A Cap-Reward System For Strong Drafting

[Nuxfanabroad]

I've seen ideas like this bounced over the yrs. Mulled it a bit, & came up with this variation.

 

First off, I do think teams should be rewarded for building a roster with a strong representation of their own drafting/development.

 

Take mid-season, 40 games in. To be eligible, a player must have played in 30 games(20 for gt's maybe?). If 10 of your players meet that criteria, you get a bonus $1,000,000 at TDL, 'til season-end. Each extra player is say, 200k. So if 15 of your players(that you drafted & developed) played in 30 of the first half's games, you'd have a bonus 2 mill tacked on at the TDL.

 

This would encourage more activity at the deadline as well.

 

************not selling this today!********** Let's face it, the NHL has enough to worry about the next yr or two...

But I think it's an interesting idea to implement, perhaps 2 or 3 yrs down the line.

 

Questions:

1- Good idea?

2- Perhaps you like it, but have different suggestions as to how they'd work this?

[Nuxfanabroad]

Another aspect I'd forgotten is signing players(overage/EU/college) that weren't drafted. I'd suggest if you signed them prior to say..their 22nd Bday, perhaps they'd be eligible to include with this rule?

[King Heffy]

Why not just have ELCs not count against the cap?  Not in favour of either; it just seems like a simpler solution.

Edited October 29, 2020 by King Heffy

[goalie13]

Since the cap is calculated as 50% of hockey related revenues, does the bonus cap just get clawed back using the players' escrow?

 

I'm pretty sure they aren't going to go for that.

[BCNeil]

Your idea is one of those that is hard to implement.  Do you somehow phase it in?  Just putting it in, it benefits some teams instantly.  While others might be in positions where it wouldn't benefit them at all and take several years before it could.  What about Vegas and Seattle?  How many years would it take for Seattle to have 15 draft picks on the team?  Goalie13 is right too.  Where does this money come from?  

[PunjabiCanucks]

I would love to see this per say. Imagine you go over the cap - its allowed, but to an extent.

 

Cap is 80 mill approx, you can go over by 5% but it will cost you to give up a 1st round pick. No one gets it, its surrendered simply to the NHL. 

 

If you over by 1% its a 5th round pick, 2 - 4th etc.

 

This does cause teams to take a gamble at the deadline potentially 

 

just a fun idea tbh 

[Nuxfanabroad]

11 minutes ago, goalie13 said:

Since the cap is calculated as 50% of hockey related revenues, does the bonus cap just get clawed back using the players' escrow?

 

I'm pretty sure they aren't going to go for that.

It's a good question, & one of the obstacles for such a concept. I'd prefer they'd wedge off a slice of the pie for ideas like this, as opposed to bailing out the fair weather, sunbelt welfare-types. Perhaps incorporating progressive rules generates more interest(& revenue) over a long haul? Don't know..just wanted to throw this idea out there to get input/ideas(like you've put forth).

[Nuxfanabroad]

3 minutes ago, PunjabiCanucks said:

I would love to see this per say. Imagine you go over the cap - its allowed, but to an extent.

 

Cap is 80 mill approx, you can go over by 5% but it will cost you to give up a 1st round pick. No one gets it, its surrendered simply to the NHL. 

 

If you over by 1% its a 5th round pick, 2 - 4th etc.

 

This does cause teams to take a gamble at the deadline potentially 

 

just a fun idea tbh 

I like that too..interesting, but prob need some tweakin'.

[BCNeil]

1 minute ago, PunjabiCanucks said:

I would love to see this per say. Imagine you go over the cap - its allowed, but to an extent.

 

Cap is 80 mill approx, you can go over by 5% but it will cost you to give up a 1st round pick. No one gets it, its surrendered simply to the NHL. 

 

If you over by 1% its a 5th round pick, 2 - 4th etc.

 

This does cause teams to take a gamble at the deadline potentially 

 

just a fun idea tbh 

I think with that you get managers in their final year rolling the dice.  For the rest like Benning it would basically be a no win, unless you did that and won the cup that year.  

[goog16]

Can we somehow convince the league to roll in Loui's contract as part of the reward??

[Kevin Biestra]

Just wondering why you want the league to subsidize good drafting vs. good trading or good signings.

[IBatch]

7 hours ago, BCNeil said:

Your idea is one of those that is hard to implement.  Do you somehow phase it in?  Just putting it in, it benefits some teams instantly.  While others might be in positions where it wouldn't benefit them at all and take several years before it could.  What about Vegas and Seattle?  How many years would it take for Seattle to have 15 draft picks on the team?  Goalie13 is right too.  Where does this money come from?  

