Apologies in advance for the lengthy essay...
Some (many? most?) people seem to think cap circumvention has something to do with stashing "bad" contracts off the books or artificially reaching the cap floor by taking on the contract of an injured player. That is not what cap circumvention is.
Generally speaking, cap circumvention is trying to get an edge on the cap in a contract, i.e. to find a way to pay the player a higher real AAV than his actual cap-hit. The now-forbidden extremely front-loaded deals taking a player well into retirement are perfect examples of cap circumvention. For example, Luongo's got a 5.33 caphit on a 12 year contract that takes him through to 42 years old. Let's assume he beats the odds and plays until 40. That means the last two seasons - where he's only paid 1M each - are effectively just a way to artificially lower his cap-hit. Instead of a cap hit of 5.33, he should actually have had a cap hit of 6.2 million. If he retires at 38, it should have actually have been 7.1. If Kovalchuk, for example, had retired at 37, his cap hit should have been 9 million a year - not 6.7. Those deals were cap circumvention, which is why those teams got punished for it (the recapture penalties, NJ's loss of draft picks.) Now, to be clear, I personally don't agree with the punishments. Luongo's contract (along with several others signed before the NHL tweaked the rules) should have been grandfathered in and the league should have just refused the Kovalchuk contract.
I can at least understand why people have strong feelings (even if they're completely wrong) about the Philly & Arizona situation (Philly may have been trying to pull of a cap-circumventing contract like those mentioned above but didn't fully understand the 35+ clause, specifically that it started from day the contract officially went into effect, not when it was signed, and then of course Pronger gets a job with the NHL while still under contract with Philly, meanwhile Arizona trades for a contract whose only benefit to them is to help them reach the cap floor - that isn't cap circumvention btw, it is completely legitimate cap management), but a comment on the Savard trade thread absolutely perplexed me:
LTIR IS NOT CAP CIRCUMVENTION! IT IS SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO PROVIDE TEAMS CAP RELIEF IN THE EVENT OF A LONG-TERM INJURY! THAT'S THE EXACT THING IT IS SUPPOSED TO DO!
I don't get it, what is so hard for people to understand about that? Why the hell should Boston (or Philly or any team) be given an onerous cap punishment because their player suffered a legitimate catastrophic and career-ending injury?
Now, in theory LTIR could be used to circumvent the cap. A player who doesn't really have a career-ending injury but doesn't want to play anymore could have an "injury" and go on LTIR, mitigating the last few years of his contract for the teams' cap situation, though not fully. Now, not even addressing the doubtfulness of a doctor actually signing off on such a situation, neither Savard nor Pronger are such examples. Both players suffered severe injuries while still clearly wanting to play and while being a productive member of their respective teams. Heck, Pronger was Philly's # 1 dman when he went down and they still haven't replaced him.
If you don't like players going on LTIR year after year, the answer to this is not to punish teams severely for being unable to predict random career-ending injuries. The answer is some sort of mechanism that allows teams to have real cap relief (LTIR isn't even full cap relief, the contract is still on the books and it very much limits what a team can do) and for injured players to go on earning the rest of their contracts while being able to move onto other things (such as jobs with the NHL).
Some (many? most?) people seem to think cap circumvention has something to do with stashing "bad" contracts off the books or artificially reaching the cap floor by taking on the contract of an injured player. That is not what cap circumvention is.
Generally speaking, cap circumvention is trying to get an edge on the cap in a contract, i.e. to find a way to pay the player a higher real AAV than his actual cap-hit. The now-forbidden extremely front-loaded deals taking a player well into retirement are perfect examples of cap circumvention. For example, Luongo's got a 5.33 caphit on a 12 year contract that takes him through to 42 years old. Let's assume he beats the odds and plays until 40. That means the last two seasons - where he's only paid 1M each - are effectively just a way to artificially lower his cap-hit. Instead of a cap hit of 5.33, he should actually have had a cap hit of 6.2 million. If he retires at 38, it should have actually have been 7.1. If Kovalchuk, for example, had retired at 37, his cap hit should have been 9 million a year - not 6.7. Those deals were cap circumvention, which is why those teams got punished for it (the recapture penalties, NJ's loss of draft picks.) Now, to be clear, I personally don't agree with the punishments. Luongo's contract (along with several others signed before the NHL tweaked the rules) should have been grandfathered in and the league should have just refused the Kovalchuk contract.
I can at least understand why people have strong feelings (even if they're completely wrong) about the Philly & Arizona situation (Philly may have been trying to pull of a cap-circumventing contract like those mentioned above but didn't fully understand the 35+ clause, specifically that it started from day the contract officially went into effect, not when it was signed, and then of course Pronger gets a job with the NHL while still under contract with Philly, meanwhile Arizona trades for a contract whose only benefit to them is to help them reach the cap floor - that isn't cap circumvention btw, it is completely legitimate cap management), but a comment on the Savard trade thread absolutely perplexed me:
kalessin said:It's a joke that Savard can be traded.
If he can't play he should retire. Either way, that 4M should count against Boston's cap until the contract is done. LTIR is cap circumvention.
LTIR IS NOT CAP CIRCUMVENTION! IT IS SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO PROVIDE TEAMS CAP RELIEF IN THE EVENT OF A LONG-TERM INJURY! THAT'S THE EXACT THING IT IS SUPPOSED TO DO!
I don't get it, what is so hard for people to understand about that? Why the hell should Boston (or Philly or any team) be given an onerous cap punishment because their player suffered a legitimate catastrophic and career-ending injury?
Now, in theory LTIR could be used to circumvent the cap. A player who doesn't really have a career-ending injury but doesn't want to play anymore could have an "injury" and go on LTIR, mitigating the last few years of his contract for the teams' cap situation, though not fully. Now, not even addressing the doubtfulness of a doctor actually signing off on such a situation, neither Savard nor Pronger are such examples. Both players suffered severe injuries while still clearly wanting to play and while being a productive member of their respective teams. Heck, Pronger was Philly's # 1 dman when he went down and they still haven't replaced him.
If you don't like players going on LTIR year after year, the answer to this is not to punish teams severely for being unable to predict random career-ending injuries. The answer is some sort of mechanism that allows teams to have real cap relief (LTIR isn't even full cap relief, the contract is still on the books and it very much limits what a team can do) and for injured players to go on earning the rest of their contracts while being able to move onto other things (such as jobs with the NHL).