Ideas to improve the free agency market

[1865]

The extra year for the team who owns you has killed free agency I think. It's going to lead to dozens more re-signings.

 

[startainfection*]

FA market would actually have more options if players didn't have guaranteed contracts like NFL.

hello lock out number 4 in the course of 20 years

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Keep RFAs, just make the age eligibility for UFA status a bit lower. Make it 25. 27 is ideally when your players are at their prime, so why not have them play through that instead of taking half of that time away.

 

[Blue Shakehead]

I think OP is forgetting that ELCs and RFAs are carefully negotiated contract rights by the NHL, which are designed to control the costs of players and the competitive balance of the league.

These rights have existed and evolved through negotiations by teams of lawyers working for the NHL and the NHLPA over the last 40 years and represent literally billion of dollars.

Nobody is getting rid of them to make the Hockey Insiders show more entertaining in August.

 

[MarkGio]

It would be interesting to see teams get an edge in negotiating, similar to waiver pick ups. For example, the last place team gets 1 day of exclusive free agency negotiating with players over the 2nd last team. On Day 3, the 3rd worst team finally enters free agency. The last place team would be negotiating for 29 days before the Stanley Cup winning team finally gets to negotiate with players.

 

[iamjs]

Definitely keep RFAs, maybe shorten the years though until you hit free agency though. I'd like them to implement some sort of compensation for losing top end free agents.

How much lower do you want to make it? It's already been lowered from 31 to 27. In some cases, you can hit unrestricted free agency by the time you turn 25 as long as you have played 7 professional seasons.

There used to be compensation for players that were lost to unrestricted free agency. 24 draft picks were issued as compensation at the 2000 NHL draft.
http://www.prosportstransactions.com/hockey/DraftTrades/Years/2000.htm

I'm sure I could dig through the history section and find out the rules behind it, but I believe it was based on salaries and unsigned first round draft picks.

 

[DearDiary]

I think RFA status should be changed to 23. Player gets drafted at 18, that's a 5 year span. It was ridiculous in the first place to force players to spend over half their career on a team they may not want to be apart of.

Imagine you grew up dreaming about playing for Montreal. Too bad, you get drafted by the Oilers whom you grew up hating, and now have to spend almost your whole career there.

 

[JimmyG89]

If you want to improve the market, you should lower the cap. Teams have less of a chance of signing guys since they will be pushed to the max, but that would never happen and contracts would be made in relation to the cap.

Free agency is to finish icing your team. You draft to build a winner.

Something that is used in soccer that I could see making free agency interesting is allowing teams to talk to agents about to become an UFA 6 months prior to their contract expiring. For NHL purposes, after the trade deadline would be ideal, unless you get traded to a new team that season. Spice the rumors up and allow agents to feel out their market before June 25.

 

[penguins2946*]

How much lower do you want to make it? It's already been lowered from 31 to 27. In some cases, you can hit unrestricted free agency by the time you turn 25 as long as you have played 7 professional seasons.

There used to be compensation for players that were lost to unrestricted free agency. 24 draft picks were issued as compensation at the 2000 NHL draft.
http://www.prosportstransactions.com/hockey/DraftTrades/Years/2000.htm

I'm sure I could dig through the history section and find out the rules behind it, but I believe it was based on salaries and unsigned first round draft picks.

I'd like to see the UFA age lowered to 25, but that's just IMO. I really want compensation for high paid players to be a thing. For example, if you lose a player that gets paid $7.5 million per season, you get a 1st after pick 30 as compensation for the next year. I'd do it:

$7.5 million and above: Compensation of a 1st
$5-$7.5 million: Compensation of a 2nd
$4-$5 million: Compensation of a 3rd
Below $4 million: No compensation

The picks would be at the end of rounds and in the next draft year. For example, using the Pens, they lost Jokinen ($4 million), Orpik ($5.5 million) and Niskanen ($5.75 million) of notable salaries, so they would get 2 picks after the 2nd round and 1 pick after the 3rd round. Those picks shouldn't be tradeable either.

 

[Crede777]

There's no way the NHL ownership would allow any shortening or modification of the current RFA structure. That's one of their sacred cows, the ability to cost control young players for multiple years. If the NHLPA approached attempting to shorten it (or get rid of it altogether), ownership would dig in and rather go through protracted lockout(s) than give in.

As for allowing players to opt out of contracts, but not allowing NHL teams to opt out of player contracts, that puts almost ALL of the financial risk on NHL teams. NHL teams would be incentivized to only give out short contracts which players would not like because it offers little stability in terms of income or living arrangements.

