Goaltending conundrum

[Madferret]

You may be right -- and that's the gamble.  I think it's a gamble that worth taking (with all the caveats previously stated) but it's certainly not unreasonable to disagree.  But let's not underestimate Luongo either, is all I'm saying.

Depending on the terms, it's a gamble I might take as well, but, I do so knowing that Luongo likely only has 3 or 4 more seasons where he'll really be worth his contract (and that are are at least 3 seasons on it where I know he won't be) and that there's a very real chance that dealing with it after that point could be extremely difficult.

And the second half of the gamble, which I've argued is a good bet, is that the new CBA will allow teams to get out from the unappealing last few years of these long-term contracts: whether that "out" be exempting a contract of their choice from the cap if the player agrees to retire, or simply designating one contract as a "franchise" contract exempt from the cap, or making all the contracts non-guaranteed, etc.

This is a weird one...who would be tabling this idea the league / owners or the PA? Was there any kind of mention of this or something similar in the original proposal by Bettman / the owners?

 

[OldTimeHockey]

This is a weird one...who would be tabling this idea the league / owners or the PA? Was there any kind of mention of this or something similar in the original proposal by Bettman / the owners?

It makes little to no sense for myself as well. I could only see the league/owners tabling this. And if it's a sticking point, I see the PA taking a long vacation again.

 

[bustaheims]

This is a weird one...who would be tabling this idea the league / owners or the PA? Was there any kind of mention of this or something similar in the original proposal by Bettman / the owners?

It's all just rumours/things from other leagues/things some fans think will work. The owners would love to see non-guaranteed contracts, I'm sure, but, that's something the PA would never agree to. The whole franchise player thing . . . 100% fan speculation at this point, as far as I can tell. Nothing of that ilk has even been rumoured to be included in the proposal that have been tabled since negotiations began a few weeks ago.

 

[Madferret]

This is a weird one...who would be tabling this idea the league / owners or the PA? Was there any kind of mention of this or something similar in the original proposal by Bettman / the owners?

It's all just rumours/things from other leagues/things some fans think will work. The owners would love to see non-guaranteed contracts, I'm sure, but, that's something the PA would never agree to. The whole franchise player thing . . . 100% fan speculation at this point, as far as I can tell. Nothing of that ilk has even been rumoured to be included in the proposal that have been tabled since negotiations began a few weeks ago.

Yeah...at the same time these are the same owners who ok'd a 14 year deal one week after asking for 5 year contract limits in their new proposal.

 

[ZBBM]

This is a weird one...who would be tabling this idea the league / owners or the PA? Was there any kind of mention of this or something similar in the original proposal by Bettman / the owners?

It's all just rumours/things from other leagues/things some fans think will work. The owners would love to see non-guaranteed contracts, I'm sure, but, that's something the PA would never agree to. The whole franchise player thing . . . 100% fan speculation at this point, as far as I can tell. Nothing of that ilk has even been rumoured to be included in the proposal that have been tabled since negotiations began a few weeks ago.

Don't be so quick to write these off as just fanspec.  Am I wrong, or are NFL contracts no longer guaranteed?  If it can happen in the NFL, it can happen in the NHL, and you can bet the NHL owners are thinking about it.  Ditto the franchise player tag.

 

[Kin]

Don't be so quick to write these off as just fanspec.  Am I wrong, or are NFL contracts no longer guaranteed?  If it can happen in the NFL, it can happen in the NHL, and you can bet the NHL owners are thinking about it.  Ditto the franchise player tag.

That'd be like saying that because the NFL has 53 man rosters the NHL might someday. So long as the owners aren't trying to get non-guaranteed contracts, and busta is right when he says it's an issue that would lead to a massive labour dispute, it's kind of moot. If it wasn't in the NHL's leaked proposal then, yeah, it's almost entirely speculative.

 

[bustaheims]

Don't be so quick to write these off as just fanspec.  Am I wrong, or are NFL contracts no longer guaranteed?  If it can happen in the NFL, it can happen in the NHL, and you can bet the NHL owners are thinking about it.  Ditto the franchise player tag.

Seriously? You know as well as I do that the similarities between the NFL and the NHL run about as deep as the similarities between football and hockey. Non-guaranteed contracts are not going to happen. Fehr won't go for it. The players won't go for it, and even the owners know better than to even put it into their proposals. As for the franchise player exemption . . . that's still pure fan speculation. It hasn't been reported as part of any proposals so far, nor has it been reported that the league or the PA are seriously considering it as an option. It may happen, but it's firmly in the long-odds side of things.

 

[maplesyrup]

James Mirtle ‏@mirtle
So much for the NHL comeback. RT @MaStrozyk: Cristobal Huet has signed with NLB's Lausanne for four years, as per Blick.

 

[ZBBM]

Don't be so quick to write these off as just fanspec.  Am I wrong, or are NFL contracts no longer guaranteed?  If it can happen in the NFL, it can happen in the NHL, and you can bet the NHL owners are thinking about it.  Ditto the franchise player tag.

Seriously? You know as well as I do that the similarities between the NFL and the NHL run about as deep as the similarities between football and hockey. Non-guaranteed contracts are not going to happen. Fehr won't go for it. The players won't go for it, and even the owners know better than to even put it into their proposals. As for the franchise player exemption . . . that's still pure fan speculation. It hasn't been reported as part of any proposals so far, nor has it been reported that the league or the PA are seriously considering it as an option. It may happen, but it's firmly in the long-odds side of things.

