So say there’s a player who wants 8mil on a contract. What if the team offered him 4mil (which would come out of the salary cap) but then the owner agrees to pay him 4mil out of his own pocket under table? So he’d really be getting paid 8mil but it would be a 4mil cap hit and the NHL wouldn’t see the under-the-table 4mil.

I’m 99% sure this is illegal, but I’m wondering how/if they would get caught and if anything similar has ever happened before.

Definitely cap circumvention, and also probably illegal tax wise too. I feel like it wouldn’t be that hard for the NHL to catch this sort of thing, especially when we’re talking millions of dollars.

I don't think the players care as much about the actual money as they care about money against the cap ... Marner doesn't think he needs 11M+, he just thinks he's "worth" that because Matthews is making that. It depends on the player, though, i guess. I like what Kevin Labanc did this year. I'd have to think he did it to help out the team.

100% illegal, cap circumvention. I dont know of a case where this might have happened in hockey. Football, i 100% believe tom brady and the krafts have a backdoor deal going on.

The backdoor deal is that brady’s wife makes like 30mil a year lol

It probably has more to do with "TB12" and Alex Guerrero.

Probably. He and his wife make so much money outside of football. Not to mention he likes to win which is really why he doesn’t take a big cap hit.

Circumventing the cap via a pass-through corporation so they have more cap room to build the team around him wouldn't be the first (or second) time the Patriots cheated.

tom brady could've also uhhhhh just signed for less money

it would actually be the first time they "cheated" in the brady era but whatever. Bet whoever you root for is squeaky clean right?