Around The NHL Discussion 2021-22 Part II

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Wings blew 6-3 lead late in 3rd. Ha!

 

[BlueOil]

Tyler Bertuzzi is owning Vasilevskiy…4 goals so far…

Wings trying to start the 2-time defending Cup-champs in an 0-2 season hole.
I know it’s early…but Tampa looks very un-Tampa like giving up 12-goals in less than two full games.

magical night for bertuzzi, but the wings still lost lol

 

[Stelmacki]

So excited for the game ton…oh wait, we still don’t ******* play yet.

 

[Brian39]

Charlie McAvoy just became the latest D man to get paid.



Next season now has 9 D men who will be making $9M or more against the cap. That's up from just 3 in 2019/20 (the first year of an $81.5M cap). We do get a $1M bump in the cap for next season, but this is quite a bit of salary inflation over a 3 year period of complete cap stagnation. A couple other measurements:

The 10th highest paid D man in 2019/20 made $7.6M against the cap. That number for next season is $8.8M.

14 guys made $7M+ in 2019/20. 22 guys will make $7M+ in 2022/23.

27 guys made $6M+ in 2019/20 while 39 guys will make $6M+ for 2022/23.

Given the guys still owed contracts for next season (Fox, Letang, Klingberg, Rielly, Gio, Lindholm), you can safely assume that all these numbers are going to increase for 2022/23. Maybe that $9M tier doesn't grow, but I'm not sure how Fox doesn't get $9M given some of the guys who recently joined the club.

$9M became the new $7.5M remarkably quickly in the D market. Once Fox gets his deal, we are talking about less than 3 seasons for $7.5M to inflate to $9M. Inflation was always going to happen, but I can't believe that it happened this quickly under a flat cap. A 20% growth in AAV for the 10th highest paid D man during a period of 1.2% cap growth is insane.

 

[Celtic Note]

Charlie McAvoy just became the latest D man to get paid.



Next season now has 9 D men who will be making $9M or more against the cap. That's up from just 3 in 2019/20 (the first year of an $81.5M cap). We do get a $1M bump in the cap for next season, but this is quite a bit of salary inflation over a 3 year period of complete cap stagnation. A couple other measurements:

The 10th highest paid D man in 2019/20 made $7.6M against the cap. That number for next season is $8.8M.

14 guys made $7M+ in 2019/20. 22 guys will make $7M+ in 2022/23.

27 guys made $6M+ in 2019/20 while 39 guys will make $6M+ for 2022/23.

Given the guys still owed contracts for next season (Fox, Letang, Klingberg, Rielly, Gio, Lindholm), you can safely assume that all these numbers are going to increase. Maybe that $9M tier doesn't grow, but I'm not sure how Fox doesn't get $9M given some of the guys who recently joined the club.

$9M became the new $7.5M remarkably quickly in the D market. Once Fox gets his deal, we are talking about less than 3 seasons for $7.5M to inflate to $9M. Inflation was always going to happen, but I can't believe that it happened this quickly under a flat cap. A 20% growth in AAV for the 10th highest paid D man during a period of 1.2% cap growth is insane.

To clarify my “like”. I like your post, not the direction of the salaries.

 

[Brian39]

Speaking more broadly than just "numbers go up," my take is that the 7/8 year contract limits have completely backfired on GMs and owners. Agents figured out that a stud in his early 20s is better off leaving some short term money on the table to get to UFA as soon as possible than he is taking an 8 year deal unless the team really makes the AAV worth his while. This is true for 3 intertwined reasons:

1: The 8 year limit is just a bit too short to backup a dump truck full of money without a serious AAV. When they could do 10+ year deals you could make a really impressive total value for the player to fixate on while controlling the AAV more. At 8 years, you're shaving off $15M or more from the total you could have offered and suddenly the difference in total dollars between a 3 year deal and a long term deal doesn't have the same sticker shock.

2: A guy hitting UFA in his mid-20s is hitting UFA at the absolute perfect time for a 7 year deal. A team isn't buying many bad years on a 7 year deal to a 25-27 year old the way they are with a 29-31 year old. By preventing teams from being able to tack on "bad" years at the end of a contract on a 26 year old UFA, the reality is that teams just start outbidding themselves on 7 year deals by upping total dollars even more.

3: Players are hitting their primes younger than ever. The league keeps getting younger and you have more than just the top handful of guys showing out as elite NHLers during their ELC.

