With the NHL's '11-12 salary cap increasing by another $5M to $64.3M, the trade market this past weekend "came alive and saw players once thought to be unmovable getting shipped around," according to Chris Johnston of the CP. The rising salary cap, coupled with a floor of $48.3M, "could also have an affect on how free agency plays out this week." Coyotes GM Don Maloney said, "It's an unusual landscape right now. Quite frankly, I'm not sure what's going to happen July 1. It might just go berserk and the people who have money just blow their brains out." Johnston reported the spenders this offseason "aren't only limited to the teams traditionally right at the top of the cap." The Panthers still need to "add in the neighbourhood" of $25M to reach the salary floor -- "even after acquiring Brian Campbell and his $7.142-million annual salary" from the Blackhawks. Panthers GM Dale Tallon said, "The floor is going to get in the way of us trying to become a good team. ... That's the way I'm looking at it -- I'm not doing this (Campbell trade) to get to the floor, I'm doing this to become a good team. Period." Johnston noted there are "18 teams currently sitting below the cap floor," although a "number of them will move above it once they sign the restricted free agents on their rosters" (CP, 6/26). ESPN.com's Scott Burnside noted the "annual jump in the salary cap, coupled with the commensurate rise in the salary floor, has put more teams in a position where they have to spend more than they would like, and that sometimes means bringing in salaries other teams cannot or do not want to continue to pay" (ESPN.com, 6/25). Tallon said, “We’re like the Waste Management team right now. Everybody’s trying to dump all their high-salaried players to us. But it’s good. We’re in a good situation. It was very painful to get to that position ... and now we have to reap the benefits of that” ("NHL Draft," Versus, 6/24).
DISCUSSION POINTS: THE HOCKEY NEWS' Ken Campbell wrote a CBA that was "supposed to solve so many problems doesn’t seem to have done a thing for anyone." The NHL "was hoping to get away from crazy contracts, but now you have teams spending more money than they want just because they have to do so." The market "again needs a correction." The NHL "talks about tweaking the CBA, but it’s going to take a lot more than that for this league to get it right" (THEHOCKEYNEWS.com, 6/25). In N.Y., Larry Brooks wrote under the header, "Next CBA Demands Creativity." NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's "utopia proved nothing of the sort." The "entire concept of 'gross revenue' in the NHL is fraudulent." Teams "do not pool their revenue under any circumstance other than to arrive at a figure that's then used to calculate the cap." The "entire premise of linkage the commissioner posited through the last owners' lockout -- that would all but ensure every franchise would be in position to make a profit -- is counterfeit." But "percentage of the gross is Bettman's baby," and it is "not going away." It is, however, "going down, and if the owners have their way, it is going down dramatically, to somewhere in the range of 48-to-50 percent" (N.Y. POST, 6/26).
RING TOSS: The GLOBE & MAIL's Bruce Dowbiggin cites sources as saying that should Bettman "receives the concessions he wants" from the IOC and the IIHF, a final decision on whether or not to allow NHLers to play in the '14 Sochi Olympics "may have to await as late as the next collective agreement with players, expected in 2012-13." After watching the NHL's presence "marginalized in previous Olympics, Bettman is looking for concessions on a number of issues if the league is to shut down for almost three weeks of travel and play in 2014." While "money is important," sources said that the league "still has equal concerns about security, medical, insurance, communications and accommodation issues for the NHL players who would travel to Sochi." It is "no secret that Russian (and many European) NHL players want to participate in the Games, and that a withdrawal from the Olympics by the league would precipitate a conflict within" the NHLPA (GLOBE & MAIL, 6/27).
STAYING HOME: The GLOBE & MAIL's David Shoalts notes since the KHL began "enticing young Russian players, usually with money, to stay and play at home rather than develop for a year or more in the North American junior or minor leagues they are electing to stay home in increasing numbers." NHL teams in response have drafted "less and less of them every year." Senators GM Bryan Murray: "They get encouraged to go back, get money to go back to the KHL. So (the players) have no patience and therefore we don’t take the chance on them." All of the NHL execs questioned said that the trend "does not mean Russia is producing fewer hockey prospects, even though the four players taken in 2010 was the lowest since Russians were first drafted by NHL teams beginning in 1969." But while "relations between the NHL and KHL are better than they were a few years ago," there is "still no formal agreement between the leagues." And "another problem is the Russian Hockey Federation's refusal to sign a transfer agreement with the NHL" (GLOBE & MAIL, 6/27).
