The NHL Hard Cap Punishes Teams
Bear with me for a minute, because I am going to use the Toronto Maple Leafs as an example here and I know many of you aren’t going to be sympathetic.
The NHL hard salary cap punishes teams for drafting and developing well. The current situation in Toronto is proof of that.
I know, I know, but they signed Marleau, and then they gave Tavares $11m for 7 years, they did this to themselves. And to a degree that is correct. But the thing is by NHL standards neither of those contracts are outrageous for the players signed. In JT’s case there were clearly teams willing to pay him more, so it wasn’t a case of the Leafs just throwing around money like it didn’t matter.
Now, ask yourself, why did the Leafs sign those players? They did it to get better, to win and as I said they did it with at least some fiscal responsibility. They went in with a number for Tavares and stuck to it, they made their presentation mostly on “look at this team” and not on “look at this vault of money!”
Isn’t winning the entire point in the NHL? The holy grail, the Stanley Cup!
So the Leafs have 3 exceptional RFA’s to sign over the course of the next year or so, one in under a week and the other two hopefully sooner. They also have the recently very productive Kasperi Kapanen and the forever maligned Josh Leivo in that period. Andreas Johnsson signed a one year deal so he’s an RFA next year too.
That’s just the forwards. We have Travis Dermott who is proving to be nearly as valuable as the top 3 are in 20/21 and and Garret Sparks next year too. In total the Leafs have 8 RFA’s that need to be signed by next season at the latest and you can argue that at least 7 of them are significant parts of their team and 4 are must signs.
With the hard cap that is going to be difficult to get just those 4 and there is a concern about offer sheets for Matthews and Marner if they don’t sign by July 1st.
So by signing two UFA’s to take a shot at winning the Leafs are very likely going to have to give up at least some of those RFA’s and perhaps are in danger of losing one or more of those top 4.
They are literally being punished for trying to win, and again for doing it in a mostly fiscally responsible manner. And again I understand there isn’t going to be a lot of sympathy for the Leafs for any number of reasons, but the fact is this can and will happen to other teams that draft and develop well. Add to that the Leafs have some really team friendly contracts. Name another centre of Kadri’s abilities making $4m. Name another defenseman that is even close to Rielly on a long term $5m deal. They aren’t throwing money around stupidly.
The NHL needs to investigate a soft cap to stop teams from losing RFA’s before they even hit their prime. Perhaps it even needs some investigation into a cap on RFA salaries the way they do with ELC contracts, although I doubt the NHLPA agrees to that and I am not sure I even agree with it.
A soft cap would allow teams that can afford it to exceed the cap to keep the players they develop. The parity wouldn’t be lost entirely because the penalties for exceeding the cap would be distributed to teams that don’t or can’t afford to exceed the cap, thus giving them some wiggle room to stay competitive.
My vision of this would be a sliding scale, the more over the cap a team goes the higher the penalty. This means it would be unlikely for a team to spend $150m when the cap is $90m because the penalty would be prohibitive. But adding say $5m to keep a few RFA’s would be manageable.
I like the parity the salary cap brings to the league, I love the playoffs not being decided before the last day, let alone before the trade deadline like before the cap days.
But I dislike the fact that teams that draft and develop well struggle to keep their own players. I dislike that those teams take a significant risk of losing their own players just by attempting to win.
It’s time for the NHL to investigate a soft cap. I honestly don’t see rich or poor teams complaining, as in the end it is just one more way to spread the wealth, and a much fairer one than we have now.
