Sports law professional says the NHL needs to improve their salary cap system
For years before the pandemic hit, the NHL's salary cap was continuously rising and at one point was about to hit $90+ million. Teams were spending frivolously at the time, signing player to rich, long-term extensions, thinking they had the safeguard of a salary cap increase to mitigate the high spending.
Case in point; when the Toronto Maple Leafs signed John Tavares to his lucrative 7-year deal that carried a cap hit of $11 million, Kyle Dubas admitted a few years later that the deal made a lot more sense with the cap increases. In the end, the pandemic hit and the salary cap hit a continual $81.5 million for a few seasons and that derailed the plans of almost every single contender around the league. Teams had to free up cap every summer, player movement was a necessity to alleviate cap space and the result for a lot of teams was subtraction instead of addition. Fortunately things have slowly picked up with the cap going up to $82.5 million this season and projected $83.5 million next season - but teams still want and need more.
Commissioner, Gary Bettman, projected the cap to spike up to $88 million in 2024-25 and $92 million in 2025-26. Until then, the NHL is in a bit of a lull and as Eric Macramalla states: 1) 12 teams have no cap space right now, 2) 17 teams have players on LTIR, 3) 27 teams having less than 3 million in cap space. 4) there are several teams that want to make trades but aren't able to due to the cap constraints, and 5) player movement is great for the game and thus, Macramalla wants a more flexible approach to the cap. Who can blame him?
The NFL has a hard cap like the NHL but they're allowed to restructure contracts, meanwhile the NBA and MLB have set limits, but you're allowed to go over if you're willing to pay the taxes. Now of course, these leagues are far richer and more successful than the NHL, but there is probably a good middle ground between both sports.
Hopefully Bettman's predictions about the cap increases come to fruition because we want to be excited about trade deadlines and off-season free agent signings. The parity around the NHL is great for the sport but player movement and the ability to do so freely, would only increase the popularity.
| POLL | ||
JANVIER 17 | 90 ANSWERS Sports law professional says the NHL needs to improve their salary cap system Does the NHL need a new salary cap system? | ||
| Yes | 85 | 94.4 % |
| No, it's fine the way it is | 5 | 5.6 % |
| List of polls | ||
