Yes please

I will say, your argument is not in the majority of what other community members have mentioned. Apparently this is a non-issue to the players for various reasons.

Thanks for sharing a contrarian opinion. Some interesting food for thought.

Maybe in the US...and of course there are city income taxes in some US cities.
A friend of mine who worked in Toronto, had a house in Toronto, actually showed "his residence" in Alberta.....for lower taxes. That's how the Canadian tax system works..."Where you reside". Plus all the other delayed tax perks that athletes and entertainers have
One reason players want big upfront money for the season is for this season. For example, in July, t, players like Matthews will get a large chuck of his salary. Where is he residing? Arizona.

The bonuses also guard against buyouts and work stoppages

What more transparent do you need?

You actually hear about it all the time. NBA and MBL free agents rarely chose Toronto and money is one of the major issues

Relating to comments about lottery odds enforcing parity, we are seeing teams purposely lose for half a season in order to improve lottery odds. There's not a lot of parity there.

If you factor in a Play-in round and give each of the bottom 12 teams equal lottery odds, it might strike a better balance.

We need to eliminate the draw for teams like Chicago and San Jose to intentionally lose.

1) Easier said than done. I think one of the issues is that it's harder than ever to make the playoffs, so it's just a better strategy to tank for good players than to be stuck in no man's land. The play in series you mentioned at the end is the best solution in my opinion, and I like Elliot's idea: A 2 game series, a tie after 2 games goes to overtime. You would then have 20 teams playing additional hockey, the list of lottery teams would be shortened from 16 to 12.

2) No comment, offersheets are kind of taboo between GM's anyways.

3) Agreed, they need to do something regarding the LTIR loophole in the playoffs. In my opinion the solution is rather easy, if a player isn't activated off of LTIR (as a paper transaction whether he is healthy or not) then he isn't eligible to play in the playoffs. I mean even beer league hockey usually has a rule where a player has to play a minimum amount of games to be eligible for playoffs, Kucherov sat out an entire season and then lit up the playoffs straight from game 1... an absolute joke that was. Particularly because without that LTIR cap space TB would not have been able to retain Sergachev, Cirelli, Cernak etc without making other moves.

4) I also agree, but how could you do it? You can't alter a player's salary depending on where they play. You could give bonus cap space to teams with more income tax - but is that really the NHL's problem or is it just something that city needs to deal with?

Oh, I disagree, Blue Jays have done OK on the UFA market. Check so many US. based teams., who haven't been successful in attracting players. Of course with MLB, the kinda non cap, allows the rich teams to overpay for players Raptors not so much, as generally they have not been as competitive. But even teams that have attracted "the stars" don't necessarily have long term success either. The cap hurts them and basketball is somewhat like hockey, you need lots of good players to be successful, not just stars.

I'll add that increased offersheets, even if the compensation were lower, will likely never happen as:
1) They are seen as incredibly hostile moves, and most of these GMs want to make future trades with each other
2) The more realistic reason is that RFA status keeps costs down for owners, as @littlejerryseinfeld says, and players will only sign offersheets that are much larger contracts. This is both bad for GMs who want to keep salaries down to fit within the cap, and has the additional cost of raising contracts across the league, which 32 very rich people do not want.

1) The mix of a play-in and equal odds for the bottom 12 teams makes the most sense to me. We cannot have Chicago and San Jose get rewarded for intentionally losing. The draw needs to be removed.

2) The media circus is important to draw attention to the game which is losing ground to MLS in the US. We need to grow the game and that means more personality in the superstar players and more media. GMs and owners should understand that.

3) Your suggestion punishes teams too harshly and hurts players who are genuinely injured. A waiting period is more fair. The 1st round of the playoffs is by far the most competitive, so teams would be discouraged enough from sheltering their star players until round 2.

4) Seems like there is evidence this does not matter to the players.

Nothing contrarian about this, it's based on reality

Like money factors are going to weight a lot more than fans feelings, for example.

1) The media circus grows the game. It's important that the players show more personality and that the owners and GMs are supportive of that. Star players should choose where they play and move around more often.

3) Implement a 1 series waiting period for players on LTIR to rejoin their teams in the playoffs

4) Find a way to factor the local effective tax rate into the Salary Cap. Currently the system is extremely biased


these have merit, and should be disscussed further

Get rid of hard cap; punitive and actively hurting the league’s chances of growth. I suggest allowing teams to spend over cap (say 10% max) but it has to be tied to revenue. So the more popular teams have an advantage because Leafs, Habs, Rangers, Avs, Oilers & Bruins (etc) generate 👀 which improve overall ratings which grows the game. Smaller markets also have a chance to be competitive because there is still a cap (albeit more flexible than current hard cap) & revenue sharing

Interesting. That's a new one. Thanks for sharing.

