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mll

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Everything posted by mll

  1. The NHL is now making the announcement instead of the teams for privacy reasons. They don't plan on disclosing player names or which teams have players testing positive.
  2. Players want the new CBA too per McKenzie. Players will apparently be offered the option to opt out.
  3. Every player gets a vote. Not everyone is against returning. Luke Kunin is 22. He has type I diabetes. He can't wait to return to play despite being in a risk group. Boeser also said he's bored and wants to play. Would think that there are more young players who want to return. Spezza has 4 young daughters. He says: “There’ll to be some tears involved, I’m sure, along the way... but they understand daddy’s got a dream of trying to win a Stanley Cup, and there’s not too many years left here." The vote will apparently also be tied to the CBA. They are discussing a capped escrow - ie spreading the players' share of the losses over time. The 7 eliminated teams also get to vote on the CBA - which is upsetting some players as they could get the financial benefit of a return without the concerns of playing. Returning to play reduces the losses and provides some escrow relief. McKenzie confirmed that there are penalties owed to local TV networks in case they don't resume. They estimate escrow at 35% if the season doesn't resume. If they come back to play it could apparently drop to 27-28%. Players have only paid 14% so far this season and would owe a fair share back to owners. The new US TV deal is up after next season. If they go dark when other sports are resuming it probably won't help their negotiations.
  4. The GMs have proposed a rule change back in their early March meeting - about a week before the season got cancelled. Still has to be formally approved but should normally get implemented for next season. More details in this Sportsnet article: https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/nhl-general-managers-propose-change-to-offside-rule/ The NHL general managers have voted for a proposed change to the offside rule in order to simplify video reviews. The proposal – which will still need to be approved by the competition committee and BOG – would change the language of the rule to say a player only has to break the plane of the blue line to determine offside. The current version of the rule requires at least one skate to be “in contact with, or on his own side of the line” for the player to be onside. Since the 2015-16 season, coaches have been allowed to challenge a goal for offsides, which linesmen then can review on tablets. However, the video reviews have put a microscope on the offside rule and plays where a skate is marginally off the ice. This new rule change should simplify the review process. The competition committee typically meets in June to discuss rule changes which, if passed, will be implemented next season.
  5. Players are tested 48 hours before being allowed into a team's training facilities - they can only join if their test is negative. This return to play hinges on players following protocol and not putting themselves at risk away from the rink. According to Burnside several executives expressed concern privately about players being responsible throughout the return to play. The league recommended everyone to self-isolate when the season got suspended. Players testing positive show that they haven't been keeping safe. Some of those testing positive in phase 2 were asymptomatic or had just a light fever. Had they not entered phase 2 they might have unknowingly continued putting others in the public at risk. There's going to be continuous testing, but teams have no control over what players do outside of the practice facilities and whether they or their social circle are observing self-distancing measures. They'll have more control once players enter the bubble of phase 4. There have been only some 250 players tested to date on the 750 or so that should attend training camp. Phase 2 started on 8 June. Many players made their own arrangements rather than join phase 2. Phase 2 is so much more restrictive and there is mandatory regular testing. Vancouver just put up ice this week because there was limited interest to join phase 2 with most players not even in town and content with their own arrangements. Canucks are apparently now encouraging players to join phase 2 and get a head start on testing. There's likely going to be even more positive tests as players start to join phase 2 with the European based players also making their way back.
  6. They are re-seeding after every round. The play-ins will determine which are the teams 5 to 8 based on point percentage of the teams that make it through. Canucks could be 5, 6 or 7. They can't be 8 because the Winnipeg-Calgary play-ins has both teams ranked lower than the Canucks. Nashville-Arizona and Edmonton-Chicago have a better ranked team playing a worse ranked team. If Nashville and Edmonton come through then the Canucks would be 7. They could be 5 if both Arizona and Chicago win. 1 to 4 will be the bye-teams. They will play a round robin to determine their ranking. They will use the regular season point percentage to break up ties.
  7. When Benning acquired Sutter he said he's someone you win with in the playoffs. Very much doubt Green would scratch him over less experienced players like MacEwen, Gaudette. Canucks invited the following players to camp in addition to the players already on the roster. Still unclear how many players teams will be allowed to bring into the bubble. Initially they were talking of 28 skaters + unlimited number of goalies.
  8. Players are tested multiple times - more than 1450 tests so far for the 250 or so players that entered phase 2.
  9. There will initially be 6 games per day. 3 games per conference. They are also going to try and spread them but there will still be games overlapping. 7pm in Vancouver is 10pm in Toronto. Having the West in the West is more convenient for players than have them play at 10pm.
  10. There are 12 teams in the West participating in the extended season. West-East only meet in the finals.
  11. Exactly. Playing in the West is not an issue for the East. They could have both hubs in the West. It's more problematic to have 2 hubs in the East because 7pm viewership would have games played at 10pm.
  12. The league's preference was for the home team not be based at home. There were even discussions of the West playing in the East and the East in the West. Thomas Drance when talking about Vancouver as hub was saying that players prefer playing earlier in the day and that 7pm games are for fans. There are no fans in the stands so the East playing at a more convenient schedule for players wouldn't be an issue for eastern viewership. It's far less convenient for the West to be based in the East though. A 7pm game for viewers in Vancouver would be 10pm.
