Edited Mar. 28 at 2:57 p.m.
Quoting: Leafsfan98
On all this money talk, I would like to see the NHL implement a system that's being used in another sport: the NFL and restructuring contracts
For example, John Tavares signed an 11 million dollar contract for 7 years; Covid hit a couple years later and the Leafs ended up in cap hell, the Leafs would have the ability to negotiate with JT about restructuring his contract that could extend his contract by an extra year or 2 to stretch his 55 million dollars over 7 years (7.8 mill cap hit)... Obviously, both sides have to agree to it...
Wouldn't this system do well in the NHL?
It be interesting to have a system Monte Carlo this over a handful of seasons. What happens when all teams can do this and each team averages doing it one time per 2 years. That’s a future that needs to be examined. Is hard to evaluate the consequence. What precedent is set and is it fair. What is exploitable.
Otherwise:
I don’t see why it wouldn’t work as long as there were firm and equal guardrails on each side of the process so that any restructure has some limits as to how much bigger, longer, cheaper(!), shorter(!), it could be at what cost. It would help players and teams get out of bad situations without having as much impact on total team performance. Buyouts have these guardrails, no reason some similar equation couldn’t be set up to allow restructure in both directions.
What if a team can drop 2 years of term for 10%-30%? reduction in cash out, but the total has to be paid upfront at the time of choice. (Player gets most of the contract still, but also freedom sooner to go elsewhere or renegotiate, team ejects player and clears cap or resigns at a fairer number. Good for situation where a player changes roles drastically. Good for a team who isn’t happy with performance. If a player resigns any double dip is negated).
And the team can add 2 years to a term for 10%-30? of the price, but if they choose to do this, they have to pay the entirety in cash upfront. (Franchise tag limited slots per team, 1?, some equation to reduce aav slightly for all years).
The player can choose to reduce term by 2 years, but loses 90% the aav remaining. (Player ejection seat, pull only in case of emergency, player forced buyout).
The player cannot choose to add more term.
Only effects deals of 4 or more years with 3 or more years remaining.