Darren Dreger at TSN.ca: The Flyers Disagree with NHL's Reading of Pronger Deal
Earlier this morning, Elliotte Friedman of Hockey Night in Canada filed the following from his Twitter account:
Bill Daly on Pronger contract: "The relevant date is the June 30 before the extension becomes effective. So that's June 30, 2010...Yes, its an Over 35 deal, and yes, every year will count against the Flyers cap even if Chris retires." Impressed Daly was up at 6 am.
Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly's comments were then confirmed by CSNphilly.com.
The latest wrinkle is Darren Dreger's blog post, notable passage:
The Flyers disagree and interpret the CBA language governing the "over 35" clause differently.
Sources say the Flyers' lawyers are now aware of the league's stance and are debating this issue.
Can we expect the Flyers to challenge the league on the CBA's interpretation? If so, will the Flyers use some of the same logic as Mc79Hockey in this blog post?
UPDATE, 4:15pm CDT: Ken Campbell and The Hockey News contacted Flyers GM Paul Holmgren. Campbell's report can be found at this link, under the title "Flyers Won't Fight Pronger Cap Hit." See quotes from the story in the comment section below.
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Natty Bumppo
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and here is the kicker (from the CSNphilly link)
Why do retired dollars count against the salary cap? Because, the league explained, it is a deterrent from clubs signing players to long-term deals to reduce their cap number even though the likelihood an older player would play out the deal is remote
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right, and it’s the only CBA deterrent as far as i can tell. which is the reason i’d be surprised if the 35+ clause is ever amended. in this case, it might have actually served its purpose.
so the ideal situation is to sign free agent stars between the ages 32-34 and backload each contract into the player’s 40s…this is a loophole that on the surface hurts a young team like the caps. FFSEnough’s fan post just for the sake of completeness.
by Natty Bumppo on Jul 8, 2009 11:53 AM EDT up reply actions
Well, if mc79’s interpretation carries, then the worst case scenario for the Flyers is that the deal would have a cap hit in years 5-7 of $4.0MM, $0.525MM and $0.525MM, not the typical “averaged amount” for each of those years, which would be ~ $5 MM (much, much worse).
by Stephen Pepper on Jul 8, 2009 1:00 PM EDT up reply actions
the other kicker is the quote from pronger at his press conference monday that he has no intention of playing “as long as Chris Chelios.” of course the context doesn’t really suggest he will be retiring before age 42 when his contract expires, since chelios is 47 and pronger added this is the best he’s felt in a long time.
I read that Chelios/Pronger comment… using everything else he said, as “this is my final contract in the NHL, I plan on playing until I’m in my early 40’s (42 to be exact) and then I’m out.” so it seems to me that he was saying that he’d honor this entire contract and then retire (unlike CC who is in his late 40’s)
open for interpretation IMO, but i think you’re correct in the context of the question asked. 42 is still old (aplogies to the 42-year-olds in the audience), and i’ll guess that even if he plays, pronger won’t be nearly worth that $5 mil cap hit.
by Natty Bumppo on Jul 8, 2009 12:23 PM EDT up reply actions
adam gretz at fanhouse now has a story up as well.
conclusion:
I have no doubt that Pronger will be his regular dominant self for, at least, two or three more seasons. But seven? Into his 40’s? Consider this: of the over 1,000 players to play at least one game in the NHL this season, only eight were over the age of 40: Chris Chelios, Claude Lemieux, Gary Roberts, Curtis Joseph, Mark Recchi, Teppo Numminen and Brendan Shanahan. Only one, Recchi, played more than 60 games. Not looking very promising.
If it turns out that the cap hit stays on the books this could prove to be a costly mistake by the Flyers’ brass.
by Natty Bumppo on Jul 8, 2009 12:31 PM EDT up reply actions
also, it’s a scandal any way we cut it if the flyers did in fact misinterpret the CBA. what, they couldn’t make one phone call to the league office?
by Natty Bumppo on Jul 8, 2009 12:24 PM EDT up reply actions
not to get more than a decade ahead of ourselves here but
Ovi’s contract is set to expire after the 2021 season. Assuming the 35+ clause is still in place, Ovechkin will already be 35 when that season ends (turning 36 in September 2021), so he won’t ever be able to pull off the Hossa-esque contract shenanigans
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booooooo. come on, GMGM!
(seriously, that kind of foresight would have been amazing. oh well. there’s likely to be SOME sort of change to the CBA before that point re: 35+ deals.)
by Natty Bumppo on Jul 8, 2009 12:41 PM EDT up reply actions
other point: if it were as simple as “he signed the extension contract when he was 34, and therefore the flyers are exempt from the 35+ rule,” then the caps could sign AO to an extension when he is 33 or 34, a few years before it kicks in. obvious why daly is firm on the league’s interpretation.
Good point. While you can’t extend a guy’s contract until the summer before the final year begins, If it is interpreted as when the player signs the contract, not when it kicks in then A.O. could sign an extension after the 19-20 season when he is still 34 (turning 35 in September) and Hossa-esque shenanigans could ensue.
Gotta wait to see how this plays out for the flyers (but we are getting wayyyyyyyy ahead of ourselves)
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how money greedy can a man become? Ovi will have more money than to know what to do with, so he would probably sign a low deal. Heck, after signing the 13 year deal, he said he wanted to sign 10 more years in D.C. If he stays the entire time, he would probably never even think of leaving d.c. and would sign cheap to help the Caps
by hockeyman33 on Jul 11, 2009 11:32 PM EDT up reply actions
This ‘Redskin’ Model of contracting will only hurt the league in the long run. Needless to say it just doesn’t work across different sports- look at the Redskins/ Rangers it just doesn’t work.
