2022-23 NHL Thread

[Nik]

Sure is. The system rewards teams that have 1 or 2 "superstars", 1 or 2 pretty good players, a bunch of middle of the road players and an excellent goalie.

For what it's worth I don't think this is true so much or, at least, not in terms of team composition. The Lightning have 5 guys who are star players as much as the Leafs have 4 in Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Hedman and Vasilevsky and the Avalanche have sort of an on-ice 4 that are at least equivalent in Mackinnon, Rantanen, Makar and Landeskog.

I think the lessons the Leafs could learn in looking at successful teams is A) it's probably not a good idea for all four of your "star" players to be forwards B) You need to be getting good deals on your stars and C) You need a system generating solid young talent to replace the middle six guys you lose to the cap. So far, what's really killed the Leafs is the complete snake eyes they've been rolling on C and the fact that B just didn't really play out for them. That they're paying Tavares 11 million and he's really probably only playing like you'd want to be paying 8 million or so for isn't great but not signing Tavares wouldn't have made the guys coming off the Marlies any better.

[BrownRolo]

There's no bad blood anymore. There's barely any hitting in the league. The games are just not interesting. And with the first round matchup pretty much set there is no reason to watch he games. It's basically preseason at this point.

[princedpw]

https://twitter.com/markjburns88/status/1620596541739372544

Is this good?

I would not be surprised if part of this is due to the new ESPN service for streaming out of market games in the US.

I am a Toronto maple leafs fan living in the US and all I want to see are Toronto maple leafs games. Last year there was NHL center ice this year there is ESPN+.  It seems like there are so many more games that are blacked out for me and/or not served by ESPN+.

I would easily be willing to pay double or triple the fee in order to get all of the games in one place. But I can't.  So, instead, when I can't get the games through the ESPN feed, I have no choice but to resort to watching a feed I can find on the internet.  I don't want to.  There must be a better way to serve the consumer ants to make money. I want to give them money!

[Guilt Trip]

https://twitter.com/markjburns88/status/1620596541739372544

Is this good?

I would not be surprised if part of this is due to the new ESPN service for streaming out of market games in the US.

I am a Toronto maple leafs fan living in the US and all I want to see are Toronto maple leafs games. Last year there was NHL center ice this year there is ESPN+.  It seems like there are so many more games that are blacked out for me and/or not served by ESPN+.

I would easily be willing to pay double or triple the fee in order to get all of the games in one place. But I can't.  So, instead, when I can't get the games through the ESPN feed, I have no choice but to resort to watching a feed I can find on the internet.  I don't want to.  There must be a better way to serve the consumer ants to make money. I want to give them money!

I heard that today on the radio. It's a huge problem and will def turn people off.

[Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate]

True.

Nonetheless, even a fresh corporate guy would be an improvement. 

I 100% do not think that is true. I thought that was true in Baseball with Bud Selig and we got Rob Manfred. I thought that with the NFL with Tagliabue and we got Roger Goodell. The modern brand of dead-souled capitalist lackeys are so much worse than the old school.

I don't follow other sports any more but I am all but certain most anyone would be an improvement over Bettman as he is today.  He is superficial, self-satisfied, and staler than a 6-month-old saltine.

[Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate]

That and there are about 12 teams too many, so the product is diluted.

Yeah, I also don't agree with this so much. I think the growth of the US and European talent base probably means that there's roughly the same % of good and great players available as there always was. Sure if you eliminated teams there'd be stronger teams but so long as the cap is in place the teams still won't have separation from each other.

Hockey's an odd team sport in that it has distinct tiers of players who aren't all on the "field" at the same time.  So fans wear out their butts sliding to the front of the seats when Lines 1 and 2 are on, and slumping back when 3 and 4 are on.  Fewer teams would increase the number of relatively higher-talent players on 3 and 4, so fans could stay in the middle of their seats for them.  Less butt travel time equals a better product and higher US TV ratings.

[Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate]

https://twitter.com/markjburns88/status/1620596541739372544

Is this good?

I would not be surprised if part of this is due to the new ESPN service for streaming out of market games in the US.

I am a Toronto maple leafs fan living in the US and all I want to see are Toronto maple leafs games. Last year there was NHL center ice this year there is ESPN+.  It seems like there are so many more games that are blacked out for me and/or not served by ESPN+.

I would easily be willing to pay double or triple the fee in order to get all of the games in one place. But I can't.  So, instead, when I can't get the games through the ESPN feed, I have no choice but to resort to watching a feed I can find on the internet.  I don't want to.  There must be a better way to serve the consumer ants to make money. I want to give them money!

Hear, hear!  I am in the same boat.  Why in the world don't they offer team subscriptions?  Instead I watch *cough* feeds from Iran for God's sake.