Taken together, the term limits on contracts have made getting to UFA quickly more appealing AND handcuffed teams' ability to make an appealing long term deal in response to a stud RFA who wants to get to UFA quickly. This means that the only revenue for teams to lock in young talent long term is to boost the AAV even more. Preventing the 10+ year UFA deal was a positive thing for the NHL, but it has come with the unintended consequence of demolishing the cost control teams used to have on big RFAs. Agents used to advise young stud RFAs to take as much guaranteed money as possible off their ELC. Now they are advising them to get as much money as possible while still hitting UFA as quick as possible unless the team offers you a truly stupid amount of money. And teams are offering a stupid amount of money to prevent their young studs from walking.

This is really interesting, especially because we are still probably several years away from the HRR deficit getting back to 50/50 and the resulting cap explosion. What is going to happen to the UFA class over the next couple summers? Part of me looks at this inflation and feels vindicated about my stance that we should have accepted Petro's terms and locked him in at a rate that quickly is becoming a bargain. Part of me feels that Army may be vindicated by having more cap flexibility when the UFA market becomes a buyers market as teams are all locked into these deals. The financial market in the NHL is shifting in a way that it really hasn't since GMs first figured out how to circumvent the cap with long term backdiving contracts. It is going to be interesting until the HRR deficit is paid.

 

[Stealth JD]

$9M became the new $7.5M remarkably quickly in the D market. Once Fox gets his deal, we are talking about less than 3 seasons for $7.5M to inflate to $9M. Inflation was always going to happen, but I can't believe that it happened this quickly under a flat cap. A 20% growth in AAV for the 10th highest paid D man during a period of 1.2% cap growth is insane.

Eh. Not really. In a cap world, it's always going to be the depth players that will be squeezed, while the top players will get paid like top players. The NHLPA has no incentive to 'spread the wealth' or care one iota about the cap being flat. The higher a comp that can be created, the better it is for the top-end players...and the top-end players, represented by the top-end agents will always push for the setting new precedents and record deals. Third and fourth line forwards, RFA w/o star power, and depth defensemen will claw for the leftovers and PTO after the big dogs get fed.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

sunuvabitch, I thought we were finally playing tonight. They really ought to have every team have a game within the first 2 days with the start of the season. If they wanted to do something special, have the Kraken play a day sooner against someone and then start the 2 day process of opening night games. This is pretty annoying.

 

[jura]

lol
HOME OPENER | OCT. 23 VS. KINGS

 8 
DAYS
:
 03 
HOURS
:
 51 
MINUTES
:
 44 
SECONDS
https://www.tickcounter.com/countdown/2804852/home-opener-oct-23-vs-kings

 

[Brian39]

Eh. Not really. In a cap world, it's always going to be the depth players that will be squeezed, while the top players will get paid like top players. The NHLPA has no incentive to 'spread the wealth' or care one iota about the cap being flat. The higher a comp that can be created, the better it is for the top-end players...and the top-end players, represented by the top-end agents will always push for the setting new precedents and record deals. Third and fourth line forwards, RFA w/o star power, and depth defensemen will claw for the leftovers and PTO after the big dogs get fed.

Of course the players are going to try to get paid more. That isn't surprising at all. It is surprising that the owners caved to those efforts even more than they did when the cap was steadily rising.

The 5th highest paid D man in 2016/17 was $7.25M. 3 years later, that number had increased by 10.3% to $8M, slightly less than the 11.6% growth in the cap from $73M to $81.5M. Over the next 3 years the cap stagnates and grows 1.2%, yet we see the 5th highest AAV rise another 18.7% to $9.5M.

The 10th highest paid D man in 2016/17 was $6.75. 3 years later, that number increased by 12.6% to $7.6M, slightly higher than the 11.6% growth in the cap. Assuming Fox gets $9M+, that number will go from $7.6M to $9M, which is another 18.4% increase while the cap increased just 1.2%.

The 15th highest paid D man in 2016/17 made $6M. 3 years later that number increased 14.5% to $6.875M, higher than the 11.6% growth in the cap. 3 years later, that number grows another 16.3% despite the minimal 1.2% cap growth.

The 20th highest paid D man in 2016/7 was $5.75M. 3 years later that number increased 13% to $6.5M, which again is around the 11.6% cap growth. 3 years later the number ballooned 16.5% to $7.575M despite the cap only going up 1.2%.

Salaries for these comparable ranked players went up 10.3-14.5% in the 3 year window before the flat cap when the cap increased 11.6%. In the 3 years of flat cap where there has been a 1.2% increase, salary went up 16.3%-18.7%. And these numbers will grow if guys like Letang, Lindholm, and Klingberg get into the top 20. Under the flat cap, the top players increased their salaries by a greater margin than top players did when GMs were banking on an annual $2-4M cap bump. These recent top end salaries have outpaced what we would have expected had the cap continued to increase by $3M every year. That is incredibly surprising to me. I knew that the top players would keep getting their money and that their salaries would continue to creep upward. I did not think that they would be able to do an even better job of it than they had under a growing cap.

