Goodbye to the Mid-Point "Soft Cap"?
Of great interest to a team like Nashville, however, we have the removal of something we used to refer to as the "soft cap" at the mid-point of the salary range. In the now-expired 2005 CBA, Article 49.7 (a) read:
"...any remaining Escrow Account funds shall be distributed to any Club that had an Actual Club Salary that was less than the Midpoint of the Payroll Range (measured as of the final day of the NHL Regular Season), with the amount of funds each such Club receives being sufficient to bring it up to the Midpoint of the Payroll Range..."
In other words, there was an additional cost to teams like the Preds exceeding the mid-point, in that it could cause them to miss out on that distribution of escrow funds. While exact figures aren't available, the basic idea is that by adding $500,000 in payroll, you could cost your team millions in lost escrow disbursement.
In the new 2013 CBA, there is no language equivalent that quoted above in the revenue sharing portion of the document. The removal of this "soft cap" doesn't mean that teams can go wild with their spending, however. The intent of the Revenue Sharing program is to help teams afford a payroll that is no higher than the mid-point, so if recipient teams decide to go over that level, they do so at their own peril. At least now, however, such a move doesn't lead to a double-whammy.
