That's easy to say but teams need to be stable in order to maintain attendance and profitability.
For most teams to survive, they have to be competitive to draw in casual fans and entrenched to maintain hardcore fans.
If teams are moving around in lean years because of poor attendance, they are losing fans from both groups and people are less likely to invest in their merchandise as well.
Demand goes down forcing them to reduce prices across the board for tickets, merchandise, and advertising.

There are way too many factors to simply implement a soft cap and let the chips fall where they may.
It's in everyone's best interest to maintain existing teams, keep everyone competitive, and level the playing field.

I think the talking heads arguments against this is that any injured player would try to rush back if there were any hard and fast date they had to be back by.

And that's a totally different problem, players need to realize their health comes first instead of playing on so many painkillers and at 50%

I think the solution to LTIR is just to wait

With the NHL cap starting this offseason going up by more than just a mill more teams will start gaining more cap.

By 2026 cap will be 92.1m after that depends but if the cap goes up 2.5-4m a season teams are set. They will still lose some guys to the hard cap but for balance its a necessary evil

Basically as it goes up the number of long LTIR will probs decrease.

And every other team who lost players for cap reasons would ALSO have their players... Duclair wouldnt be there because Florida wouldve had no reason to trade him to San Jose. This kind of argument applies to every team, it's such a lame way of trying to discredit a soft cap system. The Leafs would've probably still had Hyman and Kadri. Panarin wouldn't have been traded from Chicago to Columbus. I could go on forever.

There are 32 teams in the league who want to win a Stanley Cup. There are 32 teams in the league backed by huge corporations with piles of money. This isn't basketball where you go out and sign LeBron and hope for the best. You need to put together a group of ~20 guys who fill certain roles and play well together. Even if you could hypothetically convince the 20 best players in the world to all sign with the Leafs, what's to say they win the Cup? It's all about balance and playing a system. Look at the San Jose Sharks when they had Pavelski, Karlsson, Thornton, Marleau, prime Jones, Burns, Vlasic, Couture, Hertl, etc. Did they ever win a Cup?

Spending a lot of money does not equate to being the best team; spending money smartly does. Introducing a soft cap so that ALL teams could go over the limit if they need to would make it a level playing field. No more using injuries as an opportunity to use LTIR space. No more ungodly salary dumps. And again, we aren't talking about some huge increase in cap space here, probably an additional 7 - 10 million. It's not like introducing a soft cap means the Leafs can go out and sign McDavid and Draisaitl without batting an eye. Its simply a way of letting teams flesh out their rosters with extra cap space if they please. My whole thing is that teams like Tampa are able to build juggernauts because of an opportunity only afforded to them because of an injury. You can't blame Tampa for spending because they are without a good player after all, but in the end this team is still able to have 18m dollars worth of extra talent on their team because someone got injured. It's a ridiculous way of going about things.

This Tampa argument is absurd

Especially after complaining that the bigger markets (TOR, MTL, NYR) would become OP...

I think something people are writing off in this whole soft vs hard cap thing is how much team control is thrust upon drafted players. The vast majority of cases require a player to be either 27 y/o or have accrued 7 years of service before becoming a UFA. That's so much time.

So long as small market teams are smart, they should have no issue icing competitive teams.

The only argument that I haven’t seen anybody refute about LTIR rule changes and playoffs:

In a playoff game, your roster has to be cap compliant. You can have contracted players where the total is more than the cap, but on game day you have to fill out a roster that fits under the cap. People sit, and cannot play, if some large LTIR individual missed time, was replaced, then returned for the playoffs. You have to choose. You don’t get your full roster and the replacement player. Just like the regular season. This just extends LTIR’s purpose to the playoff season with a bit more flexibility since you could choose whatever legal combo you wanted game to game. Kinda makes that fun really.

I don’t see any downside. I guess the press box player would disagree.

You stick him on the IR.

Player doesn't have to play and the team doesn't have to make him play. He just can't be on the LTIR. Activate him and sit him if you don't think he's ready to play but think he will be for the playoffs.

Toronto has also lost good players thanks to the hard cap along with New York

NYR = Copp, Kane, Tarasenko
TOR = Hyman, Marleau + 1st, etc

List can go on. CHI after 2015, Pittsburgh, etc.

Teams who are good eventually cant afford to keep everyone and thats why the hard cap is a necessary evil




TBL be the best example due to how many good players they have lost thanks to hard cap and recency bias. And they aint a small market 1.2B aint bad

Spending lots of money can make you the best team as you can go get every big FA out there again your missing the point

The hard cap is a necessary evil to keep things balanced

No, you're missing the point. Did you read the part where I said that the soft cap would only exceed the hard cap by something like 7 - 10 million? We aren't talking about a Golden State Warriors level of overage, we are talking about an certain amount of additional cap space teams can dip into if they pay the extra taxes.

