in EHEC

Those were just guys off the top of my head. I'm sure there are a lot more that played the majority of their career with one team, whether it was getting traded early on or going to contender late in their career for a chance at the Cup (i.e Iggy and Ray Bourque). When Ryan Murray becomes a UFA at age 27, I'm sure he would take a small paycut to stay with the team who drafted him and who he has played for the last eight seasons.

Or he might not. You can't analyze whether players want to stay or not in a vacuum. There's teams like Edmonton and Winnipeg that players often bolt from the first chance they get. Some players even want to go home (see: Suter and Parise).

As free agents, players are entitled to get the best deal they can, and the difference between a paycut and taking the best offer could mean leaving a few million on the table.

Tampa Bay GM wrote:I guess it depends on the number of players you are able to re-sign via the formula system, and how many you have to let go to UFA. I did some research around the league, the following are teams that have players I would hate to lose to UFA and have expiring contracts in the same year:

BOS (Hedman, Rask, Lucic)*
CHI (Kane, Hossa, Sharp)
LA (Perron, Mason, Statsny)
MTL (Hemsky, Backes, Frolov)
NSH (Suter, Kuznetsov, Shipley)
NJ (Cuma, Helenuis, Tedenby, Wheeler)
PIT (Iginla, Kopitar, JVR, Edler)
TOR (MAF, Hickey, Yandle)
WSH (Datsyuk, Varlamov, Parise, Wolski)

*not using a franchise tag currently

If I was one of the GMs of those teams, and I was told I could only keep two of the three or four players listed I wouldn't be to happy. Especially if I had managed my team well enough to afford all them via the formula system. I'd be curious to see what other GMs think about this.

A lot of teams are close to the cap as it is. So if you lose a player, you gain the cap space. I'd love to gun for Backes, Iggy, and Kopitar with the space I would get from losing Datsyuk and Parise. Seems to be the only way I can shake up my team anyways with all these horrendous trade proposals for my top assets.

EDIT: My mistake - I thought you meant these players were all UFA during the same season.

But my point stands, the current UFA system is weak. Lowering the UFA age and making teams decide who to keep adds both strategy and realism and would increase off-season activity.

In the NHL a lot of people look forward to the free agent class as much as they do the draft class. It was crazy following the Suter/Parise sweepstakes. Player movement is slowing down here and free agency is getting stale. Even trades for rentals are rare in EHEC because a team can just sign their pending UFA, since all teams can spend to the cap anyways. With that list you posted, I think you'll see a whole bunch of activity from managers we thought were dead.

Murray wants to be a Bolt for life!

Tim makes some great points. However, you didn't address the fact that some teams will fall victim to losing UFA's and some will not. It all hinges on how many contracts you have expiring at seasons end. I'd like to see a system that solves that problem, rather then a GM getting unlucky to have three or four core players have expiring contracts who are 27 and over.

I'm sure most GMs who aren't having success are going to want a more open market UFA system and those who have built a strong core of players, like myself, are going to want to keep things they way that they are. Also, I'm sure some of us have our favourites we would never want to lose.

Like I said, I'm sure Adam and Pat will come up with something that is both fair and improves the GM experience.

Tampa Bay GM wrote:Murray wants to be a Bolt for life!

Tim makes some great points. However, you didn't address the fact that some teams will fall victim to losing UFA's and some will not. It all hinges on how many contracts you have expiring at seasons end. I'd like to see a system that solves that problem, rather then a GM getting unlucky to have three or four core players have expiring contracts who are 27 and over.

I'm sure most GMs who aren't having success are going to want a more open market UFA system and those who have built a strong core of players, like myself, are going to want to keep things they way that they are. Also, I'm sure some of us have our favourites we would never want to lose.

Like I said, I'm sure Adam and Pat will come up with something that is both fair and improves the GM experience.

The 2005 NHL CBA slowly lowered the year of UFA eligibility after every season (31 -> 29 -> 28 -> 27). And even then some teams felt the loss a lot more than others.

I'm not sure if that was to protect teams from losing too many players at once to free agency, but it's something we can look at rather than decreasing the age immediately to 27.

Singin the BLUES wrote:Don't like the "testing the market" thing already........Losing Gaborik is gonna really hurt my team.

You can trade his rights for way more than you'd get in the NHL. The alternative is to never have good UFAs leave, which is silly.

It would be kind of interesting to have contract demands linked to greed, though people might complain that we haven't been paying any attention to greed in young players prior to now.

I haven't even made the playoffs yet and I could lose a guy to UFA because of a rule change? No thanks.

The biggest name I saw in the UFA market was Ales Hemsky but he got back to his old team somehow.
I don't mind losing players knowing I can probably replace them from all the other team's pending UFA.

It's going to be interesting to say the least.

SharksGM wrote:

Singin the BLUES wrote:Don't like the "testing the market" thing already........Losing Gaborik is gonna really hurt my team.

You can trade his rights for way more than you'd get in the NHL. The alternative is to never have good UFAs leave, which is silly.

It would be kind of interesting to have contract demands linked to greed, though people might complain that we haven't been paying any attention to greed in young players prior to now.

