As long as I have some sort of advanage, since I am VGK, I'll be down for anything. The simplier the better

I liked the one where the winner could add or subtract a year

Looking back at this option:

You submit your bid as total contract value and number of years.
The highest total contract value wins, but is then divided by the average number of years from all the bids to set the final term.
The winning team has the option of rejecting that term. The option then passes to the next highest bid.

Thornton has 4 bids:
A: $5M / 1 year
B: $14M / 7 years
C: $8M / 2 years
HOME: $12M / 3 years

B wins with a bid of $14M
The average years is 13/4 = 3.25
Average years are always rounded up.
The total bid is then divided by the number of years.

Final contract = $3.5M x 4 years

Team B may either sign that player or decline.
The next highest bid is the HOME team, who accepts.

*Winning team may increase the term by 1 year.
*Home team winning has the option of changing the term by 1 year in either direction.
In this case they choose to subtract a year.

Thornton signs with the HOME team for $3.5M x 3 years.

Tom Sestito has 3 bids. No team owns his rights:
A: $2M / 2 years
B: $3M / 2 years
C: $1.5M / 1 year

B wins with a bid of $3M
The average years is 5/3 = 1.67 (rounded up to 2)

Final contract = $1.5M x 2 years

Team B chooses to sign the player.

Marleau has 2 bids:
A: $10M / 1 year
HOME: $9M / 2 years

A wins with a bid of $10M
Average years is 3/2 = 1.5 (rounded up to 2)

Final contract = $5M x 2 years

Team A chooses to sign the player.
The HOME team chooses to match and sign the player. Team A is now "out".
The HOME team chooses to subtract a year from the term.

The HOME team signs the player

Final contract = $5m x 1 year

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What this system does, is determine a market value for the player, and set an expectation for the length of that player's contract.
Using total contract value and averaging the term, mitigates the more extreme offers on a player, and sets the players contract "demands".
It gives teams the option of withdrawing should the term be unfavorable to them (the player is demanding more than they are willing to offer).
It gives teams the option of making a longer term commitment to a player, at an already established market value.
It gives the Home team some flexibility with term, allowing them to reduce the term by a year, potentially keeping UFA's for 1 or 2 more cup runs.

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Do people feel this system functions and is representative enough of market value and contract negotiations to work with?

Try it out with your own players and let me know if you see any issues. (I don't mean issues that might prevent you from getting what you want, but issues with the system itself. )

-------------- NOTES -------------

- Waiver order would still be a final tiebreaker. This will normally be necessary to determine who gets to sign free agents with a maximum ELC contract value due to not holding an ELC previously. Each team can only bid up to $925k / year and the number of years is determined by age according to the CBA.

- If every team passes on a player's final contract terms, bids for that player would be reset and he remains a UFA.

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We could really use some feedback that makes this idea work better, as it is probably the simplest I've seen that still manages to cover the majority of our needs, while also "simulating" the contract demands of a player based roughly on market value. If you think this idea is good and we can move forward with it, leave a like or a comment or something please. I can work out the bugs and such as I identify them and try to get a system in place, but I don't want to put a lot of effort into a "dead end" and switch ideas later.

That works for me.

Bumping this. We need to settle on a method and start designing ways to implement it really soon.
There were some distractions that ended up putting us behind schedule.

why are we not having the best contact be the one that is signed, rather than the average? The idea of that bewilders me? In theory, I can pay more than someone else because I have cap space, for example. why should the home team have the option to get the same player that I want at a discounted price?

Here is what I think it should be:

Chalupa Batman has 4 offers:

A : 5/1
B : 14/2
C : 10/3
D : 9/1

In my scenario, the "most valuable" contract is B. While it doesnt have the highest cap hit, it has the best overall end sum (14million spread over two years, compared to 9 million spread over one year).

The home team, who submitted the offer of 10/3 now has one chance to match the offer of 14/2. If the Home Team declines to match the offer, Team B receives Chalupa Batman. Its that simple. We have no need to "average" the contracts offered, because individuals can sully it through the usage of offering the veterans minimum, or offering a max and then getting the player for what they would actually pay for him, since the average would be too high for the home team to match.