Do you think this would impact parity?

I'm interested to see how the PWHL format works. Maybe it could be a better format in the future for the NHL. It gives teams a reason to keep playing to win. Mind you, I don't think the players care about securing a top pick in the draft, but it would certainly encourage GM's to not strip their teams bare in order to improve their lottery odds.

I do think the process is now much better in the NHL than it was before. I like that we can't have a situation like we did before when Edmonton was winning every lottery.

Lots of leagues around the world and the only one with a hard cap is the NFL, which I guess the NHL is trying to emulate. But NFL is a juggernaut which can’t be replicated. NBA, MLB, EPL all know that most popular teams and players drive the numbers, not parity.
So - yes parity would be impacted, but hopefully there is a way to allow smaller market teams to be competitive but still facilitate biggest teams making later rounds of playoffs more often than not. Because Rangers vs Kings or Leafs vs
Oilers or Habs vs Avs finals would generate a lot more 👀 than Canes vs Preds imo

love #3.

Get rid of cap shenanigans. whats the point of a cap if you can hide players on it until playoffs.

I have no problem with the national anthems, what annoys me (especially when I was at a game live) was the virtue-signalling that they constantly beat you over the head with.
I disagree with the play-in playoff round, it devalues the playoffs by rewarding mediocre teams and blurs the lines between playoffs and regular season.
The 1 series waiting period for players to come off LTIR is a good one, but one I would suggest would be play in the last x number of regular season games to be eligible for the playoffs. That would force teams to be cap compliant (since it’s regular season) and prevent them from stashing stars on LTIR

I agree. I think the NHL would have the most viewership in the finals this year if it was Leafs vs Oilers. I know that sounds incredibly biased because I’m a Leafs fan, but I think it’s true.

i like the concept the PWHL is using for their draft order, where once a team is mathematically eliminated they try to get as many points as possible, with the top "x" number of teams in the eliminated standings getting the top "x" picks, "x" being the number of picks determined by the system.

Another idea I thought of recently would be dividing LTIR into 2 categories, LTIR and SIR. SEIR (Season Ending Injury Reserve) would be for player that won't play again that season, teams would get full relief of their salaries from the cap but the player wouldn't be eligible to play until the following season, mainly for the guys that are essentially retired but remain on LTIR to get their salary still, while LTIR would remain the same but teams only get 50% of the players salary relieved from their cap, (aka a 9.5 mil cap hit on LTIR gives the team 4.75 mil to replace said player), because the entire point of LTIR is if a player is out long-term for their team to be able to replace them while they're unavailable, which is what teams like Vegas are doing but they've found the loophole which they can keep players out until the playoffs when the cap no longer matters and then be way over the cap. It wouldn't completely remove the loophole, but it would make it harder for a team to go into the playoffs with a fully healthy roster that's 15 million over the cap. The simple solution is to make teams be cap compliant during the playoffs, but I don't think that'll happen.

Parity has its merits (I’m not arguing MLB type system where Pirates are already out of it) but obsession with it is hurting the NHL. Have to find a way to ensure some level of parity and fairness but when Canes (as an example) can spend same amount of money as Leafs (or any of the top revenue generating teams) while generating significantly less revenue to the league, that system is not fair. But more importantly, it’s limiting growth of the league. NHL is not the NFL so copying their system was major mistake imo but Bettman cared more about punishing players than growing the league. NBA has grown exponentially more than NHL is past years /decades 🤷🏻

I think you have this pretty backwards. The draw for teams not to intentionally lose is that the league is still gate driven in terms of revenue and most owners are cheapskates. Not being willing to bottom out because "anything can happen if you make the playoffs" is in my opinion the problem. I think there should 100% be a lottery for the top pick(s) in the draft but there is nothing you can say that will convince me the team that finished 12th last should have an equal shot at getting 1st OA. I think right now where they have a 0% chance of drafting 1st OA is far better. I remember a few years ago when Detroit was just simply a bad team and ended up with the 4th OA pick because they had over a 50% chance of picking 4th with the best odds at getting 1st. To me that is just ridiculous and I am glad they changed it

San Jose, however is not intentionally losing games. They exhausted every resource they had for like 2 decades to try and win the cup. They have simply become a genuine bad team due to inflated aging contracts. Chicago tanked a little bit but they were contending for years, throwing assets out the door to stay in contention.

The problem with tanking is that you can end up like Buffalo and be perpetually at the bottom for a decade.