The 2010-11 cap crunch facing the Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks and their big-market brethren will be more severe than believed if the Escrow Hawks within the NHLPA carry the day and the balloting when the 30 player reps vote on whether to trigger the five-percent inflator at the union’s June 21 meeting in Chicago.
Following a round of PA conference calls conducted during the week, a half-dozen player reps and engaged union members told Slap Shots that the outcome of the vote appears too close to call, though one veteran suggested he thought it remains more likely than not that the union will hold to precedent and enact the five-percent bump.
If the union votes it down, next season’s cap will all but certainly go down, too, a first for the league that is coming off a blockbuster playoffs. If the cap would increase approximately $2M to $58.8M including the bump, as Gary Bettman has previously suggested, it appears as if the cap would shrink to approximately $56M if the player reps become consumed with limiting escrow while missing the bigger picture.
The lower the cap, the fewer dollars theoretically in the system, the lower the percentage of escrow the payers will owe at the end of the season. That’s true.
But the voluntary adoption of a lower cap would also represent a shortsighted, self-interested approach on behalf of those players under long-term contracts (signed under caps that were inflated by the bump, by the way) that would limit the amount of money available for free agents for the remaining period of this CBA.
Slap Shots has been told that the union will also vote at the June meeting on whether to exercise its option to extend the CBA one more year, through 2011-12. The PA is expected to extend the deal-there is simply no time for the headless union to prepare for a round of collective bargaining that would otherwise begin in 12 months-essentially by acclamation. This will give teams a 7.5-percent bonus cushion on the 2010-11 cap.
Understand this. The higher the cap, the more choices there are for every impending free agent in the league over the next two summers, as well as for every team in the league. The higher the cap, the greater the opportunity for successful teams to remain intact. The higher the cap, the more opportunity for a rental to be traded to a Cup contender.
A lower cap will all but shut down the big-market engines that fuel the league and drive salaries. Close enough to the cap as it is, a reduction would all but force big market clubs out of the free agent market. A lower cap minimizes options for everyone. A lower cap could conceivably create the necessity for fewer qualifying offers, more buyouts and more salary arbitration walkaways.
One union rep told Slap Shots that the players recognize that they’ve been forced into a situation where their self-interests may not be consistent with the collective best interest of the membership. That’s the insidious nature of the escrow-enforced triple cap system. It pits player against player, teammate against teammate, those under long-term contracts against those about to hit the market.
It’s true. It’s not my money. But the union is best served, which means the players are ultimately best served, by having as much money as possible in the cap system and by having as many choices as possible afforded to as many of its members as possible.
A vote against the inflator is a vote against the common cause.
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Still unsure whether Donald Fehr would accept an offer to become the PA’s executive director, the search committee is reviewing and interviewing alternate candidates.
The PA is expected to settle that issue and hire an executive director at its meeting in mid-July.
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When the third (Chicago) and fourth (Philadelphia) largest television US television markets are represented in the Final, why would anyone be surprised by impressive ratings?
The Original Six, possessing more mystique and aura than the original Yankee Stadium.
After more than a quarter-century in the game, including the 1982-83 season on the blue line in New Jersey as an original Devil (but not exactly on defense as much as coach Billy MacMillan would have preferred), Joel Quenneville has reached the pinnacle.
Cheers to one of the best guys around, unanimously admired, liked and respected within the industry.
The Flyers’ twin rallies from 3-0 down to beat the Bruins in seven and from 3-0 down to win in Boston in Game 7 of the Eastern semis represented historic displays of fortitude.
These runners-up will be remembered alongside the 1986-87 losing finalists, who forced the mighty Oilers to a Game 7 after first trailing 3-1 in the series, the year that Ron Hextall won the Conn Smythe.
Still, no Cup since 1975.
So again we question the concept of Kate Smith, good luck charm.
As the Flyers stormed back, however, the sad fact is that the Bruins were in a choking situation from the moment they went AWOL for Game 5 to the horrific crash and burn in the final showdown.
And when Marc Savard, a victim this season who displayed class and character throughout, committed the mental blunder that precipitated the too-many-men penalty that indirectly cost the Bruins Game 7, that represented the saddest moment of the tournament.
It sounds as if Nashville defenseman Dan Hamhuis is going to be the good player on the open market who gets paid way too much money for way too long a time.
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You’ve got to love the Quote Police in our business who have righteously decided that Adam Burish isn’t a good enough player to call out Chris Pronger for being the classless boor that he was throughout the playoffs.
Why, apparently only a Hall of Fame player should be permitted to offer an opinion of Pronger, a serial head-hitting offender who has somehow ascended to iconic status across Canada (well, not in Edmonton) and Philadelphia while burning bridges everywhere he goes.
There is no doubt. Pronger re-established himself (if necessary) as a world-class defenseman throughout the Flyers’ run. There is equally no doubt that he also re-established himself (if necessary) as a world-class boor.
Denying the Blackhawks the game pucks from their first two victories was low-rent, sophomoric and entirely absent of class, tantamount to a baseball outfielder heaving an opponent’s milestone homerun ball that had bounced onto the field, back into the stands to disappear among the masses for auction.
Am I allowed to say that?