No. A 35+ contract causes the full cap hit to remain on the books. A front loaded contract causes the team to face cap penalties equal to the amount of cap that they previously saved. For example, if a guy with one year left on his deal has a cap hit of $4 million and a salary of $1 million, and then he retires, then the team faces a penalty of $3 million.

**Billy Beane shaking his head**

No because it isnt a 35+ contract, so they get full relief

Okay, but Wheeler isn't going to actually retire three years before his contract expires because then he wouldn't get any of the money owed to him.

I don’t actually think there is a limit on variance in annual salary (I thought there was but I can’t find it, so maybe I imagined it), but what is definitely an important thing to consider is the Cap Recapture Penalty that the Jets would incur if they signed Wheeler to the type of contract you’re proposing. As Ice Girl, above, succinctly notes, this has the effect of rendering any benefit of the lower AAV null and void.

The penalties that the Jets would incur in the final 3/4 years AFTER Wheeler retires would completely negate any benefit to the lower AAV of the contract. This has happened with players like Kovalchuk in NJ (who are still getting dinged for his contract I believe) and likely to happen with players like Shea Weber when he retires.

This Reddit post goes into a lot of detail about the Cap Recapture penalties and how they are calculated. As you can see it simply wouldn’t be worth it for the Jets to sign Wheeler to an 8y contract with the tacit understanding he’d Retire half way thru.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/3ctmu2/the_cap_recapture_penalty_what_it_is_and_why_it/#ampf=undefined

i know my jets are going for the cup, but wheeler was signed for this year. if i'm the jets, i want to see if wheeler is his usual 65 point player on his one time 95 point guy. even if wheeler has a near MVP season, and he walks after 2019, the jets would still have 8.25m to spend and maybe it would be for wheeler, maybe another player. risky signing for me to swallow

there is a limit to salary variance; annual salary (base + signing bonuses) can't go up or down by more than 35% of the salary paid out in the 1st year of the contract. Mikkel Bødker had to sign a revised contract with the Sharks in 2016 because of this: https://www.fearthefin.com/2016/7/5/12104072/mikkel-boedker-had-to-sign-a-revised-deal-with-the-sharks

of course, this rule doesn't dictate signing bonus distribution, as can be seen with wacky contracts like John Tavares's. also, many recent contracts have reduced salaries in years with potential lockout dates.

Good deal imo for jets

Excellent deal. What the heck did people think he was going to sing for? Guy had 90 points!

His comparables are pretty rough.

32 years old and just had a career year. His 3 previous season he averaged 71 points a season, so I'd question how likely is is to put up 90 points again. After the 1st year of his extension kicking in, I'd imagine WPG will regret the deal.

Wheeler is the heart and soul of the Jets and they had to pay him. He wouldn't be worth 8.25 million but he'll still be decent. Just puzzling that the Jets are going to cap hell by overpaying a few players like Little.

Chia giving up anything of value for small old skilled forwards? No. Now, if Jets are looking to get rid of Buff or Meyers, Chia may be interested; he currently has a former 4th overall finnish stud that might just need a change of pace and an old friend to get his game going.

no need to sign him now should have signed the young guns first. he is already a lifer and would have signed for remaining space to stay on cup contender. but not 5 years that is gonna hurt

You can still make back diving contracts....they are just more strict about it. The lowest years salary can't be less than 50% of highest years salary.

And the salary can't reduce by more than 30% (or something similar) from one year to the next.

So they could have given him an 8-Year deal like:

9,000,000
9,000,000
7,000,000
7,000,000
5,000,000
5,000,000
5,000,000
5,000,000
--------------
$52,000,000 TOTAL
$ 6,500,000 CAP-HIT

The two keys would be:

1) NOT INCLUDING a NTC for the final 3 years.
2) INCLUDING a verbal agreement along the lines of "if you're so bad we can't trade you in year 6, 7 or 8 .... than you have have to retire due to injury so we can LTIR you".

- Wheeler would say yes because he's guaranteed $10,750,000 more, and still gets paid a similar amount over the first five years.
- Winnipeg would say yes because his cap-hit is nearly $2,000,000 less, and they wouldn't lose sleep because any 37 year old will choose a fully paid LTIR retirement over the AHL (if it came to that).

Dunno why more teams don't structure deals like this (there's a reason the Leafs traded Clarkson for Horton's contract .... and it's because Horton is retired).

lol what? Perreault isn't on a terrible contract..

If he had another season like the last, he would be asking for 10mil. Plus you would have the risk of one of the top RW in the league leaving while getting nothing in return. And the whole will he/won't he Ladd type situation hovering around the team all year. It's easy to say sign him for less, but the market / player may say otherwise. This is a signing a cup contender needs to make unfortunately

I don't mind the AAV. It's the term that concerns me a little. But if the cap rises another 10-20% by the end of the term, it should be very manageable.

I think the Jets window to win a championship will still be open during years 4-5 and maybe afterwards too. They have a pretty dynamic young core w? Wheeler and Buff the veterans.

How is this not a good signing? Please explain people...

The reason the Leafs got Horton is because was was on permanent LTIR...on an uninsured contract. He isn't retired. So the Leafs are paid 27.5m out of pocket for Horton not playing, but could cap relief for him being on LTIR is stead of paying 27.5m for the ineffective Clarkson. Can't think of any other organization that would have take that 27.5m $$$$ lose, just for cap space.
You're scenario makes sense if the Jets could dump Wheeler. But it's finding a team that wants to pay 5m for last seasons if ineffective that is the problem. And certainly having a player going on LTIR is questionable if the player doesn't want to go on LTIR. A player can't chose LTIR, unless he deliberates doesn't want to get in game shape "fit". Then the insurance company might intervene also.

Nice joke, man.

He’s been over a .5 points per game pace every season since joining Winnipeg. He’s also one of the more defensively reliable forwards on that team. Can you explain where this is a bad contract?

He's a 30 bottom six player, never reached 20 goals in his career, never played more than 71 games. Most of the seasons he just passed 60 games. Besides, he still has 3 more years left in his contract. Defensively, he's a good player indeed. But a +4M contract for more 3 seasons is too much for a 30 bottom six player. I'm sure that any team which accept to get him and his bad contract will ask for a good compensation or a good retaintion of his salary.

Seriously? Good compensation or good retention? He's been scoring at a 40-50 pt rate for his entire NHL career. Not only that, he was one of the best play drivers last year with a CF% of 56.72 which led WPG and had a xGF% of 58.84. And, he had a positive impact on all but one of the teammates he played 100+ minutes with.