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People are not Ready for the Massive Cap Increases

chuckt

Registered User
May 4, 2022
18
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I don't think people are really understanding what will likely happen with the massive cap jumps in the oncoming years. It's not as simple as saying it's going up 10%, so new signings will just be a 10% increase on previous comparables.

In any given year, there are 2-4 prize free agents that are difference makers. Then there are usually 8-10 depth players that are solid, followed by all the rest which are replacement level or slightly above.

Every single team will have a huge amount of cap space. Take a look at the thread asking which teams are positioned to exploit the new jumping cap. Every single team could be named.

There are not enough quality players to meet the demand. What's going to happen is that teams will enter the season with a great deal of cap space, because they won't be able to find players that are measurably better than their prospects that will be graduating.

Extra cap space that isn't used is wasted. If you end the year with 15 million and never spend it, you don't get a benefit. This is going to sound ridiculous, but a team would be better off paying Rantanen 18 million than letting that cap space sit by with no options. Of course term and future contracts need to be a factor, but this will be less of a worry than in previous years due to the cap jumping every single year for the foreseeable future. Deals will only get worse each year as cap inflation continues to build.

I imagine a big effect of all this will be that contracts with perceived negative value today will actually have positive value tomorrow. Jones, Nurse, Huberdeau, Stephenson, and others. Teams would be better off paying Huberdeau for 60 points and hoping he can find a spark and reclaim some of his former glory, than letting that money rot or spending 9 million on a player with a 60 points ceiling that is more likely to produce 40-50.

Maybe I'm out to lunch, but the supply of quality players available to sign is incredibly small, and the demand is about to explode.
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People know exactly what will happen. Marginal players will get insane new contracts, as always happens and has already happened since news of the big increase went. By start of season, there will be a small amount of teams with lots of cap just like always. Top teams will simply spend it all, like always happens. GMs mindset and spending habits didn't suddenly change.
 
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Back in the early cap days everyone knew the cap was going to be going up 10% a year.

It went from 39 to 44 to 50 to 56 over those first four years.

Zdeno Chara made it to UFA as a to be 29 year old defenseman with one top 3 Norris finish in year 2 of that stretch.

The contract the Bruins offered him, as a percentage of the cap, was 16.27m AAV in 2025-26 dollars.

Get ready, folks.

Crazy Cizikas said:
Teams will spend more. Players will earn more. Fans will pay more.
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But it’s ok because our dollars will continue to be worth less and less.
 
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ijuka said:
I know exactly what will happen.

GMs will think they have all the cap space in the world, sign a couple of atrocious deals the next few summer, and then all the teams will be in cap hell once again.
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I don't think this will be true. There are not enough players that will be worth signing over minimum salary. Some players will be horribly overpaid, but there will be far more teams going into the year with meaningful cap space compared to previous years.

By the time salaries really level out in 3-4 years, the horrible contracts in the league will look very appealing. That's the main point I'm making that no one seems to be talking about. I'm not sure even one current long-term contract will look bad three years from now.
 
NHLPA really needs to focus on increasing the minimum contracts and draft contracts.

All the increase money is going to go to the guys near the top, as teams can always fill up with cheap minimum contracts
 
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wintersej said:
Back in the early cap days everyone knew the cap was going to be going up 10% a year.

It went from 39 to 44 to 50 to 56 over those first four years.

Zdeno Chara made it to UFA as a to be 29 year old defenseman with one top 3 Norris finish in year 2 of that stretch.

The contract the Bruins offered him, as a percentage of the cap, was 16.27m AAV in 2025-26 dollars.

Get ready, folks.



But it’s ok because our dollars will continue to be worth less and less.
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There’s a reason why gold has gone up 8% in the past month.
 
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Good, rich, teams will sign players to low aav but with a max bonus on the last year.
This way they will get the prime years but they can then trade the players to non-cap teams like Buffalo for a huge return after the bonus is paid.

5-10 million dead cap hit will likely be worth good prospects or picks for the poor teams.

Granlund as an example:
5+5+5+10 makes him a 6.25 player for a competing team.

A vet like Giroux could be signed for two years:
3+6
With the second year being buried in the ahl an not playing but still getting the bonus before being traded.

I could see deals being set up in advance to manage cap/budget for the poor teams.
 
People aren’t ready for my kitties (dynasty) to roll out the best core in the NHL for only 35% of the cap.
 

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I think you're right for the most part but that the big counteracting force is that surprisingly few teams will have owners willing to spend the full $113.5M.

On paper it's an extra $816M into the system. My guess is that after internal budgets though you're only looking at around half of that, with probably only 10 or so teams willing to spend all the way to the max.
 
ijuka said:
I know exactly what will happen.

GMs will think they have all the cap space in the world, sign a couple of atrocious deals the next few summer, and then all the teams will be in cap hell once again.
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$10 million per for Sam Bennett will be the new Bobby Holik.
 
HaNotsri said:
Good, rich, teams will sign players to low aav but with a max bonus on the last year.
This way they will get the prime years but they can then trade the players to non-cap teams like Buffalo for a huge return after the bonus is paid.

5-10 million dead cap hit will likely be worth good prospects or picks for the poor teams.

Granlund as an example:
5+5+5+10 makes him a 6.25 player for a competing team.

A vet like Giroux could be signed for two years:
3+6
With the second year being buried in the ahl an not playing but still getting the bonus before being traded.

I could see deals being set up in advance to manage cap/budget for the poor teams.
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Hasn’t worked that way in the past when lots of teams weren’t spending to the cap. No reason to expect it to be any different in the future. Best case teams can cap dump a player for free, no team is going to pay to acquire a cap dump.
 
This is, of course, assuming that redacted doesn't intentionally drive North America and the world into an intentional recession.

Get ready. Your cap increases are not going to come to fruition.
 
jd22 said:
This is, of course, assuming that redacted doesn't intentionally drive North America and the world into an intentional recession.

Get ready. Your cap increases are not going to come to fruition.
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I agree with your outlook but I believe that the cap increases are agreed on already.
 
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