RETAINING SALARY IN TRADES
This was Brian Burke’s baby, an idea he pushed for years at GM meetings. Under the old CBA, teams could not absorb any part of a salary from a player they were trading -- unlike baseball for example.
But in this new agreement, teams will be able to do that.
Here are the main parameters of the rule: A club cannot absorb more than 50 percent of the players’ annual cap hit/salary in any trade. Any NHL club can only have up to three contracts on their payroll in which the contract was traded away under the retaining salary proviso. Also, only up to 15 percent of your upper limit cap amount can be used up by the money you have retained in trades.
For example, let’s say the Maple Leafs want to trade little-used blueliner Mike Komisarek and his $4.5-million cap hit ($3.5 million salary this year) to the New York Islanders (hypothetically). The Leafs could retain half the cap hit -- $2.25 million -- and half the salary -- $1.75 million -- in order to facilitate the deal. The Islanders would pay him the other half. This should facilitate more trades around the league, no question.
Hopefully you'll have mellowed a bit once the season is a couple of weeks in.
