Time for the NHL to Ditch the Cap

 The Dadonov debacle is not yet sorted out at this moment, but it once again is shining a light on the joke that the NHL salary cap has become.  Tampa wrote the script for teams to go over the cap; find a player on your team whose salary is sufficient to solve the problem, and put them on LTIR.

It's rare to find an NHL player who's been at it for a while who doesn't have some sort of chronic or nagging injury.  Players ignore the pain and play anyways, and surgeries often wait for the off-season.  A doctor can verify that a player is "injured", even if that injury hasn't gotten any worse than it's been during the last 40 games the player has managed to suit up.

In the most recent fiasco, Evgenii Dadanov was traded from Vegas to Anaheim, but apparently had Anaheim on his no-trade list, but Vegas never received that months ago when they took Dadanov in a trade with Ottawa.  The crux of the debate seems to be whether the fault for this lies with Vegas, Ottawa, Dadanov's agent, or some combination of all of them.  Apparently public cap websites included the no-trade info, but none of the teams involved in this most recent screw-up did the due diligence of finding that out.

Why is it such a big deal?  Vegas is over the cap--by a lot.  They sidelined Mark Stone to make Eichel's contract fit, no doubt planning his miracle recovery to coincide with the opening game of the playoffs.  It worked for Tampa, but Stone was evidently more important to the Golden Knights' success than they realized.  They've pretty much been in free fall since parking Stone, and now the playoffs aren't a certainty.  

Cue the trade--get some cap flexibility, by taking on the actually injured Ryan Kesler's contract and accompanying LTIR, and Stone can be re-activated.  But the chaos of this no-trade fiasco now may mean that can't happen.  

What this mess really shows is how stupid the current cap system is.  The cap is supposed to keep teams operating on a fairly equal level, avoiding the the inequity of Major League Baseball, where the New York Yankees have traditionally just opened the vault to acquire any and all good free agents when they're available.  This season, the NY Mets' salary total is $236 million, while Cleveland's payroll for 2022 is about $29.1 million--less than one-eighth the total of the Mets number.

English Premier League soccer is similar in the disparity between the have and the have-not clubs.  In 2016 Leicester City won the Premiership, but it was against 5000-1 odds, and the vast majority of times the championships are won by teams with the highest payrolls.

So the NHL needs to keep the cap, right?  No need to go back to the years that the Detroit Red Wings could keep icing top-calibre squads with a far higher payroll than most teams could manage, after all.  But maybe it's not that simple.  Some teams in the pre-cap era, like the NY Rangers, spent exorbitantly yet still managed to embrace mediocrity year after year.  

The simple fact is that the current salary cap doesn't work.  Poor teams trade injured players to rich teams to give them the cap space relief, much in the same way that poor nations trade carbon credits to rich nations to allow those nations to continue spewing pollution into the atmosphere.  The league keeps things fair by pretending the cap is meaningful, and making the wealthier teams share revenue with the organizations that would surely fold without the help.

This makes idiocy like planning to play Arizona Coyotes games in a tiny arena with fewer than 5000 seats possible for the next few years.  After all, the league will make up the difference, and the overall reduction in league revenue can be subsidized by dipping into the players' wallets through the escrow system.

It's time to change this.  If there was no league welfare system, Arizona would have been forced to solve their arena issue years ago or move the team to a more workable situation.  They run a pathetic franchise that trades away anyone who might make a decent salary, and they sell off their long-term injured players to help make the dysfunction work.

If a luxury-tax system was used, instead of a hard cap, the money paid by teams to go over the cap could be used to help prop up these no-budget franchises just as they are now, and the open joke that is LTIR cap relief could be avoided.  Sure, rich teams will have an advantage, but they do now--they're all now jumping into the convenient injury party, and it's only going to get worse moving forward.  

"If you're not cheating you're not trying."--Somehow everyone seems fine with the LTIR loophole, or at least those in charge aren't doing anything about it.  Canucks fans gag as they see this hypocrisy while for years their team was penalized 3 million per season because they signed Roberto Luongo to what was a completely legal contract at the time.  Yes it was a loophole, but it was still allowed then.

Trade deadline day used to be exciting; now it's a constipated shell of its former glory.  Admittedly, allowing Toronto to run rampant with a cheque book will probably annoy most of us, but I don't think it could be worse than what the current system has devolved to, and players would probably welcome getting out from under the burden of escrow to help prop up joke franchises that want to play in peewee arenas.