 

[BlueOil]

sammy already injured, still can't believe buchnevich came back in this trade

 

[TheDizee]

toodaloo landeskog

 

[BlueMed]

It's funny seeing so many fans think so highly of McAvoy...he's not an elite defensemen and was pretty underwhelming in the cup finals a couple years back.

 

[tfriede2]

Kind of OT. Subscribed to ESPN+, but I’m local. Will I be able to watch the Blues game tomorrow using a VPN, or does ESPN+ use your billing zip to determine if you’re blacked out?

 

[ezcreepin]

Kind of OT. Subscribed to ESPN+, but I’m local. Will I be able to watch the Blues game tomorrow using a VPN, or does ESPN+ use your billing zip to determine if you’re blacked out?

If I had to guess, I would say that ESPN+ isn't quite like the NHL gamecenter app. I would imagine that you can only watch what is being aired on ESPN, so if the Blues aren't on the charter/directTV channel, then you probably won't be able to watch it. I think it works the same on the Bally sports app; if it's playing on ESPN, then you won't be able to watch via the app.

 

[execwrite1]

Kind of OT. Subscribed to ESPN+, but I’m local. Will I be able to watch the Blues game tomorrow using a VPN, or does ESPN+ use your billing zip to determine if you’re blacked out?

Another question on this - I signed up for Center Ice through cable TV. Price is only $60 this year. But it looks like any games on ESPN+ are not available on Center Ice?

Anyone know?

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

If I had to guess, I would say that ESPN+ isn't quite like the NHL gamecenter app. I would imagine that you can only watch what is being aired on ESPN, so if the Blues aren't on the charter/directTV channel, then you probably won't be able to watch it. I think it works the same on the Bally sports app; if it's playing on ESPN, then you won't be able to watch via the app.

That’s not how it works. ESPN+ has all games aside from Turner ones. It replaces nhl.tv.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Another question on this - I signed up for Center Ice through cable TV. Price is only $60 this year. But it looks like any games on ESPN+ are not available on Center Ice?

Anyone know?

I think that is right. Center ice is red headed stepchild to ESPN+ now.

 

[execwrite1]

I think that is right. Center ice is red headed stepchild to ESPN+ now.

Yup. Oh well, there's still a lot of games on Center Ice for 60 bucks.

I'm in New York so I guess I'm out of luck when the Blues are on ESPN+

 

[MissouriMook]

Has anyone found if ESPN+ will have condensed games and archived games like the old NHL app? I haven't been able to spend as much time with it as i would have liked here lately and I used those two features a lot in prior seasons.

 

[AVictoryDive]

Has anyone found if ESPN+ will have condensed games and archived games like the old NHL app? I haven't been able to spend as much time with it as i would have liked here lately and I used those two features a lot in prior seasons.

I’ll check when I get home but know they had full replays of games.

looks like they have full replays of games. I guess as long as they’re on ESPN affiliated channels they will appear.

 

[Ranksu]

Primetime hockey in here and it's Arizona - Buffalo. Yikes

 

[hockensm77]

Has anyone found if ESPN+ will have condensed games and archived games like the old NHL app? I haven't been able to spend as much time with it as i would have liked here lately and I used those two features a lot in prior seasons.

I haven't found condensed games on ESPN+ anywhere yet, but they do still show up on the NHL app.

They really managed to complicate how to watch games & highlights this year. I'm doing ESPN+ and YouTube TV, but watching condensed games & highlights on the NHL app. I'm an out-of-market Blues fan so I think I should be able to get almost all of their games. Except when they play my local team, Carolina. Or if the game is on NHL Network, which is blacked out for everyone as far as I can tell. I understand why networks negotiate blackout rules, but they're infuriating.

 

[AVictoryDive]

I haven't found condensed games on ESPN+ anywhere yet, but they do still show up on the NHL app.

They really managed to complicate how to watch games & highlights this year. I'm doing ESPN+ and YouTube TV, but watching condensed games & highlights on the NHL app. I'm an out-of-market Blues fan so I think I should be able to get almost all of their games. Except when they play my local team, Carolina. Or if the game is on NHL Network, which is blacked out for everyone as far as I can tell. I understand why networks negotiate blackout rules, but they're infuriating.

As long as they’re televised on ESPN or and affiliate, ESPN+ has replays on demand

 

[Bluesfan54]

Poor Toronto. Their starting goalie got hurt last night and they don’t have the cap space to call anybody up. Guess they got a college guy, cheap, for right now. My heart bleeds.