You said they were past this prime looking for big deals, I took that as a perceived negative on your part. I’m saying they weren’t a negative, Leetch and Mogilny particularly.
That's true, but the point I was trying to make was on the player salary level, not team. In this hypothetical no cap world, I'm sure salaries would be on average a little higher. Let's say that Tampa manages to resign Stamkos at $10 mil instead of him going to Nashville for $8 mil. Then they add Guentzel and keep Sergachev. Cascade the changes and suddenly they're way over the average team salary. I'm sure that would happen. But I don't think you'd see the Rangers offering Stamkos $16 mil to join a bunch of $15-20 mil star UFAs that they keep signing. If they were behaving that way, I think it could shift the competitive balance more than competent management.
I don't know.
In a no-cap world Stamkos would get far more than 10M. Consider that back in 2004 right before the cap Lidstrom was making 10M/yr. I doubt 20 years later the stars would still be making at. Without a cap the past 20 years and judging by how much the revenues have gone up I’d wager that Stamkos (and any other star player these days) would be closer to 20M/yr. Don’t forget teams with nearly limitless pockets like NYR, Toronto, Montreal, etc were what set the salary scale in those days. Keep in mind Sakic got a 15M offer sheet and Fedorov had the famous 28M one back then. 20M would probably be the low end for star contracts now.
There was a period I recall when the Leafs had Cliff Fletcher and poached players from the Flames and became competitive (Conference Final appearance). Likewise the Rangers did the same with the Oilers. Small market Canadian teams were on the brink of folding when the Canadian dollar tanked, and rich franchises took advantage.
You have to remember how they operated back then. They could buy players to be competitive and they absolutely did. Selling off to tank was never an option for them. Plus they had a ton more revenue because revenue sharing wasn’t a thing and probably wouldn’t be in a no cap world now. From 1990-2004 in the pre cap era they never picked higher than 8th and only in the top 10 3 times. I can’t see them suddenly deciding to sell off and tank rather than buy more overpriced UFAs as was their model. The cap changed the way you build teams. It’s all about drafting now and UFAs aren’t really core players on winning teams like they used to be.
The Montreal Canadiens were absolutely not a team with "limitless pockets" at that time. The Habs were picking up over-the-hill players like Doug Gilmour and Joe Juneau, or borderline NHLers like Andreas Dackell. They also lost Stephane Quintal to free agency when the Rangers signed him for way more than what he should have made.
Not according to history, they still haven’t won 3 rounds ever, let alone 4.
What i said was 100% true, wether you perceived it as a negative or positive comment. Toronto used their buying power and payed these guys well above market value, because there was no salary cap, and still were never able to come close to winning a cup. This is what the thread is about. Not wether or not leetch or mogilny were good players.
Buying free agents doesn’t prevent you from drafting. There is no one way to win, that’s silly.
Doubtful. In a no-cap world every player would know that McDavid (and Drai) would hit UFA where they would easily get 30M+/yr offers (he’ll maybe even 40M) offers from the deepest pocket big market teams. Would Edmonton be able to shell out 60-80M for those 2 and still afford to spend big on a team around them? I’m not sure if they could budget that.
I agree. But trading away draft picks for guys like this does affect how these teams are built. I said management meant alot, and what toronto management always had done was trade picks, prospects for aging stars that might or might not of put them over the top. They'd contunially mortgage the future for help today and it never worked.
UFA rules were very different pre 2005.
It depends on how you do it but I feel like a lot of people are missing a key point to that free spending Era. The teams that dominated were med-large markets with top quality drafted cores already in place when spending opened up. They used playoff $$$ to keep spending to compliment the cores.
True, but no cap means the Leafs never tank to the extent that they are drafting those players to begin with.
Not to mention they are one of the highest revenue teams with an owner that will spare no expenses. I doubt any other team could flex on the Oilers financially in order to poach one of McDavid and Draisaitl unlike 20 years ago.
