Would a soccer style loan system work in the NHL?

[Orfieus]

lol imagine that player fighting his own team mates??

Personally I don't like the idea

 

[qc14]

Absolutely not.

What makes the loan system work in soccer is that their are multiple leagues around the same tier as one another. Have a prospect who needs game time? Send them to a league in another country that's maybe a rung or two below yours. Signing who's not working out right away? Go play in a similar tier back in a familiar place for a year. Very rarely do you have loans between teams who play in the same league as you and the majority of them are just accounting trickery as prefaces to full moves anyways. There also has been some momentum/desire in recent years to cut way down on inter-league loans

The NHL already has the "prospect" loan -- sending a player to the AHL or ECHL or back to juniors. The "change of scenery" loan doesn't work without having somewhere you can send someone that is a similar level of play but not directly in competition with you. If the SHL or KHL or Swiss League were pretty much on par with the NHL maybe it would work, but they are significantly behind.

That's just from the "would it be good sporting wise" view. The PA would absolutely fight against it (as they should) and while I appreciate this idea being inside the hard cap system it very much feels like the kind of loose money floating around that the owners and Bettman hate.

 

[patnyrnyg]

It already exists. It is called the AHL, ECHL, etc. The difference is the NHL club has an agreed upon affiliation with the AHL club to provide players. So, the Rangers can lend players to Hartford, but not to Springfield or Providence.

 

[vipera1960]

It already exists. It is called the AHL, ECHL, etc. The difference is the NHL club has an agreed upon affiliation with the AHL club to provide players. So, the Rangers can lend players to Hartford, but not to Springfield or Providence.

That’s not quite true. Just last year the Sharks loaned Ozzy Wiesblatt to AHL Milwaukee on a “tryout” basis, then formally traded him to Nashville in the offseason.

 

[Hawkster]

Lo

lol imagine that player fighting his own team mates??

Personally I don't like the idea

Loaned players can't play against their 'parent' club.

 

[BLNY]

The more interesting hypothetical change, in my opinion, to be made is that a player's contract is only with the team with whom he signed. Once a trade happens, that contract is void and the player must sign a new one with the new club at any rate/term they agree upon. Player's would have to agree to the deal and enter into contract negotiations before hand with the club's blessing.

You could see an older, experienced player agreeing to exchange an unmoveable contract with a poor team to take shorter term and/or money to chase a Cup if he chooses. Also makes him more attractive in trade since the value would be more subjective to both trade partners. The cap hit would be less consequential.

Zero chance the union agrees to that. Ever.

 

[Statto]

Tell that to Gary Bettman. It's another cap circumvention workaround. The league has dismissed similar proposals to make it easier to navigate the cap and load up/tear down in short order for a deep run. They don't want to make it any easier to swap players around, shuffle them back and forth like pawns.

And to the OP question, no, players probably would not agree to a system that promoted freer player movement between teams. Players like waivers that prevent players from being buried in the minors on deep clubs. They don't want a system that allows GMs to more easily swap NHL vets back and forth and back again. NHL players have a lot more power than players in international soccer. Their agreement is needed for major NHL CBA alterations.

I’d say football (soccer) players have far more power. If they have no contract they can go where they want and even if they do have a contract it’s pretty easy, relatively speaking, to agitate for and engineer a transfer… which they and their representatives then get a slice of. They have more power simply because they play wherever they want. International ‘soccer’ is a separate entity and is not the highest level of world football… the Champions League is, closely followed by the Premier League.