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2026 NHL CBA negotiations, issues

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Marc the Habs Fan

Marc the Habs Fan

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I am guessing deferred salary just became a front burner issue with the Jarvis contract. They will have to put some sort of limit on how much you can defer OR teams still get a cap charge in the year(s) of deferral(s)...because otherwise teams are going to try and exploit this now.
 
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StreetHawk

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Marc the Habs Fan said:
I am guessing deferred salary just became a front burner issue with the Jarvis contract. They will have to put some sort of limit on how much you can defer OR teams still get a cap charge in the year(s) of deferral(s)...because otherwise teams are going to try and exploit this now.
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Surprised someone young like Jarvis would go for this deferral as $15.67 mill of the $63.2 mill is paid on after June 30, 2032 when the 8th year concludes. Slaf is getting $7.6 mill per but it's structured to be paying him $9 million plus in the first few years before decreasing to $6 mill plus over the second half of the contract. Think the majority of players in their early 20's want the money earlier than later like Slaf is getting vs take the deferral that Jarvis did.

I could see this deferral benefiting older players at age 30 when they sign what is likely their final big contract which ends at 37/38 at which point they would likely retire and if being located in a certain state is more beneficial for tax purposes, they can do that vs a guy who ends their contract at 30 and would be looking for another contract.

CBA is 2 years away from expiring in 2026. Personally, kind of shocked this clause is in the CBA as they went hard after the "retirement" contracts in the 2012 negotiations and introduce the 8 year max term.
 
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Fourier

Fourier

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StreetHawk said:
Surprised someone young like Jarvis would go for this deferral as $15.67 mill of the $63.2 mill is paid on after June 30, 2032 when the 8th year concludes. Slaf is getting $7.6 mill per but it's structured to be paying him $9 million plus in the first few years before decreasing to $6 mill plus over the second half of the contract. Think the majority of players in their early 20's want the money earlier than later like Slaf is getting vs take the deferral that Jarvis did.

I could see this deferral benefiting older players at age 30 when they sign what is likely their final big contract which ends at 37/38 at which point they would likely retire and if being located in a certain state is more beneficial for tax purposes, they can do that vs a guy who ends their contract at 30 and would be looking for another contract.

CBA is 2 years away from expiring in 2026. Personally, kind of shocked this clause is in the CBA as they went hard after the "retirement" contracts in the 2012 negotiations and introduce the 8 year max term.
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I agree that deferrals would seem to make more sense for players nearing the end of their career who want to take advantage of certain tax opportunities.

As far as the cap is concerned, there is a pretty big difference between the "retirement" contracts and the deferral deals. In the deferral deals the teams are effectively being charged against the cap for all of their investment in the player via the present value calculation. The issue with the long retirement deals were the years tagged on to the end that the player would likely never play that artificially reduced the cap by a substantial amount. So teams were not being held accountable for their actual spending.

Honestly, I don't think this will be a huge deal as I suspect that we won't see a lot of deferrals and compared with the weasel deals of the past the impact on a player's cap hit could be fairly small in the deals we do see.
 

eojsmada

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The NHL/CHL/NCAA/USHL thing could be interesting. Not a deal breaker, but could be an interesting topic of discussion to see what kind of options are available.
 
Yukon Joe

Yukon Joe

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archangel2 said:
I predict we will have another lock out
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OK - but why?


The 1994-1995 lockout was over a luxury tax/salary cap. This was hugely divisive, although ultimately the owners folded.

The 2004-2005 lock out was over a hard salary cap. Obviously both sides dug in pretty hard over that, we lost an entire season. In the end the players folded.

The 2012-2013 lockout was over reducing the percentage of HRR going to the players, from 57% to 50%.. In the end the players folded.

All three lockouts were over pretty core issues about the financial health of the league.

I won't deny that there aren't issues between the NHL and the NHLPA, but none seem like they attach to such core issues. So while I wouldn't guarantee there won't be a lockout, I wouldn't predict one either. The league and the PA have been fairly amicable recently, what with both agreeing to extend the current CBA during the covid lockdowns.
 
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rojac

rojac

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I think we only get a lockout if one side or the other really tries to make a big move. Barring something that comes out of nowhere, the only issue that I could currently see resulting in a lockout might be if they try to tackle the tax issue and even then I don't see it.

Both the 1994-95 and the 2004-05 lockouts were over attempts to implement a lusxury tax or salary cap in the NHL and the 2012-13 lockout was primarily caused the owners wanting to reduce the players' share of HRR to 50% from 57%.
 
mouser

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I don’t think the NHL leadership cares about the tax differences between teams. If the PA does care about it, then I’d predict it’s low on their CBA negotiation priority list.
 
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Yukon Joe

Yukon Joe

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mouser said:
I don’t think the NHL leadership cares about the tax differences between teams. If the PA does care about it, then I’d predict it’s low on their CBA negotiation priority list.
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So the thing is in the big picture I don't think it makes any difference to the NHLPA. 50% of HRR is 50%. If some teams have a higher cap while other teams have a lower cap, as long as the players get their 50% it shouldn't matter, right?

But yes, I question that this is something ownership cares about. So first of all which teams can take advantage of having no state income tax? Well there's Florida (2 teams), Texas, Tennessee, Nevada, and Washington - 6 teams out of 32. They'd likely be against such a proposal. Beyond that though, even if a state does have income tax it some are much higher than others.

Tax Calculator - Cardinal Point

Athlete Advisors
cardinalpointathleteadvisors.com cardinalpointathleteadvisors.com

2 seconds of googling found me this site. So all the "no state tax" states at 31.6% tax rate are one thing, but there's still a huge difference between Colorado (36%) and Toronto (47.94%).

So I just doubt enough of the league cares enough to make a stand on the topic.

But beyond that - tax rate is only one of many factors. Are we going to try and adjust the salary cap depending on climate? Marketing opportunities? Winning record?

So I'm a Winnipeg fan. The Jets pretty much have every factor stacked against them for signing UFAs - high tax, cold weather, small market, Canadian. But I'd still be against trying to adjust the salary cap for tax rates.
 
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StreetHawk

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For the PA do they have members due to family and other considerations that they would like to live and play in other markets than the low tax states? Even with the growth of hockey in southern markets most players from North America do hail from the northern parts.
Unless it’s something like that, I do agree that the PA leadership would not care unless their membership pushed for it.
 
edog37

edog37

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StreetHawk said:
For the PA do they have members due to family and other considerations that they would like to live and play in other markets than the low tax states? Even with the growth of hockey in southern markets most players from North America do hail from the northern parts.
Unless it’s something like that, I do agree that the PA leadership would not care unless their membership pushed for it.
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If the NHLPA made this their hill to die upon, they’d get zero sympathy from fans.
 
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