For the the owners should consider the quality of the product and the ability teams have under the cap to create decent rivalries/ strong teams more and the ones to “pay for it”.   Cap split was rolled back three times to get it to the 50/50, why not take it back 54% for the hockey players and assign that 4% to something like this.    I’ve talked about a hybrid cap as well,  maybe one marquee player per team cap doesn’t count - but I know that’s a slippery slope - GMs will just spend to the cap if allowed every year, and salaries would inflate quickly to gobble that up.    But surely there has to be a better way.  Good teams are constantly punished under the current system.   Win a cup and instead of rewarded - lose their key support guys or a blue chipper or two...

 

As for something like this Biestra makes a good point.   In a way good drafting is its own reward.  That said they need to review the lotto, teams past ten shouldn’t be winning a top pick, and no teams past say 7 should be in the lotto for the first overall at all.  This new system doesn’t promote not tanking, if anything MORE GMs decide to let the chips fall without improving their lineup when they should be.  It’s like the old system was broken when yes some teams fans cheered when the other teams won (Buffalo) because McDavid was coming up, it worked long enough.     I’m happy the hockey gods worked through JB and Co despite that stupid gut punching time - because we ended up with massive wins 2/3 times when we slipped...still PLD, Heiskanen, Hughes would have been a mighty nice line-up for us too.  

Edited October 29, 2020 by IBatch

[timberz21]

Way too complicated, and there is actually no correlation with drafting and cap.  Not sure it will encourage trade deadline deals...if you own players helps you with the cap, they'll be less and less trade, teams will keep all their young players.  Way too many things to consider, what happens if you draft a player trade him the next day and trade back for that player 3 years later...does he count against the exception?

 

I think there are many more simpler options

- franchise player who doesn't count against the cap

- % to exceed cap with a consequence (draft pick or luxury tax or decreased cap the year after)

- ELC not included

 

But honestly, you can put all the cap "reward or system" in place, IMO that's just another opportunity for GMs to get creative (not to say cap circumvention) and find loopholes that will be corrected later by the NHL and end up being punished like the Luongo recapture.   Also, I think one of Benning's major weakness is handling all the CBA's details and subtleties, therefore I don't think it would benefit the Canucks.

Edited October 29, 2020 by timberz21

[goalie13]

8 hours ago, Nuxfanabroad said:

It's a good question, & one of the obstacles for such a concept. I'd prefer they'd wedge off a slice of the pie for ideas like this, as opposed to bailing out the fair weather, sunbelt welfare-types. Perhaps incorporating progressive rules generates more interest(& revenue) over a long haul? Don't know..just wanted to throw this idea out there to get input/ideas(like you've put forth).

Reserving a piece of the pie would run into the same problem.  It means that you are rewarding teams by withholding a piece of the cap that players have a negotiated right to earn up front.

 

I also agree with @Kevin Biestra.  Why should a good drafting team be rewarded differently than a good trading team?  Or a team that makes good signings?  Another unintended consequence would be that even fewer trades happen than do today.

 

So I would say 'no thanks' to such an idea.  Success itself should be the reward.

[UKNuck96]

3 hours ago, goalie13 said:

Reserving a piece of the pie would run into the same problem.  It means that you are rewarding teams by withholding a piece of the cap that players have a negotiated right to earn up front.

 

I also agree with @Kevin Biestra.  Why should a good drafting team be rewarded differently than a good trading team?  Or a team that makes good signings?  Another unintended consequence would be that even fewer trades happen than do today.

 

So I would say 'no thanks' to such an idea.  Success itself should be the reward.

I agree - but I also think with 31/32 teams all competing for a single prize there needs to be alternate ways for rewarding success. Yes there is the presidents trophy and divisional championships but they don’t really mean anything. 
 

I think having some additional cup competitions not tied to the post season would be good, Similar to how there are multiple domestic cups in European football. 

[Nuxfanabroad]

@Kevin Biestra Guess I'm somewhat of 2 minds on this..but yeah, think I prefer top teams(mostly) built from within, with strong drafting/development.

This yr's 2 finalists have both been pretty impressive in this regard.

 

Back in the day(3, 4 decades say) I don't recall as many player transactions, as today. Seemed there were more prominent pros staying with one team for most of their career.

