I heard David Amber on Sportsnet (Canada) mention the idea of a "Cap-exempt Player".

1. Each NHL Franchise would only be allowed 1 "CEP."
2. This Player's salary would not affect the team's salary cap number. (Ex. EDM declares Connor McDavid to be their CEP. His $12.5M Cap Hit goes to $0. That gives EDM $12.5M more in cap space)
3. The purpose of this rule would be to lessen the overabundance of parity and give an advantage to the bigger market teams and increase spending.

(obviously the smaller market teams would protest, so here is the provision for them.)
Random idea-any team which chose not to utilize the CEP would be given an additional draft pick in a newly-created "Supplemental 1st Round", which would occur after Round 1 and before Round 2. (I got this idea from the MLB draft rules which allow for additional picks to be created and given to any team which loses a significant free agent to another team.)

There are obviously a ton of random details and specifics that would have to be worked out but in theory what do y'all think of the idea at least?

Let me know your thoughts below ⬇️

This rule is garbage and this is coming from a fan of a big market team

The only way I’d be ok with the rule is if you weren’t allowed to do it to players with a $9M or higher cap hit

I'd be ok with that compromise...

Well as a pens fan I like it lmao

No, this is terrible actually. That's too much cap to hide. Makes it pointless. A potentially fifteen-million cap exemption on a cap of 83.5M is ridiculous.

BUT there ought to be a soft cap and luxury tax to a slightly raised hard cap. Say 100-105% beyond the soft cap gets taxed at 2-to-1. So if the soft cap is 83.5M, then big market teams can spend up to 87.675M to the hard cap if they are willing to pay a tax of (up to) $8.35M in real dollars. Floor goes up by 5% also.

75% of the tax collected goes straight to revenue sharing. 25% goes into community events and marketing aimed primarily, but not only, in smaller markets.

This gives teams like Toronto/NYR/Montreal/Boston who print money a chance to over spend by a small but helpful amount. They can make the team better or bury contracts easier. Low-revenue teams get more revenue-sharing, and the NHL puts effort into marketing beyond press releases and commercials improving existing markets. You can go over the soft cap by $2 million to extend your core player, but it's going to cost you 2 million salary and 4 million in luxury tax to help the poors and grow the game. Whatever the cap calculates out to be add 5% to let the spenders spend.

Big markets get some flexibility. Let them spend their money. Five teams dominate revenue right now. Let them spend some extra if willing to do so. Small market teams get a mechanism for enhanced revenue sharing. The NHLPA gets a greater number of financially-healthy teams willing to spend above the floor (which is also now higher).

If five teams spend up to the new hard cap, that's over 31 million extra cash into the revenue sharing pot and over $10 million into community marketing beyond digital and TV ads. Let people (especially kids) who have never picked up a stick get sticks in their hands and have some fun. Free events like tours with the Cup, small pop-up mini-ball-hockey rinks and skill challenges, school visits with retired-players, grants to youth hockey programs, etc. They had a Cup tour for the Centennial year, and it was great. Kids loved it. People who had never held a stick were playing games and skill challenges and having fun. They should be doing things like that all-year, every-year. You don't need the Cup (though that was a big draw for people who were already hockey fans) to have a community event.

One fair way to do it is that the Cap Exempt player is the best player on the team last season. "Best" will have to be defined, but the league can vote a player MVP for each team or something. That player becomes the next season's Cap Exempt player. This makes it the best player who won't receive crazy contracts. For example, EDM will still have to do good negotiating with McDavid for his contract, because if he ends up not being the team MVP that season EDMs cap will be rough without a decent contract for McDavid

This creates far to much uncertainty and would never work.

You put a ton of thought into that and It’s actually really good… as long as there is some way for higher market teams to get an advantage even in a “luxury tax” type situation I’m good with that

Horrendous idea. David Amber is a moron.

I agree with one of your two points lol

Hard no

What if the MVP is traded? Would they pick a 2nd? Because Toffoli was out MVP last year

Easy no cause then Toronto isn't in cap hell and they can go out and poach the market some more

Yeah, most likely. Maybe its a top 10 ranking and if number 1 is traded, then number 2 is the cap-exempt player, and so on. They can also do the rankings in the start of August or something to help make a more static list