#NHL #Salarycap #Coyotes #Dadanov

The Solution to the Louis Eriksson contract

 It's not the elephant in the room--it's more a giant hole in the side of the Boeing 747 that is the Canucks and it's sucking out of the team to plummet them to the ground.  There are a lot of bad contracts on this team--probably more than any other in the league--but it's this one that's done the most damage as it's been around the longest, and he simply isn't an NHL caliber player any more.

It's a six-year contract that is touted as "buyout proof".  It's certainly been trade proof for the past few years, even though Louis was willing to waive his no-trade clause.  There's one year left after this one, which means there's light at the end of the tunnel, but they'll need a lot of cap space for the big raises they have to give Hughes and Pettersson, and that cap space would be very useful this off-season.

I offer a solution, but I don't think it will happen for a couple of reasons.  Here's my plan:

A large corporate entity--probably a brewery or distillery--who would benefit from the undying gratitude of Canucks fans around BC needs to come with a cheque book.  They need to offer Louis a unique endorsement partnership that everyone will understand, because it's going to operate on a couple of levels.

Currently the Canucks I hear on air shilling for car dealerships aren't the elite top-six guys.  Adam Gaudette and Antoine Roussel pitch for one dealership, while Jake Virtanen is spokesperson for another that boasts of being located in "beautiful downtown Abbottsford".  My daughter, who lives in Abbottsford, and knows where downtown actually is, laughed when she heard this one.  

So why would a deep-pocketed sponsor take on the black hole that is Louis as their brand ambassador?  Because everyone would be in on the real deal that would be in play--including the targeted audience for the commercials.  The theme of the campaign would be "taking one for the team".  It would require Louis to retire, leaving the remaining salary uncollected--and it's less than the cap hit--because he would have that money, and maybe even a little more, paid for this brand partnership.

Commercial one--Louis is waving at the team bus as it pulls away to head off to a game.  Then an announcer says "At XXX we know the importance of drinking responsibly.  That's why we have created the 'taking one for the team' designated driver campaign"  And then the commercial explains some sort of contest or some sort of free t-shirt that those who tweet photos of themselves as designated drivers qualify for--then it cuts to Louis, turning back from waving at the bus saying "Sometimes you just have to take one for the team."

The implication is that Louis is giving up the last year of his contract to help the team, but we all know that the brand sponsor is the true hero, and their customer loyalty should begin to go up.  "Taking one for the team" t-shirts or hats would help keep it in mind or show that customers get it.

They could branch out from the anti drinking and driving element of the campaign and offer public service announcements, sponsored by the brewery, distillery, or whatever company it is.  For instance, Louis, in another commercial, rolls up his sleeve to donate blood, then looks at the camera, and once again utters the key phrase.

The reasons why it could work are several.  First, alcohol products haven't been hurt much by the Covid lockdowns, and some have actually seen sales increase.  Second, they could probably negotiate a deal with Louis that's one hundred thousand over what is owed on the contract, which is significantly less than the total cap hit remaining.

Why it won't work is that the Aquilinis aren't Molsons, or Rogers/Bell, or some other corporate entity that other companies see as helpful to them in terms of the sort of long term gratitude such a favour should earn the folks who take on Louis's remaining money.  Having Francesco owe you one is less helpful than having many other teams' ownership be in your debt since he can't offer much--maybe if you have run-down, sketchy cube vans he could hire them to cart undocumented farm workers out to pick blueberries, but that isn't the same as the sort of positive future working relationship you could benefit from if Bell/Rogers owed you.

Still, I wonder if there are any companies who would see the value of associating their brand with giving Canucks fans a collective sigh of relief as they see Louis finally pack his bags and get out of town?

Weekend Sports Radio in Canada

 Yesterday (Sunday) I was puttering in the kitchen and hoped to listen to some Calgary takes on how their team was doing--they have lost their last three by a combined 14-3 score.  Calgary sports radio has game and post game shows on demand in podcast form, but it hadn't been updated since a January 11 victory over the Canucks.  I tuned in the live feed, only to hear American accents discussing Cam Newton.

I then tried Sportsnet 590 (Toronto), Sportsnet 650 (Vancouver) and TSN Toronto.  There was a Deshaun Watson chat, baseball talk, and another station carrying the Cam Newton discussion.  

This is at noon on a weekend in Canada--NFL season is over, and baseball hasn't started yet.  Calgary and Vancouver are both at crucial moments in their seasons, and there's nothing much sports wise to watch on TV--yet Canadian sports radio offers nothing but American network feeds.