 

[rumrokh]

I don't understand why free agency should be exciting. Sure, it's nice to see your team add that last missing piece, but unless you remove the salary cap, we won't see teams becoming good through free agency. And even when there wasn't a salary cap, that was almost never the case.

I'd rather not see players flying around from team to team so much. I like going through ups and downs while rooting for the same guys. Draft, develop, and trade well and then free agency is the icing on the cake that's more about giving veterans control over the rest of their careers than it is about changing the destiny of a team.

 

[Space Herpe]

So I'll be honest other than the 2012 Parise & Suter signings Free agency has become boring,I know teams are willing to lock up top talent to prevent them from losing it. My question is how could free agency be better ??? my ideas are


1. Get rid of RFA status: once your contract expires your a UFA, if a team cant lock you up then maybe they should have gotten some value. personally i hate RFA's

2. Players can Opt out of contracts: its stupid but what if Players could opt out of their contract provided they have played through 50% of the contract minimum and announce their intention to do so after the season has ended until June 1st.

So none of these are going to happen, Its just id like to see more excitement in the off season.

So, we need blow up the system because you didn't have fun on July 1st and or 2nd?

 

[icKx]

Was the free agency market ever exciting? In one hand you want your teams to retain the superstars, in the other hand you want an exciting day full of stars available. I don't see any way the UFA day "improves" in any way. You can only rely on the willingness of a player to get out of a team when his contract expires and it's fine that way.

What needs to be improved on the other hand, and can be, is the Trade deadline. With the addition of salary retaining, it should open up the market a little bit at least. I badly wanna see more blockbusters.

Agreed. One problem is the deadline is too early. With five weeks of hockey left (20 games or so) before the end of the season many teams think they still have a shot at the playoffs so we see many buyers but few sellers.

Move the deadline back a few weeks and there might be more action.

 

[Brooklanders*]

Eliminating RFA hurts rebuilding teams and capped out teams.

Bad idea.

My suggestion is simple draft better.

 

[412 Others]

the system is fine. free agency is fine.

 

[iBELEAF]

UFA have too much power during Free Agency.

MY suggestion would be to lower 3 years max to sign on a team. 5 years max to re-sign

 

[Hire Sather]

Players change teams enough.

 

[MarkGio]

I'd like to see the UFA age lowered to 25, but that's just IMO. I really want compensation for high paid players to be a thing. For example, if you lose a player that gets paid $7.5 million per season, you get a 1st after pick 30 as compensation for the next year. I'd do it:

$7.5 million and above: Compensation of a 1st
$5-$7.5 million: Compensation of a 2nd
$4-$5 million: Compensation of a 3rd
Below $4 million: No compensation

The picks would be at the end of rounds and in the next draft year. For example, using the Pens, they lost Jokinen ($4 million), Orpik ($5.5 million) and Niskanen ($5.75 million) of notable salaries, so they would get 2 picks after the 2nd round and 1 pick after the 3rd round. Those picks shouldn't be tradeable either.

Yeah the compensation is way too high, but that's way too low

 

[penguins2946*]

Yeah the compensation is way too high, but that's way too low

Uh what are you trying to say here? You contradicted yourself here. That was compensation for UFAs, which isn't a thing.

 

[542365]

One year contract max all around.

Free agent market bonanza every year

You should really pitch that idea to EA Sports to have in the GM Mode. That would be very fun in a video game.

 

[King Woodballs]

Raise the damn salary cap, it's absurdly low.

RFA's I would keep though, you want drafting to have at least equal value.

What?
At least 1/3 to 1/2 of the league can't make money now
That would be killer for so many teams

 

[Habsrule]

To me a non radical idea would be to give every team one free buyout per summer. The deadline would be just before the free agency period. Those bought out players will join the free agent pool.

It could add up to an extra thirty UFAs a year. Now not often would you get great players but players like Lecavalier, Briere, Gomez, etc.

 

[tucker3434]

Rules are being made to allow teams to keep their players. So, it's heading the other way.

 

[1865]

UFA have too much power during Free Agency.

MY suggestion would be to lower 3 years max to sign on a team. 5 years max to re-sign

I like the 5 year max idea. More free agency players, more player movement, fewer anchor contracts.

To me a non radical idea would be to give every team one free buyout per summer. The deadline would be just before the free agency period. Those bought out players will join the free agent pool.

It could add up to an extra thirty UFAs a year. Now not often would you get great players but players like Lecavalier, Briere, Gomez, etc.

Cap circumvention ho!

 

[Acallabeth]

Do a free agents draft lottery.