I would be more in favor of that. There is a human element to it, even if it is artificially created by assigning a numeric value to how badly a player wants to maximize his earning potential. I know for my own team, I have some greedy players but I never cared because it had little impact till UFA which currently starts very late. I wouldn't complain about it becoming a more relevant attribute. I like it a lot better then "all players who turn 27 want to test the market, and you can only re-sign two pending UFA's on your team".

Why not create a threshold for greed, linked to the players age, which decides whether they test the market or not? 27-28=130+, 29-30=120+, 31-33=110+, 34-36=120+, 37+=110+. If were going to allow GMs to trade a players rights, we need to design a system that allows the new team to negotiate with that player. That's where the extra 5-15% I was discussing in a above post might come in handy. Teams that acquire a players rights can pay the formula determined salary plus a 5-20% boost depending on the players greed and/or age.

Tim, what I was referring to is a team that happens to have a large number of core players have expiring contracts in the same year. They could be aged 27, or 30, but if they have 5 really good players who's contracts are all up at the same time, they are going to have to let two or three of those players go, However, a team that has their core players contracts expiring at different points, doesn't have to worry about losing them to UFA. That's what I don't like about the proposed system.

Right now the sole reason that teams lose players is because of the salary cap. That's not realistic at all. Everybody is able to re-sign everybody unless they're testing the market or don't have the cap room to retain a player. I don't think a lot of you guys are considering that most of the "core" players we're talking about are draftees from within the last four years. At best, that makes them 21 or 22 years old. If we instituted the true NHL policy for FA, which is seven pro years OR 27 years old, then, yes, draftees would be free agents at 24 or 25. We haven't made that decision yet.

Like others have said, if you lose a core player, at least you'll have a better chance at replacing him in a more plentiful free agent market. I don't see the league-wide benefit in having seven free agents and being able to sign every single one of them. The only reason we had any free agency at all was because teams walked away from some arbitration awards. That has created a pretty stagnant environment. We'd see more rentals at the deadline of teams swapping impending free agents. Or more rentals of teams picking up a free agent because of the cap room but content to let them walk so they can sign other players.

We've looked at ways to close the competitive balance gap between teams that are regularly near the top and those that haven't made the playoffs. Restricting playoff teams to two underagers while the other teams have three is one option that we have discussed because underagers develop so much faster than real-life.

One element of the possible free agent changes that hasn't been discussed is that draft picks would carry a lot more value. That's incentive for teams to stop passing them around like a bong in a frat. Having a player for 7+ years via the draft would be better than having a free agent to some teams. On the flip side, teams that are going for it should have that ability because of the importance of picks to teams not going anywhere. I think it would force GMs to have more of a plan and we could see the different styles at work.

In this instance, I think creating chaos is better than the direction that we've gone. I see that there's a lot of disagreement and a lot of constructive criticism and some very valid points. This type of discussion is good.

Edit: Justin, where do you keep coming up with the number "two" for re-signing expiring contracts? I never gave a number and two is not exactly a fair number to use when discussing your dissenting opinion. That's a low number for what is being proposed.

I still have a hard time not coming off as a prick when I talk online. I am sorry if my previous posts have come across as rude. Like I mentioned before, I very biased when it comes to UFA. I have 5 or 6 players I have zero interest in losing to free agency, even if there is comparable replacements. I do agree that free agency becoming a bigger event would benefit the league. I am sure you will find a happy medium between bolstering the free agency proccess and allowing GMs to retain the core of their teams.

I get Justin's point that a hard limit on the number of re-signings would hit teams who happen to have a lot of contracts expiring at the same time harder, but I think there's more than enough time to deal with it if that's the case. Structure your contracts so they don't expire at the same time. There's more than enough player movement in the league to avoid this problem if it's coming up 2 or 3 years from now.

Commissioner (CBJ) wrote:We'd see more rentals at the deadline of teams swapping impending free agents. Or more rentals of teams picking up a free agent because of the cap room but content to let them walk so they can sign other players.

I don't think we're going to see that much deadline movement without pro-ration. If a team keeps 4M cap space throughout the season, they'll have... 4M available at the deadline without pro-ration, and roughly 12-16M with it, depending on when exactly the deadline is.

Commissioner (CBJ) wrote:One element of the possible free agent changes that hasn't been discussed is that draft picks would carry a lot more value. That's incentive for teams to stop passing them around like a bong in a frat. Having a player for 7+ years via the draft would be better than having a free agent to some teams. On the flip side, teams that are going for it should have that ability because of the importance of picks to teams not going anywhere. I think it would force GMs to have more of a plan and we could see the different styles at work.

It seems like draft picks get traded more often in EHEC than in the NHL, but I don't think they're really undervalued. By the time the offseason rolls around, it seems like nobody is willing to move picks anymore. There's some movement during the draft itself, but that's a good/fun thing. I guess future draft picks aren't valued as highly, but that seems true in the NHL too. At the same time, I've seen pretty good young players traded for packages of mostly picks before, so it's not like GMs here consider picks worthless.