It should be this simple. Each team interested in the player submits their most valuable contract to the BOGs though a different medium (faux gmail, twitter, etc.) The BOGs will then notify everyone through a designated UFA thread and then allow the home team 3 hours to either decline or accept the most valuable offer, unless the the most valuable offer belongs to the home team.

We discussed this already. If B submits 14/7, while everyone else submits 12/2, B would get that player for $2M a year. That's ridiculous.
The total value of the contract is the same, it's the number of years that are up for adjustment.

$14M is the winning bid, but the contract length would end up at 4 years, which is $3.5M/year. Home team can now choose a 3, 4, or 5 year contract at that amount.

If we have the $14M guy and 5 other people offer a player a 2 year term around $12M, it's 17/6 = 3 years. That's $4M x 3 years.

If you want to win a player over the home team, you're going to have to submit a contract amount and term that makes sense and is a higher amount than the home team is willing to match.

If you have an alternative to how to set the number of years for a player's contract, I'm still listening.
I've only seen two methods that may be effective so far (both of which I have posted about in this thread).

We can deal with the money side of the equation easily enough. It's the number of years that is the sticking point.

Home Team should have to submit an offer as well, not sit back and see what everyone else offers their player .

How about this idea? This highest cap hit for the First "x" amount of years is the best deal. This insures that teams cannot offer 14/7 compared to a 12/2. Lets say the years are 2. 12/2 would win since it has the highest cap hit for the first two years. Home Team can either match or walk.

The only thing I take exception to is the fact that the Home Team has too much power. They shouldn't be allowed to manipulate the years offered. This is a UFA, and should be treated as such as much as possible. They should have to submit their offer and be given the choice to match it, even though that is still too much power.

I'll have to think more on something like this.



Not being able to manipulate the term is something that can be considered.

Being given the opportunity to match an offer is the minimum power for the Home team to have, whether it's too powerful or not, it should be a distinct advantage to own the rights to a player, and we have been operating under the impression of this being the advantage of owning a player's rights for too long to change that aspect anyway.
I agree that if you do not submit an offer you lose your right to match (perhaps 50% of the last contract AAV as a minimum bid).
We haven't been able to progress in this area because we haven't passed the issue of number of years.

So far for determining number of years of a contract, we have:
Option 1: Determine years by applying a number of criteria to a player
Option 2: Average years from the bids for a player
Option 3:

Okay. I've been doing some thinking, and this is essentially a "Beta" run of how free agency would work for the GM game.
Since there seems to be a limited consensus, I'm going to make a few suggestions based on what "I" feel will best serve the majority.

SETTING THE CONTRACT TERMS
1. Bids are submitted as the salary for 1 year (AAV) and number of years desired.
2. The number of years a player "wants" to sign for is the average of the number of years submitted (rounded to the closest number of years [.5 or higher = rounded up]).
3. This will set the player's contract terms at the highest value x the average number of years.

DECIDING WHO THE PLAYER SIGNS WITH

Step 1:
1. The team that submitted the highest AAV will have the first option of signing the player at the set contract terms.
2. The next highest AAV will have the next option of signing the player at the set contract terms.
3. This continues until one team agrees to the player's terms and chooses to sign that player.
4. If there is a tie, both teams have the option of proceeding to Step 2.
5. If either the Home team or Vegas submitted the lowest AAV among bids for that player, they are eliminated from Step 2.

Step 1a:
If no team wishes to sign the player to that contract, they return to free agency with all of their bids removed.
All teams will be free to bid on that player again, and we start back at SETTING THE CONTRACT TERMS for that player.

Step 2: After a team has decided to agree to the contract terms for a player.
1. The Home team is given the option to match that contract and sign the player. (Process ends with player signing with his Home team)
2. Vegas is given the option to match that contract and sign the player. (Process ends with player signing with Vegas. Vegas may no longer match offers from that team.)
3. (If Home and Vegas decline to match) The player signs with the team that originally agreed to the contract terms.
4. If there is still a tie, the team with waiver priority will be given first option of signing the player.

AFTER A PLAYER HAS SIGNED WITH A TEAM
1. That player may not be traded until Jan 1st of the following season.
2. One time only, a team may reduce the term of one of their signed free agents by 1 year (This does not apply to ELC contracts. Minimum contract term is 1 year).
3. One time only, a team may increase the term of one of their signed free agents by 1 year (This does not apply to ELC contracts. Maximum contract term is 7 years).
4. One time only, a team may reduce the salary of one of their signed free agents by $250k AAV (This does not apply to ELC contracts. May not exceed minimum salary threshold).