I would love to see Philthy have to pay this whole thing out.
the other option of course is a buyout.
by Natty Bumppo on Jul 8, 2009 12:43 PM EDT up reply actions
Is it? Buyout clause is different for over 35 contracts, right? So, it can save a little against the cap, but not much.
http://www.nhlscap.com/cap_faq.htm#buyouts
and assumes the player was not 35 or older when signing his SPC (in which case a buyout does not reduce the cap hit).
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So there’s a contradiction in different sections of the CBA regarding contracts? [Not a lawyer, but I’m totally not surprised something like that would happen.] The contract gets treated as 35 or over, but the buyout clause doesn’t? If I said this gives me a headache, would anyone be surprised?
No contradiction in what SG posted — the Cap FAQ is not part of the CBA. It’s an oversimplification, and if it’s slightly inaccurate, well, that’s what “oversimplification” means.
I saw the language of the CBA in one of the blog posts and, while it’s not particularly artfully worded, I think Bill Daly’s interpretation is pretty clearly correct.* And I read Mc79Hockey’s interpretation and I did not find it very convincing. Mc79Hockey’s interpretation of the word “earn” seems pretty tenuous to me.
To my reading, the whole thing is pretty simple. On June 30 of the year when the contract first takes effect, is the player 35 or not? The extension starts September 2010. Pronger will be exactly 35 on June 30 of that year.
*I’m sure the NHL is thrilled that some pissant San Francisco IP lawyer agrees with their Deputy Commissioner on the interpretation of their CBA.
by Gould Old Days on Jul 8, 2009 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
ken campbell at the hockey news made the call to paul holmgren’s office. his report here.
important excerpts:
"I don’t believe that and I don’t know who’s creating that notion out there," Flyers GM Paul Holmgren told TheHockeyNews.com. "We signed Chris Pronger to a seven-year contract. As with any long-term contract, there are ramifications that come along with it, both negative and positive and we’re prepared to deal with those ramifications."
"The league has sent out memo after memo after memo alerting teams about this," said one former NHL executive. "If this is what they’re doing, they’re trying to drive a 747 through a loophole."
The league has yet to hear from the Flyers about this and considers it to be unambiguous. And given that Holmgren has said the Flyers are willing to live with the negative ramifications of signing Pronger to a seven-year deal, it might not be an issue.
Then that just makes it a really bad contract.
and their only out could be to trade a pick and the rights to a retired pronger to a rebuilding team that doesn’t mind eating the cap space for “future considerations”.
No out of pocket cost would come to team that traded for the rights, just a loss of cap space that teams planning on keeping spending down would be ok with.
And the cap hit would be what was left on the contract, not the original 5+. If his rights get traded in the last two years, the cap hit would be around half a million or so.
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No it wouldn’t. Cap hit is always averaged over the life of the contract, not the player’s time with a given team on that contract.
Hmmm, I could have sworn I had read somewhere that if a player gets traded to a new team, the new team is only responsible for the Cap hit on the remainder of a contract.
How I thought it would work:
Player X has a contract that pays him 4 million, 3 million and 2 million over 3 years, his cap number would be 3 million (4+3+2 = 9… 9/3 =3). If he gets traded before the final year, the new team only has a 2 million cap number.
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by Sombrero Guy on Jul 8, 2009 10:40 PM EDT up reply actions
I think that’s right. Same thing happens why a guy gets traded late in the season with a contract that expires at the end of the season. The new team is only on the hook, cap-hit wise, for what remains.
Or maybe I’m just extremely confused and cannot handle working 9 hour days and then having to be on call for another 7 hours.
the cap number changes on an expiring contract because it is calculated daily, and if you have a 5 million cap hit for 187 days, its 5 million, but if you have it for only 42 days, it would be 5 million/187 (to find out the daily cap number) * 42 (number of days left in the season)= $1,122,294 (final cap number for the new team for the rest of the season.
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by Sombrero Guy on Jul 9, 2009 10:06 AM EDT up reply actions
That’s incorrect – a player’s cap hit does not change over the life of a contract. His salary might, obviously, but his cap hit never does.
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My understanding comports with JP’s. Nylander’s cap hit is nearly 5 million. He’ll be paid 3 million next year on that deal. If the Caps were to trade him next offseason, he’d still be that nearly 5 million cap hit even though he’s only got one year at 3 million left on the deal.
by Gould Old Days on Jul 9, 2009 9:12 AM EDT up reply actions
Yup, I was wrong
To answer an often-asked question: when a player is traded from one team to another, his cap number DOES NOT change. Thus, if Bryan McCabe is traded from Toronto to the Islanders in the 2008-09 offseason, his cap number with the Islanders remains $5,750,000 – it does not recalculate based on the remaining years of the contract.
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james mirtle chimes in at fromtherink.com:
The collective bargaining agreement is structured in such a way that multiyear 35-and-over contracts are supposed to be so punitive in the case of retirement as to be completely unreasonable, but this year alone we’ve seen three high-profile players — Pronger, Thomas and Nikolai Khabibulin — get four or more year contracts that could easily be albatrosses down the line.
Now, this CBA ends in 2011, and there could potentially be changes to the agreement to make these deals easier to do away with, but the real spirit of the language in the current contract is aimed at idiot proofing the thing by protecting teams from (a) signing brutal deals and (b) circumventing the cap with throwaway years at the end of contracts.
And it’s not working.
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