  13. The NHL and NHLPA are discussing a new CBA which they hope to submit to a vote at the same time as the return to pay plan. Renaud Lavoie has TV revenue worth about 650M. It's about a 5 billion dollar league. They need gate revenue and merchandising to operate. The league is probably going to operate at a loss for a few years. They have to negotiate a new US TV deal for the 2021/22 season so the hope is that it will help recoup part of their losses. Those TV contracts have apparently penalties if a certain number of games aren't played in a season. Everything CBA and cap related has to be negotiated with the NHLPA. They share the losses. In the current CBA there is a clause that foresees that hockey related revenue (HRR) is split equally between the league and the players. Even before the pandemic the players' salaries were more than half of revenue. The cap was artificially too high so they had to pay back part of their salaries. It's the escrow issue. Escrow is to ensure that when all is said and done, players and owners get and equal half of revenue. Salaries paid to players are more than 50% of revenue so they retain amounts in escrow to allow owners to pay themselves back once revenue is determined. The league is talking of losses of well upwards of 1 billion if play doesn't resume. The 14% that players have paid in escrow this 2019/20 season is by far insufficient to cover their share of the losses. There are discussions that escrow could be 35%. Coming back to complete the playoffs would bring escrow to about 27%. Players's base salary are paid roughly every two weeks during the regular season that runs from October to April. Bonuses are often paid on 1 July but not necessarily - players have that set in their contracts. The amount they will effectively bring back will depend on the final escrow numbers. The players have decided to differ payment of their final salary instalment back in April - about 120M. They are waiting to know what percentage should go back to owners via escrow. There's no salary payment in the playoffs. There is a fund of 16M to be distributed among the different teams - the size of the fund is set in the CBA. The distribution key is decided by the NHLPA with approval of the league. Each team then decides how they allocate their share to the different players. That fund is negligible in comparison to the impact on escrow - 16M with 16 playoff teams is on average just 1M per team. Playoff revenue is part of HRR (hockey related revenue) and it helps lower escrow.
  14. More info from Friedman in his 31 thoughts: 6. Some of what’s in the new framework was contained in this article from Thursday, but here’s a fuller picture: four years added onto two remaining seasons; 20 per cent escrow limit for players in 2020-21; somewhere between 14-18 per cent in 2021-22, with a hope of getting into single digits after; salary cap of $81.5 million for the next two seasons, and $82.5 million in 2022-23; a 10 per cent player “deferral” next season (which includes July 1 signing bonuses due next week), where players will get that money back in the future when escrow is lower; and a mechanism to make sure teams get paid in full from the 50-50 split over the length of the deal. One thing I’ve struggled understanding is what this deferment means to a team’s cap situation. Some sources indicated they thought this would give teams extra room, but another countered by saying he understood it “counted in the year earned.” So, still waiting for clarity on this.
  15. Elliotte Friedman's 31 thoughts on lottery fallout: https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/31-thoughts-fallout-contentious-nhl-draft-lottery/
  16. Losing young players along the way. A team is not just star players. Cost efficiency in the bottom of the lineup is also important. If the bottom-6 aren't coming through the system then there is the risk of overpaying in free agency. I don't see teams wanting to take that gamble and take a step back. Vancouver is actually an example of why not to do it. Hughes and Pettersson were not the top players in their draft but look well on their way to be in a re-draft. They found talent outside of 1st overall. They are now being anchored down by the number of their unwanted contracts.
  17. I don't think it really crossed their minds that it could actually happen. They used the same scale as previous years where they had 15 teams in the lottery where teams 8 to 15 had a 6% to 1% chance of winning. Except they got to pool their chances to reach 24.5%. I don't think they fully realised that it increased the chances of the losing play-in teams to get 1st overall. The lottery was to bring excitement and get those 7 teams already eliminated something to look forward to. Have their fanbase engaged in discussions on who their team could pick. Keep those teams in discussion as they aren't playing. Those fans are now upset and it could turn even more fans away. The other problem they have now is that some fanbases are actively rooting against their teams. Some Vancouver fans now want the Canucks to lose but so do Wild fans. That's not the outcome the league was looking for. To get fans to watch and root for their team there needs the excitement around winning and they could have trouble creating that now. There's no fans in the stands so it's even harder to create and why bother watching if you want your team to lose. They shot themselves in the foot. The league is looking to create parity because it's more profitable if every team has a shot to win. Fanbases get disengaged if teams are stuck in the basement forever - less fans, less revenue. They are less likely to watch the game if the team coming into town is so vastly superior to their own. Why waste dollars/time to watch a loss. When the outcome of every game is uncertain there is more excitement. I think they would have preferred Detroit win the lottery. They are so far from being competitive and need help to get out of the basement - they have a new arena and there are no fans. It's not good for the league's income. The initial proposal when they were discussing holding the draft before the playoffs was to allow teams in the lottery to move up at most 4 spots. Detroit would have had a 50% chance of getting 1st overall.
  18. Ottawa believes they are on the rise and will be able to compete next season. Can't see them interested in cap dumps and risk being stuck in an endless rebuild. Everyone just gets frustrated, fans move on and it costs money. Buffalo is a complete mess and who knows how long until their young stars ask out. Lafrenière is also no McDavid. Nice player but just not worth taking on that many cap dumps and giving up youth. Their explanation in wanting a complete tear down type of rebuild was to hoard young talent so that they can build a team that will compete together for years to come. It's more efficient than having to use free agency where it's older players that end up getting overpaid with too much term and who knows if they even end up fitting the group - just look at the list of players the Canucks are looking to get rid of. Why would another team want to replicate those mistakes especially when they are in a good cap situation and look to be starting to put a good young group together.
  19. They want a hub in Canada because of the favourable exchange rate. There are apparently discussions of changing the calendar beyond just next season. They have to negotiate a new US TV deal and networks want them to start the season later. There is too much competition with other major sports in October. The better months for viewership are late winter and spring.
  20. Except teams stuck at the bottom hurt the league's revenue. The league is looking for parity. That's why they've introduced a salary cap. The point system is also for parity.
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