SharksGM wrote:I get Justin's point that a hard limit on the number of re-signings would hit teams who happen to have a lot of contracts expiring at the same time harder, but I think there's more than enough time to deal with it if that's the case. Structure your contracts so they don't expire at the same time. There's more than enough player movement in the league to avoid this problem if it's coming up 2 or 3 years from now.

There you go. Already found the loophole. Instead of signing everybody to the max, separate them by a year.

Singin the BLUES wrote:Don't like the "testing the market" thing already........Losing Gaborik is gonna really hurt my team.

You can always try re-signing him during the UFA period. The "testing the market" thing in EHM is irrelevant here; players his age will automatically go UFA at the end of their contract, even if in EHM it says they're willing to re-sign with you.

Bub(NYR) wrote:

Singin the BLUES wrote:Don't like the "testing the market" thing already........Losing Gaborik is gonna really hurt my team.

You can always try re-signing him during the UFA period. The "testing the market" thing in EHM is irrelevant here; players his age will automatically go UFA at the end of their contract, even if in EHM it says they're willing to re-sign with you.

Well, that's not the case now - testing the market means no arbitration prior to going to UFA, which you could go through otherwise and probably get a discount compared to the full retail bid.

Also damn is the site ever slow.

So am i able to hang onto Gaborik or not? Would he resign with me? I am getting confused here a bit with some of these rules and things.

Dan -- yeah, he can't just keep Gaborik, but my point was that once he's UFA, Jim can make an offer just like anyone else.

Bub(NYR) wrote:Dan -- yeah, he can't just keep Gaborik, but my point was that once he's UFA, Jim can make an offer just like anyone else.

Hmm that is true......i can trade his rights away and IF that team isnt able to sign him he will go UFA....

I guess I'll put together awards ballots later in the week. Don't go anywhere.

I thought about UFA's a bit more, and came up with a Age+Greed type formula to determine when a player wants to see what he's worth on the open market. However, with us trying to simply things where we can, I'm not sure it's worth another page in the rulebook.

Maybe we should just lower the age of UFA to 27, and all teams can keep 3 (or 4?) UFA's each year via the formula and/or arb?

Singin the BLUES wrote:Hmm that is true......i can trade his rights away and IF that team isnt able to sign him he will go UFA....

Even if you don't trade his rights, you still have a shot at signing Gaborik as a UFA. You'll be able to make 3 bids on him since you're part of the market he wants to test. You didn't let him walk, he just wants to test.

Noticed some guys are posting trades. Do we have Adam and/or Pat's permission to start the onslaught?

Tampa Bay GM wrote:Noticed some guys are posting trades. Do we have Adam and/or Pat's permission to start the onslaught?

I don't see the point in trading until a cap number and other financial policies are announced, though not all policies will be effective immediately. I don't want to spend my summer doing arbitrations, so anything affecting that will go in place immediately.

Just because they're posted doesn't mean we'll rule on them quickly.

Commissioner (CBJ) wrote:

Tampa Bay GM wrote:Noticed some guys are posting trades. Do we have Adam and/or Pat's permission to start the onslaught?

I don't see the point in trading until a cap number and other financial policies are announced, though not all policies will be effective immediately. I don't want to spend my summer doing arbitrations, so anything affecting that will go in place immediately.

Just because they're posted doesn't mean we'll rule on them quickly.

Good points. I just know some GMs, including myself, have deals that have been agreed upon for some time. Regardless of the financial landscape changing, these are done deals. However, iirc most seasons end we received a green light from the committee to post trades.

I'm fine with people posting trades, but like Adam said, don't expect any rulings on them anytime soon.

Bub(NYR) wrote:I'm fine with people posting trades, but like Adam said, don't expect any rulings on them anytime soon.

This.

As Adam said, be mindful of the potential rule changes that haven't been announced yet.

The cap will rise, but we haven't finalized the number yet.

Tampa Bay GM wrote:Noticed some guys are posting trades. Do we have Adam and/or Pat's permission to start the onslaught?

Precautionary, for my part. I've been fucked over by a GM here before saying we had a done deal in a PM but then changed his mind when time came to post it. Like I said in my post, I'll let the commitee rule it when time comes. Just making it official that's all.

Commissioner (CBJ) wrote:

TorontoGM wrote:Why not just make the amnesty buy out part of the next off-season activity check, GMs can have a choice between a boost reward of some kind OR they get ONE amnesty clause buy out.

This is a pretty solid idea. I like that.

Thought about it a bit more, maybe have an option for either an anmesty buy out or clear a contract off the buy out list?

TorontoGM wrote:

Commissioner (CBJ) wrote:

TorontoGM wrote:Why not just make the amnesty buy out part of the next off-season activity check, GMs can have a choice between a boost reward of some kind OR they get ONE amnesty clause buy out.

This is a pretty solid idea. I like that.

Thought about it a bit more, maybe have an option for either an anmesty buy out or clear a contract off the buy out list?

You're a problem solver, Walters. I like it.

Most of the big contracts on the buy out list are coming off the books this off-season but I thought there might be someone who doesn't have a big contract to buy out and would like to take clear off a previous buy out instead.

TBH....one other thing we need here is maybe a chatbox or chat link......might be easier for trading and what not