Caps and restrictions are not needed for every little ‘loophole’
There they go again.
The owners, management people, compliant messengers in my business, there they go again throwing around the term “loophole” to define a business practice permissible under the collective bargaining agreement used by wealthy team ownership to sign a player.
There they went again, whining when the Maple Leafs’ five-year, $58.17 million second contract to Auston Matthews featured $54.52 million in bonuses, or 93.725 percent of the total. And this just months after Toronto brought home 2018 free agent John Tavares with a seven-year, $77 million contract containing $70.89 million in bonuses, or 92.06 percent of the sum.
In the wake of the Matthews signing, calls have been renewed for the NHL to place a cap on the amount/percentage of bonuses within contracts, perhaps at 25 or 50 percent, on top of all of the other restrictive caps within the league’s unyielding system. It would be no surprise to see the league include this in its proposal for a new CBA.
But for goodness sakes, what the Leafs did with Matthews and Tavares — and no doubt will do with Mitch Marner when the impending Group II free agent signs his new deal — is no “loophole.” So people should stop calling it one.
The front-loaded, long-term contract was never a “loophole” either, yet it was categorized and demonized as such once the Devils signed Ilya Kovalchuk to that 15-year, $100 million contract in 2010. A circumvention charge was upheld by a systems arbitrator and the front-loaded contract was not only eliminated under the CBA that followed the 2012-13 Owners’ Lockout III, but retroactive penalties were authorized against teams who previously had signed players using that perfectly legal approach.
That’s the power of shouting “Loophole!” in a crowded movie theatre.
You know how the debate whether to exercise the 5 percent escalator clause creates a division within the NHLPA between those players on long-term deals who are most concerned about controlling escrow losses and those coming up on new contracts who are most concerned with creation of additional cap space?
All the NHL would have to do to create a civil war within the union is to include a cap on second contracts within its wish list for the new CBA, because the number of players on entry-level contracts who would be affected by the new regulation would be comparatively small. The overwhelming majority of members are already on second, third, fourth and fifth contracts.
As such, if second contracts are capped, that would leave considerably more available under the cap for every older veteran in the NHL. Never forget this: The more money one player earns under this insidious hard cap system, the less that is available to everyone else, either because of cap space or escrow.
Indeed, Slap Shots has been told by several individuals familiar with the bargaining process that the league has considered presenting such a request/demand, though there has yet been no hint of that during the preliminary talks between the interested parties.
A year ago, the Predators ruled 2017 first-round winger Eeli Tolvanen off-limits in trade talks following the teenaged Finn’s breakout Olympics. They had seemed willing to consider the possibility of sending Tolvanen to the Rangers in a rental deal for Rick Nash, but placed the winger under quarantine following the Pyeongchang Games.
Now, though, we are told Tolvanen is being used as bait while the Predators, who have already obtained bottom-sixers Brian Boyle and Cody McLeod, hunt big game of the Artemi Panarin-Mark Stone variety.
Tolvanen for Mats Zuccarello? Not likely.
So Mike Keenan was asked how he compares the current game to the one in 1994, and the guy with the moniker “Iron” as the first part of his nickname answered pretty much as you could infer. Political correctness has never been a big part of the coach’s résumé.
“Today’s players, to me, are not engaged in the game as much,” Keenan said at the Garden on Friday in advance of the Blueshirts’ 25-year Stanley Cup reunion. “It’s not as compelling, and maybe that’s part of what has transpired with the mentality of the new player coupled with the change in the rules.
“The athlete today is well-tuned, well-trained, well-conditioned [but] I’m not sure if they have the mental skills or toughness that the [1994 Rangers] had, or Vancouver.”
Mike Richter had just six seasons in which he played 50 games or more. He did not play in an NHL playoff game after the age of 30. But at his peak, he was Hall of Fame worthy. Indeed, Richter may have delivered the three most dominant, big-game periods of hockey within a three-year stretch I can recall.
The first was the second period of Game 6 in New Jersey in the 1994 semis, when Richter made a half-dozen spectacular saves to keep the Devils’ lead at 2-0 and allowed the Rangers to buy time to figure how to prevent Mark Messier’s guarantee from devolving into parody.
(Just imagine “We’ll Win Tonight” as “See You Sunday.” No reunions, that’s for sure.)
The second was the first period of the decisive Game 3 that stretched into the midway point of the second of the 1996 World Cup in Montreal, where Team USA was outshot 27-8 by Team Canada but maintained a 1-0 lead until the final minute in the match the Yanks would ultimately win 5-2.
The third was the first period of Game 2 of the 1997 conference semis at the Meadowlands, where the Rangers, who had lost Game 1, were outshot 16-4 by the Devils yet led 1-0 en route to a 2-0 victory to tie the series the Blueshirts would win in five.
If this were the mid-’90s, and your team was playing a big game, Richter was your goalie. Richter was your man.