The NHL and NHLPA on Friday announced that the league salary cap for '14-15 has been set at $69M, with a salary floor of $51M (NHL). Last season's salary cap was $64.3M (THE DAILY). ESPN.com's Katie Strang noted $69M is "a number lower than many projected earlier this season, and could have several organizations straining to get their clubs comfortably under the cap." Strang cited Capgeek.com data as showing that the Blackhawks and Flyers would "be over the cap" as of Friday (ESPN.com, 6/27). The GLOBE & MAIL reports the NHLPA "fought for a lower salary cap, wanting it to be tied to last season’s revenues, which ultimately came in" at closer to $3.62B than the $3.7B that "was rumoured during the Stanley Cup finals." The players' "biggest issue with a higher cap number comes back to escrow." Players lost nearly 10% of their earnings last season due to escrow, and "didn’t want to see that rise." The NHL and NHLPA ultimately "had to come up with a compromise" (GLOBE & MAIL, 6/30). In N.Y., Larry Brooks wrote the "insidious nature -- or, on the other side, the genius -- of a hard-cap system" was on display when the NHLPA "voted against including the new Canadian television contract as revenue for purposes of calculating" the new salary cap. The cap "pits player against player -- for what’s good for one always costs the next guy money." In this case, it was "players without contracts for next season against those with contracts." Despite the urging of NHLPA Exec Dir Don Fehr, the membership "could not and did not see the value in getting as much money in the system as possible and instead went with the penny-wise, pound-foolish approach" (N.Y. POST, 6/29).