Shoot, I just saw this now a week later.

Yeah, seriously.  The NFL is massively more profitable than the NHL and therefore their players have more leverage in the sense that the loss of profits is so much higher in the case of a shutdown ... and the NFL has n/g contracts.  Despite your assertions there is no reason to think that n/g contracts aren't a possibility.

 

[bustaheims]

Yeah, seriously.  The NFL is massively more profitable than the NHL and therefore their players have more leverage in the sense that the loss of profits is so much higher in the case of a shutdown ... and the NFL has n/g contracts.  Despite your assertions there is no reason to think that n/g contracts aren't a possibility.

It's actually the other way around - because the NFL is so profitable, the players have less leverage, because the owners know that they can still make a ton of cash with replacement players. That's not true of the NHL.

 

[Kin]

Yeah, seriously.  The NFL is massively more profitable than the NHL and therefore their players have more leverage in the sense that the loss of profits is so much higher in the case of a shutdown ... and the NFL has n/g contracts.  Despite your assertions there is no reason to think that n/g contracts aren't a possibility.

That just doesn't jive at all with the history of labour negotiations in the NFL. Because of the relatively short careers of NFL players they're less willing than athletes in just about every major sport to miss paychecks for a work stoppage. Historically the NFLPA has been by far the weakest of all of the pro sports unions which is why they're the only league with non-guaranteed contracts.

 

[ZBBM]

Yeah, seriously.  The NFL is massively more profitable than the NHL and therefore their players have more leverage in the sense that the loss of profits is so much higher in the case of a shutdown ... and the NFL has n/g contracts.  Despite your assertions there is no reason to think that n/g contracts aren't a possibility.

It's actually the other way around - because the NFL is so profitable, the players have less leverage, because the owners know that they can still make a ton of cash with replacement players. That's not true of the NHL.

Oh come on.  You're not seriously suggesting that the NFL could roll merrily on to the bank by offering a season of games with a bunch of taxi squad players?  The quality of players does matter to profitability.

And Nik -- is the average NHL career really much longer than the NFL?  I seem to remember the average NFL career is quite short, 3 years maybe, but what with all the 3rd and 4th liners cycling up and down my guess is that the average NHL career is not all that long either (though I expect it's longer than the NFL).

And how do you measure, "historically," the relative weakness of unions?  By average player salaries garnered for their members, adjusted for inflation?  By benefits?  By free agency rules?  A combo?

 

[bustaheims]

Oh come on.  You're not seriously suggesting that the NFL could roll merrily on to the bank by offering a season of games with a bunch of taxi squad players?  The quality of players does matter to profitability.

They did so once before, and it was enough of a threat to the players and not enough of a threat to the owners' bottom line that the players had to massively rethink their strategy, and ultimately came back to work relatively quickly without a new CBA in place. The NFL is a big enough cash cow that profits would still be significant with replacement players for the owners to use them for long enough to force the NFLPA to back down and settle.

 

[Kin]

And Nik -- is the average NHL career really much longer than the NFL?  I seem to remember the average NFL career is quite short, 3 years maybe, but what with all the 3rd and 4th liners cycling up and down my guess is that the average NHL career is not all that long either (though I expect it's longer than the NFL).

The average NHL career is 62.5% longer but that only tells half the story. A NFL season only runs four months compared to six for the NHL so each paycheck missed also represents a bigger chunk of their salaries gone. Salaries, by the way, that are significantly higher in the NHL than in the NFL. The average NFL player earning the average NFL salary will earn 6.65 million over the course of their career. By comparison the average NHL player at the average salary will earn better than twice that.

And even that comparison paints a rosier picture for NfL players because of the significantly greater disparity between the salaries at the top(near 20 million) compared to the minimum. The media salary in the NFL is only 770,000 compared to a median of 1.1 million in the NHL. A player at the average length and median salary in the NFL would make about 2.7 million over the course of his career compared to better than 6 million in the NHL.

And how do you measure, "historically," the relative weakness of unions?  By average player salaries garnered for their members, adjusted for inflation?  By benefits?  By free agency rules?  A combo?

The relative success of their various labour actions and the quality of the deal they have. It's not an exact science but in this case it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be. The NFL is by far the highest grossing and most profitable of the major sports leagues yet their players are the only ones without guaranteed contracts and as a whole(so as to avoid the "Yeah, but they have to pay a greater number players" line of defense) earn the lowest percentage of their league's revenues  by a significant margin.

Busta is referencing the 1987 NFL strike and while he's right he's leaving out a major point. Almost a hundred NFL players crossed the picket line and played in games alongside the replacement players. The union got shattered and they haven't signed a good deal for the players since.

 

[bustaheims]

Busta is referencing the 1987 NFL strike and while he's right he's leaving out a major point. Almost a hundred NFL players crossed the picket line and played in games alongside the replacement players. The union got shattered and they haven't signed a good deal for the players since.

Well, yeah, there's that too. The NFLPA hasn't had the same level of solidarity the NHLPA has, nor do it's members have the same level of alternate employment options. Some big name players crossed the picket lines back in 1987, and I imagine some would if the league went with replacement players again.

 

[armche123]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO8WgYBTMVM

I believe that he will be back in proper form this year.. OP-TI-MUS!