 

But then you could go even further back to the days when the tempestuous Eddie Shore once swapped some poor AHL'er for a hockey net! :^)

[Nuxfanabroad]

7 hours ago, timberz21 said:

Way too complicated, and there is actually no correlation with drafting and cap.  Not sure it will encourage trade deadline deals...if you own players helps you with the cap, they'll be less and less trade, teams will keep all their young players.  Way too many things to consider, what happens if you draft a player trade him the next day and trade back for that player 3 years later...does he count against the exception?

 

I think there are many more simpler options

- franchise player who doesn't count against the cap

- % to exceed cap with a consequence (draft pick or luxury tax or decreased cap the year after)

- ELC not included

 

But honestly, you can put all the cap "reward or system" in place, IMO that's just another opportunity for GMs to get creative (not to say cap circumvention) and find loopholes that will be corrected later by the NHL and end up being punished like the Luongo recapture.   Also, I think one of Benning's major weakness is handling all the CBA's details and subtleties, therefore I don't think it would benefit the Canucks.

I don't see this as very complicated. When a team hits 40(games in), you simply need to be able to count to 30.

 

If the cap is at 82 mill. Said team had 14 guys(they'd drafted & kept; never traded & reacquired), then you'd add 1.8 mill to their ceiling. It's 83,8 mill, from about TDL(say they agree mid-Feb perhaps?) until the end of that season. Next season all teams go back to set number.

 

Opinion: When we consider all the team hrs invested into scouting, drafting & development, simply see this bonus-cap as a well-earned reward for teams that do this well.

 

There's also perpetually increasing interest in the annual draft/prospects/developing from the nerdy(analytics type) online fan-experience. I'd say rules & bonuses like this might actually enhance/cater to such a crowd.

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

I think good drafting already affords teams a significant cap advantage, just by virtue of them being about to fill roster spots with players on ELCs. And that advantage continues with cost control and negotiating advantages through the RFA years. 
 

As far as making the deadline more interesting, and creating more player movement, I’ve always liked the idea of adding loans with compensation. Basically, allow non-playoff teams to “trade” their star players at the deadline, on a loan for the remainder of the season and playoffs, receive assets, but keep the rights and get the players back the next season, assuming they’re still under contract.

 

Imagine if we could’ve traded the Sedins every deadline, and let them go chase Cups, but still keep them under contract and returning for the start of each season. Hank and Danny would probably have Cup rings, and those playoffs (when we were out) would’ve been a hell of a lot more interesting for Canucks fans.

[ruilin96]

13 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

I think good drafting already affords teams a significant cap advantage, just by virtue of them being about to fill roster spots with players on ELCs. And that advantage continues with cost control and negotiating advantages through the RFA years. 
 

As far as making the deadline more interesting, and creating more player movement, I’ve always liked the idea of adding loans with compensation. Basically, allow non-playoff teams to “trade” their star players at the deadline, on a loan for the remainder of the season and playoffs, receive assets, but keep the rights and get the players back the next season, assuming they’re still under contract.

 

Imagine if we could’ve traded the Sedins every deadline, and let them go chase Cups, but still keep them under contract and returning for the start of each season. Hank and Danny would probably have Cup rings, and those playoffs (when we were out) would’ve been a hell of a lot more interesting for Canucks fans.

I personally would not like it. For example, the drive to win for the star players would not be there in the regular season. Every year there are 4-5 teams that are cup contenders, for big name players not on one of these 4-5 teams, we could see some of them lose the drive and desire to win or make the playoffs in the regular season in this format. If they know they have a better shot winning elsewhere, why would they try to win the for their current team when they know they will be on loan to a cup favourite if they end up missing the playoffs. 

[Kragar]

On 10/29/2020 at 2:10 PM, Nuxfanabroad said:

@Kevin Biestra Guess I'm somewhat of 2 minds on this..but yeah, think I prefer top teams(mostly) built from within, with strong drafting/development.

This yr's 2 finalists have both been pretty impressive in this regard.

 

Back in the day(3, 4 decades say) I don't recall as many player transactions, as today. Seemed there were more prominent pros staying with one team for most of their career.

 

But then you could go even further back to the days when the tempestuous Eddie Shore once swapped some poor AHL'er for a hockey net! :^)

I would think you didn't see the transactions because there was no cap back then.  Rich teams could keep their big money players, and other teams couldn't afford to bid for them.  Players are also UFAs sooner now than they were 15 yrs ago.  Also, teams got draft pick compensation for losing UFAs.

 

Also, there are 30% more teams now, and more (and improved) foreign leagues so more opportunity for movement.

 

As Sid says earlier, teams that draft well already are on a good path to icing better teams due to the quality of their ELCs.  I think that is benefit enough.