Don't need to pay anyone else on the team! Just give it all to 4 players and the rest will be cast offs and league min waiver pick ups! Brilliant!
Want a goalie? Nope! Can't afford one.
Want some defense? Nope! Can't afford that!
Want a 3rd line? We will just play Willy double shifted to the 4th line!
I agree, the NHL needs to fix their cap situation.
They need to allow teams to go over the cap, everyone is doing it anyways, may as well just allow them to be less sneaky about it.
Ability to cut players like the NFL, or luxury tax like MLB, the NHL’s cap is an absolute joke.
But you’re right, it’ll be the plugs or serviceable players in the NHL who will take the paycuts and the superstars who will make the real money and the gap will continue to widen until the league figures out it’s shit.
This isn’t a leaf problem, it’s an every team problem. They all want to spend more than the league allows, and most competitive NHL teams (and many non-competitive teams - Ottawa) are up against the cap).
The goal is to spend to the cap, by the way. You don’t score any goals by having $10m in dead cap space. Has an NHL team ever won the Stanley cup with $20m in cap space left unused?
I hate having such a valuable piece just slip into the ether when we could get something pretty sweet for him that could fill some needed holes long term.
Having said that, because of the cap...it seems to be the case that you can fill those spots as their are almost always talent that is available because of the cap.
Of course we could pay nylander. The problem is that you don't want to apparently ever pay for a decent goalie or have any kind of competent 3rd line or defense.
You wanna perpetuate this top heavy contract structure that loves to get rolled in the playoffs because we have no valuable workers on the team worth a damn.
The leafs 3rd line is great and their goaltending is capable of .910+. They just need the goalies to perform to their abilities.
But yes, the spirit of what you’re saying is true. Superstars will get all the money and everyone else on every team in the nhl will make peanuts in comparison.
That’s the NHL’s fault