[Nik]

I don't follow other sports any more but I am all but certain most anyone would be an improvement over Bettman as he is today.  He is superficial, self-satisfied, and staler than a 6-month-old saltine.

I don't think you need to follow other sports. You just need to be aware of how the world is going. The folk inclined to carry water for the billionaires out there are not getting better. This honestly sounds more like personal animus than a substantial criticism.

[Nik]

Hockey's an odd team sport in that it has distinct tiers of players who aren't all on the "field" at the same time.  So fans wear out their butts sliding to the front of the seats when Lines 1 and 2 are on, and slumping back when 3 and 4 are on.  Fewer teams would increase the number of relatively higher-talent players on 3 and 4, so fans could stay in the middle of their seats for them.  Less butt travel time equals a better product and higher US TV ratings.

Sure and if you eliminated all but the six original teams there'd be all-stars at every spot of the lineup. That's not really the point though. Exciting players on the third line has never been the norm in hockey and trying to engineer it to that point is breaking with the past, not keeping with it. 

[Arn]

I'm not sure as people have intimated that a change of commissioner would make much difference.

The hard salary cap and parity are the things I kind of see as the main problems. I get the argument for cost control and so on, but I definitely think some kind of luxury tax system, or even something like the MLS system where you can pay 1 or 2 players "outside" the salary cap would have helped.

Can you imagine if there was some way in which McDavid and Matthews could end up on the same team? Surely that sells hockey better than Arizona being "competitive"?

[Bender]

I'm not sure as people have intimated that a change of commissioner would make much difference.

The hard salary cap and parity are the things I kind of see as the main problems. I get the argument for cost control and so on, but I definitely think some kind of luxury tax system, or even something like the MLS system where you can pay 1 or 2 players "outside" the salary cap would have helped.

Can you imagine if there was some way in which McDavid and Matthews could end up on the same team? Surely that sells hockey better than Arizona being "competitive"?

And at the end of the day bad teams still can be bad and choose to tank. Chicago, Columbus, Anaheim, Arizona, San Jose, Montreal etc. are not competitive at all.

[louisstamos]

For me - if the NHL is adamant on a hard cap system, there is close to $80 million in unused cap around the league.  Have teams be able to trade their unused cap space.

It works threefold - the players like it because that means extra money spent on salaries that is not being used at the moment.  Cap ceiling teams can acquire cap in order to make trades/improve their team.  Cap floor teams can get assets back for cap space they probably aren't going to use anyway (or cash, but I doubt the NHL would ever allow that).

[bustaheims]

For me - if the NHL is adamant on a hard cap system, there is close to $80 million in unused cap around the league.  Have teams be able to trade their unused cap space.

It works threefold - the players like it because that means extra money spent on salaries that is not being used at the moment.  Cap ceiling teams can acquire cap in order to make trades/improve their team.  Cap floor teams can get assets back for cap space they probably aren't going to use anyway (or cash, but I doubt the NHL would ever allow that).

Using up all that cap space would just mean larger portions of player pay cheques go to escrow. The cap system is set up with the understanding that a number of teams won't hit the ceiling. Total player salaries are still capped at 50% of HRR, regardless of how much cap space is used - and, if all the cap space available was used, it would significantly exceed the 50% ceiling on total player salaries.

It would help the teams in terms of making deals and acquiring assets, but it wouldn't be beneficial to the players' bank accounts.

[Deebo]

Using up all that cap space would just mean larger portions of player pay cheques go to escrow. The cap system is set up with the understanding that a number of teams won't hit the ceiling. Total player salaries are still capped at 50% of HRR, regardless of how much cap space is used - and, if all the cap space available was used, it would significantly exceed the 50% ceiling on total player salaries.

Under normal operations (no balance for the NHLPA to pay off). I beleive the midpoint between the floor and cap is based on 50% of revenues of the prior year. Then the PA decides to apply an inflator to the midpoint to account for possible revenue growth. The cap is 15% above that midpoint, and floor 15% below.

[Arn]

I'm not sure as people have intimated that a change of commissioner would make much difference.

The hard salary cap and parity are the things I kind of see as the main problems. I get the argument for cost control and so on, but I definitely think some kind of luxury tax system, or even something like the MLS system where you can pay 1 or 2 players "outside" the salary cap would have helped.

Can you imagine if there was some way in which McDavid and Matthews could end up on the same team? Surely that sells hockey better than Arizona being "competitive"?

And at the end of the day bad teams still can be bad and choose to tank. Chicago, Columbus, Anaheim, Arizona, San Jose, Montreal etc. are not competitive at all.

"Teams don't tank"