--------

What do people think of this? I tried to incorporate the majority of the ideas so far into a single system.
* I haven't included waiver order or ELC players yet. I wanted to get the main ideas out first.

I think that's really good, except for the matching. I think vegas has a little too much power to match offers. That's just my opinion though, if people don't agree that's totally fine.

That's up to the BOG and Vegas. I'm only going by what Vegas was offered in place of their exclusive negotiation period.
If something is wrong or unbalanced there it will have to be figured out by the BOG first before I can account for anything in the system.
Maybe Vegas has to be one of the top 3 initial offers (or some other restriction/limitation).

I don't understand why we have to chance the rules so much from the NHL UFA. Here is the simplest way for the UFA to work for the GM Game

Bidding
- Each team will submit their best bid on an UFA player with the formatting of Total/Years ; Cap Hit Example: 12/4 ; 3
- The team with the "most valuable offer" (yet to be determined b/c of year rules with cap hit being low) will then be presented with the Home Team's offer.

Home Team Matching Stipulations
- The Home Team will have a chance to match the most valuable offer if they do the following:

1.) Have submitted an offer of at least 50% of the cap hit from the conclusion of the last year ; if the cap hit was 6, they must offer at least 3 in order to match the offer.
2.) Has enough cap and roster room

After the best offer has been presented to the home team, they either have the option to match the contract or let their player walk. This is their only chance to match a contract of their player. If they elect not to, they may not acquire that player for at least a minimum of 60 days after the player has been signed.

If the Home Team's contact is better than the Offer Teams, they cannot simply just take the Offer Team's contact. They must sign their player to whatever they present, should it be the most valuable. Example:

Offering Team : 6/2 ; 3
Home Team : 7/2 ; 3.5

They Home Team cannot "decrease" their offer to the offering Team's. They must sign their player with their contract (7/2 ; 3.5) since it is the best offer.

Waiver Order
In the case of an equal contract offer to a UFA that no Home Team has "qualified", the Waiver Order will be used as the following in preference order: for example, if COL ties w/ PIT, COL wins that player b/c they have a higher Waiver Order. The Waiver Order doesn't change for the UFA period until we decide how to "rank" each team

1.) VGK
2.) COL
3.) VAN
4.) ARI
5.) the next worse team due to standings ...
31.) PIT

After a Player Signs
1.) Must be on their signing team for at least 60 days
2.) Cannot be traded to their home team for at least 60 days, ( only applicable to Home Teams that qualified their player)

There are too many flaws with just doing it that way, unless we have open bidding, which nobody seems to want.
Trust me, I've been over every idea and probably a majority of possibilities and what I proposed is likely the closest we can get to accounting for everything.
(If everyone were able to see everything and bid accordingly, it would eliminate the need for a lot of this stuff and I'd be fine with that too myself)

Rico can you bump which plan is the one you're talking about?

Bumpity.

SETTING THE CONTRACT TERMS

1. Bids are submitted as the salary for 1 year (AAV) * the number of years (Term)
2. Bids carry a maximum Term depending on the AAV and the age of the player:

a) AAV <= $1.5M: Maximum term = 2 years
b) AAV <= $2.75M: Maximum term = 3 years
c) AAV <= $4M: Maximum term = 4 years
d) AAV <= $5.25M: Maximum term = 5 years
e) AAV <= $6.5M: Maximum term = 6 years
f) AAV >$6.5M: Maximum term = 7 years

3. The term offered in a contract cannot exceed 38 - the player's age. If a player is 38 or older, the maximum term is 1 year.

DECIDING WHO THE PLAYER SIGNS WITH

*The Home team and Vegas are only involved in this process if they submitted a bid equal to at least 50% of the AAV of the final contract.
1. The player agrees to a Final Contract equal to the highest total value offered (AAV * Term).
2. The Home team may then match that contract (AAV and Term) and sign the player. This ends the process.
3. Vegas may offer 10% more AAV than the Final Contract and sign the player. This ends the process. Vegas may not match any further offers from the GM(s) who had the Final Contract bid.
4. The team that made the Final Contract offer signs the player to the AAV and Term of their winning bid.
5. Ties at this stage are broken by evoking waiver priority.

