CBA needs to do something about the cap circumvention with performance bonuses. Something like "10 games played" for 2mil extra or whatever it usually is isn't really how they're meant to be used, if you ask me. The main function there is not to reward performance, but rather to move a part of the cap to the following year, aka cap circumvention.
What "cap circumvention"? It's like the Boston thing with Bergeron and Krejci. It pushes cap to next year, but it all still comes due. And in a lot of cases, it's probably worse if you're paying a bunch of bonus cap to a guy who was washed and then isn't even playing that next year.
Because blues are a contender taking advantage of a loophole….
Blues currently sit at $7M+ in free cap space with their entire 23-man roster. There is no circumvention, there is no loophole, there is no paying it back later. Barring a very expensive trade deadline, we will just pay whatever bonuses on this year's cap at the end of the season.
I don't like this. I think Suter is an upgrade on who we have now, even though he is mostly cooked. We need a defensive D man to pair with Faulk who can take the easier defense minutes. He struggles with speed, but we'll have Leddy and Parayko out there against the top speedy guys when we can. So it does make some sort of sense,,,,excpept, we are not contending. A marginal 1 year upgrade is meaningless. Plus rumors of him being a bad teammate when we need to be injecting impressionable younger players into the line up. Just doesn't make sense.
But it is not cap circumvention or any such nonsense. Even if we did have to pay the bonuses next year.
