BOSTON — All these months later, it still is baffling that the NHLPA did not take a stand against the NHL’s insistence on applying the punitive cap-recapture provision of the collective bargaining agreement to contracts that already had been registered.
Because if Brad Richards is bought out next month and Marian Hossa is bought out following either this year or next, the cap-recapture will be among the primary reasons management would have felt compelled to act.
The final three seasons of Richards’ nine-year, $60 million front-loaded deal are worth $1 millior per. Under the cap-recapture formula that was among Brian Burke’s pet projects, if Richards were to retire with three seasons remaining on his deal, the Rangers would be hit with a dead-space charge of $5.667 million per.
If he were retire with two seasons remaining on the contract, the charge would be $8.5 million per. And, counterintuitively, if he were to play all but the final season of his deal, the Rangers would be hit with an untenable charge of $17 million for 2019-20.
Remember this: If the Rangers defer the buyout decision until next summer off the belief No. 19 will re-establish himself after a normalized 2013-14 season that includes training camp and the pre-camp conditioning regimen and Richards is injured next year, the amnesty option disappears.
And the Rangers then become at risk for either a cap-recapture or a difficult normal course buyout with which dead space would be applied for years.
Hossa has continued to play at an extremely high level for the Blackhawks. But the winger’s 12-year, $63 million deal that runs through 2020-21 features the final four seasons at $1 million per. If he were to retire with two years remaining, the charge would be $9.187.5 million per. If he were to play all but the final season of his deal, Chicago’s dead cap charge would be a crippling $18.375 million for 2020-21.
Now you might believe this is what these teams deserve after signing players to deals they might never have contemplated completing. Let’s not even revisit the Ilya Kovalchuk matter. But the fact is the league approved and registered every one of these contracts, the players who signed them are in relative jeopardy and the teams that signed them could face significant hardship.
The league identified this issue as an avenue through which to punish its big market teams for being creative in trying to win. The NHLPA always found something fishy with this provision — as well as the retroactively applied AHL provision — but would not identify it as a hill to die on.
When Richards signed the deal, I wrote (or tweeted) that by the time the contract became an issue because of the center’s declining play, another general manager and another coach would be left to deal with it and another writer would be left to chronicle it.
Wrong on all three counts.
* The Rangers had better get Ryan McDonagh locked up before the Flyers can use their savings on an Ilya Bryzgalov amnesty buyout — please don’t tell me Steady Eddie Snider is going to argue for keeping the goaltender — on an offer sheer for the Blueshirts’ Group II defenseman.
The Blues were one of those organizations looking for CBA adjustments that would limit big market teams, so wouldn’t turnabout be fair play if one of those clubs with space extended offer sheets to first, Kevin Shattenkirk, and next, after a presumed match, to Alex Pietrangelo?
The Devils don’t have much of a choice other than giving Patrik Elias just about anything he’s looking for to stay, do they?
Pascal Dupuis, the right player in the right place (on Sidney Crosby’s wing) at the right time, likely will be among the most sought-after free agents on the market this July.
Question is, will Dupuis take what likely will be less to remain in Pittsburgh or will he go for the home run if it is offered?
And the answer all but certainly will be the same one provided last summer by Brandon Prust when he hit the jackpot in Montreal, and why wouldn’t it be?
* Don Maloney’s commitment to remaining the Coyotes’ general manager gives the club a chance to retain Dave Tippett behind the bench.
Since bringing the Canucks to within one game of the Stanley Cup following their Game 5 victory over the Bruins in 2011, Alain Vigneault’s team went 1-10 in the playoffs, which is a pretty good reason why the Canucks no longer are Vigneault’s team.
The Winged Wheel is hockey’s equivalent of the Pinstripes. You put on the uniform and you become a better player for it.
Patrick Roy was the right hire for the Avalanche, but if the team fails, his legacy on the ice won’t save him any more than Willis Reed’s legacy on the court saved him when the people running the Knicks needed to fire the coach.
I think it’s possible the Islanders were the second-most entertaining team in the playoffs.
This just in: Craig Button thinks it was disloyal of him to have released Martin St. Louis.