* I haven't included waiver order or ELC players yet.

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This (I believe) is your suggestion Matt. I've made my points in favor of a more robust system, but we've failed to reach consensus, so we're at a point now where we will have to go with something that may present flaws, but since this is a first run, we can use it as a learning opportunity and better identify the issues for next time around.

Check it over and let me know if everything is covered and manageable under these guidelines.

Setting the contract terms part: looks good, maybe tweak some of the values a little bit but the concept is what I'm thinking of yeah.

The second part: seems good as well. We'd need to clear up a scenario where Vegas and home team make the extra counter on final offer (I'm assuming the home team would get a chance to match vegas's 10% bump) but otherwise I think this looks pretty good.

I went with $1.25M increments so it's uniform and easy to follow while still falling within an appropriate range.

Don't think we need the Home/Vegas extra bid.
Owning the rights and matching the highest offer means you get the player, end of bidding. Vegas shouldn't get to outbid the team holding the rights to the player.
Vegas gets to outbid the highest offer only if the home team doesn't match it.

thats not exactly what I was looking for. that doesn't really give me any advantage other than me having to pay more for the player I desired, when I should be having to pay either equal or less than the highest offer.

I was trying to simplify things from this:

------------------

Vegas Specific Rules for Free Agency

1. The Vegas Exclusive UFA negotiation period is waived/eliminated.
2. Free Agency will proceed as normal with the following changes:
a) Vegas gets the opportunity to match the highest offer of one UFA/team that he did not agree to select a specific player from.
b) If the highest offer belongs to any team but the Home team, Vegas' offer becomes the winning bid for that player.
c) If the highest offer belongs to the Home team, Vegas may place one additional bid, higher than the Home team's amount (minimum of $250k).
d) The Home team still gets the chance to match the final highest offer and retain the player.

Explanations:
2a) If Vegas has an agreement with a team to select a certain player, they would not be able to target a UFA from that team anyway, so they do not carry that right into Free Agency for those teams. Otherwise, they would be able to acquire benefits from agreeing to select a certain player, as well as benefits of targeting a UFA from that team (double dipping).
2b) This is to account for the fact that Vegas could have signed that player prior to UFA, but allowed him to go to the market in order to set the market price.
2c) This is a concession to allow Vegas to further compete with the Home team once the market price for a player has been set. Something they would have had the ability to do with their original exclusive UFA negotiating period.
2d) The Home team still retains the advantage of final say and first priority by owning the player's rights.

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But we can stick with the original plan. Which imo, is better, just a little more complex.

Anaheim Ducks
Arizona Coyotes
X Boston Bruins
Buffalo Sabres
Calgary Flames
X Carolina Hurricanes
Chicago Blackhawks
X Colorado Avalanche
X Columbus Blue Jackets
Dallas Stars
Detroit Red Wings
Edmonton Oilers
Florida Panthers
X Los Angeles Kings
Minnesota Wild
X Montreal Canadiens
X Nashville Predators
New Jersey Devils
New York Islanders
X New York Rangers
Ottawa Senators
X Philadelphia Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins
X Saint Louis Blues
San Jose Sharks
X Tampa Bay Lighting
Toronto Maple Leafs
X Vancouver Canucks
Washington Capitals
Winnipeg Jets

X = Teams Vegas can not match offers on.

I'll incorporate this into the rest of the rules later and we can see what it looks like all in one piece.

Why can't I match the offers.

I only made a deal w/ Bolts to select a player and then not re-sign him

Those were the changes we agreed to previously.
You do get to match offers or compete with the Home team (for those that you did not have an agreement in place with during expansion).

We can sort out which team you had agreements with to select certain player(s). When you agreed to select a certain player, you were also agreeing to not negotiate with a UFA.
In the case of Tampa, you took a benefit in exchange for picking one of their RFA's they didn't intend to re-sign I believe. That's the same as agreeing to select a player.
With Washington you agreed not to take a certain player, which is different, because it did not prevent you from selecting a UFA at the time.

I only had agreements with one team - Bolts.

Everyone else was an expansion pick