And again, spending a lot on the biggest free agents doesn't make you the best team for a few reasons:

1. Even with a soft cap, there is still an upper limit. You cant just throw out money and term without second thought because you still need to be able to get under that threshold. We aren't talking about abolishing a salary cap, we are talking about implementing a soft salary cap

2. There will be multiple teams in on big name targets, and not every athlete goes where they are offered the most money. To assume that every big name FA will just collectively agree to go to a place is just dumb. If your logic was right, then Tavares would be a Shark

3. SPENDING LOTS DOES NOT EQUAL BEING GOOD. I could build a Leafs team that goes ~15 mil over the salary cap using this upcoming batch of Free Agents and they still wouldn't be the best roster on paper. Again, it's all about being smart. Look at the MLB where there is no limit on spending. The highest spenders in 2023 were the Mets, the Yankees, and the Padres. Guess how many of them made the playoffs? Well if you guessed zero, then you're right. The two teams that made the WS were 21st and 9th in league spending. The difference between hockey and these other sports is that when teams like Vegas and Tampa win the Cup, it's due in part to the fact that they were able to surpass the cap ceiling because of injuries, something their opponents were not able to do. They used that extra money wisely. If every team in the league is afforded the opportunity to do that, then it becomes much more fair.

You've yet to give me one good reason why exactly a hard cap is a so-called "necessary evil".

Again missing the point no need to further discuss

In the end to keep the balance hard cap is necessary

And I along with others did give u a reason u just see to keep skimming over them

But if you really need help if there was a soft cap

TBL would still have Killorn, Palat, McDonagh, etc, TOR would still have Hyman and heck never would have had to dump Marleau, NYR Tarasenko + Kane, VGK would have never had to dump Patches, etc. Heck even back when CHI was scary cap kept them in check after their runs as guys got to get paid.

It makes the competitive teams be forced to make the hard choices. Either shed cap to keep some of these guys or let em go and then it benifits the weaker teams as they can then target said players or take on cap dumps and amass picks

That is why the hard cap is necessary as unless we want a juggernaut team or two running around its the best system for hockey rn and with TBL being in the same division dont wat that lul

And to add the big example comes this summer as VGK is gonna be forced to move on from a big piece along with FLA and potentially LA in order to stay cap compliant even with cap at 87.7m

As Hanifin, Reinhardt, and Roy gonna all need extensions along with some key RFA's

Also got the Avs if Landeskog ever comes back.

Cap is always catching up making it a necessary evil once again to keep the balance.

Will be interesting going from covid cap:

Year, increase %, total cap
2019-20: 2.5%, 81,500,000
20/21: 0%, 81,500,000
21/22: 0%, 81,500,000
22/23: 1.23%, 82,500,000
23/24: 1.21%, 83,500,000

To inflation cap:

(Estimation/rounding for simplicity of 5% per year for 5 years for simple math, could be more)

Year, total cap, estimated increase
2024/25: 87,675,000 - increase of 4.175M
2025/26: 92,058,075 - increase of ~4.4M
2026/27: 96,660,000 - increase of ~4.6M
2027/28: 101,500,000 - increase of ~4.8M
2028/29: 106,500,000 - increase of ~5.1M

The odd thing is that some individuals believe that the cap will hit 100M in 2026/27. Obviously that’s much more than 5% after next season. It’s 6s the whole way. If you put 6% in instead of 5% for 5 years, the 5th year cap is 111,740,000 and it went up over 6.3 mil that offseason.

Caps 87.7m for 2024-2025 and 92.1 for 2025-2026

After that the number has not been defined but it seems the goal is within 3 years a 10-12m increase total from 2024-2027

So for 2026-2027 if its 12m that would mean a 3.4m increase using 4.2m for 2025 and 4.4m for 2025 increases

So 2026-2027 94.5m then after its a mystery but I suspect 2-2.5m increases

If for whatever reason it went up 6% in the extreme case for 5 years, in 5 years one William Nylander at his cap % would cost $15,400,000 x 8 - a cool 123 Million dollars.

Gavrikov has the right idea I think. Target your term to end when the cap is goin up and you’re still valuable.

I think taking 8 years right now is silly. All the teams getting term right now are doing themselves a huge favor. These players should be heavily considering trying to be free agents around age 29 or so, closer to 27 the better, sell rfa years because you have to anyway, tack on as few ufa years as you must to satisfy team, then take a 2-4 year deal, then take a 5+ year deal. All these 8 year terms gonna miss out if the cap accelerates.

Like Sam Reinhardt.

Take 2-3 years now in florida at like 6-8 per year. Slightly under market rate whatever number that is. It’s a good situation. No reason to sell any more. Get a ton of goals and cup tries.

Then at 30/31 years old take 5-8 years at 8-10 per with the increasing cap and the market that comes with it.

If he takes the term now he misses the cap bumps and his term ends at an undesirable age, meaning the 7 x 7.75M he signs is probs the last real contract he signs. Could be a difference of as much as 30 mil in career earnings, and that includes giving a discount along the way.

Gonna be interesting thats for sure but yea a lot of players gonna get paid within this frame and beyond. No more discounts or less due to the covid cap.

Reinhardt took his discount on his last deal now I got a feeling 9.5m-10m is coming

PLAYOFFS are OFFICIALLY ON!
Boys gettin after it; 1-0 Cats...

Seems like both yah missed my post along with others explaining why lul. Here it is if u need it



ricochetii post also highlights some good reasons

Man the hits that game be real rn

What they each on rn 30

Guess the Woll got holes tonight

Lol trust me, we aren't the one's missing things.

You're completely disregarding everything he's saying that addresses your so called "problems" because you're so rooted in your own opinion.

There are other people here explaining the same about the points and soft cap 🤷

So cant say more