Sports talk radio in Canada is a Monday-Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. thing--otherwise we hear canned network talk from the U.S. that will give us NCAA soccer or NASCAR before anything hockey related is mentioned, likely because their hosts have no knowledge or interest when it comes to the NHL.  Many of us--most, I would venture--work during weekdays, but are often at home doing things that allow us to listen while we work, but there is nothing to listen to, unless we want to engage in off-season NFL or baseball speculation.  

All this at a time when Bellmedia has shuttered Canadian sports radio in western Canada and replaced these stations with non-stop stand up comedy.  The comedy is clearly from a packaged service that probably only requires one person in the station to give the traffic updates a couple of times an hour.  

No doubt some of these old comedy shows violate current social conscience sensibilities fairly often, and I wouldn't think that the Canadian content rules are being strictly followed either.  Certainly these stations have gone from providing a decent amount of local content in their markets to none at all.  

Where is the CRTC in all of this?

Twitter: @jgray001

The Death of Vancouver Sports Radio:Goodbye TSN 1040

 I haven't felt the need much to go on here lately--more than a year since the last post--but today's sad end to a run of really good Vancouver sports radio can't go without comment, and I don't think anyone reads my Twitter much.

Bell Media is another Toronto corporate giant that swims in the same septic pond as Rogers, Corus, and a few others.  Bell and Rogers own MLSE, which in turn has all the Toronto sports franchises of note, and Bell, last time I heard, is also a minority owner of the Canadiens.

TSN isn't much west of Manitoba.  Once they lost any rights to NHL teams west of Winnipeg, they lost interest in pretending that Western Canada meant anything to them.  While Sportsnet identifies their sub-networks by region: Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet West, etc., TSN was merely TSN1, TSN2, and so on.  Whenever they broadcast an NHL game in Toronto, Montreal or Winnipeg (maybe Ottawa as well?), they have to black out other markets.

TSN 1040 was, for a while, the radio rights holder for the Canucks.  They lost that a few years ago to Sportsnet, and the new (Sportsnet) radio station managed to hire away a few TSN personalities like Scott Rintoul, but still always managed to sound a bit amateurish compared to their local TSN counterparts.  They brought Andrew Walker from Toronto, and he's good, but still their overall line-up isn't really bringing the same energy that the three TSN shows (well, at least Halford & Brough and Sekeres & Price) managed to generate.

It probably doesn't help that they're the rights holder for the Canucks, and as such have had to temper their commentary when it comes to criticism of Orca Bay and the Aquilinis or Jim Benning.  (Although they would probably deny that fact.)  Now, they're the only sports radio game in town.  It will be interesting to see if any other local radio stations take up part-time sports talk, like Dan Russell used to provide late night in the 90s, back before satellite and internet radio were things.

Today's sudden wiping out of TSN 1040 is a loss to those who appreciate honest, no holds barred sports commentary.  I compare it to the end of Usenet.  In the 90s and early 2000s, Usenet groups were places to go for unmoderated fan forum discussion.  alt.sports.hockey.nhl-canucks (or something like that) was home to all manner of characters and opinions.  We regulars knew one another, and some took part in meet-ups to watch games at various local watering holes.  We were free to jump into other teams' newsgroups as well, even though flame wars might ensue.

This was nothing like the insipid moderated commentary that current fan forums like forum.canucks.com provide.  The new breed of fan forum allows only positive comments--critics who dare be a little harsh in their assessment of the team will likely be banned.  Only pollyanna opinions are welcome.  "Jake will break out" and "Do you have as much hockey experience as Jim Benning?  Then how dare you question anything he does?" are what pass for the hot stove league in 2021, and I can't stomach it.

Now the radio evolution is upon us, and as a regular texter to Halford and Brough, I won't be running over to listen to excuse radio any time soon.  I hope that Halford, Brough, Sekeres and others will soon be running regular podcasts, and if they somehow form up an online radio presence of sorts, I will gladly foot the bill for a monthly account to be able to hear good Vancouver hockey talk once more.

Meanwhile, I am looking over my own media consumption, and making sure whenever I have an option to drop a Bell product or network, I do so.  They are a shit company who treats their employees badly, and can't see anything west of Thunder Bay.  The CRTC are a toothless anachronism that has no power to make the giant media entities do anything but continue forcing Toronto content down our throats.  

With the absolute chaos that passes for Canuck hockey right now imploding nightly before our eyes, and now no decent media to process the train wrecks the morning after, I may--after following faithfully for the half-century of the Canucks existence--take a pause in my fandom for the first time.  Nobody is going to call out Aquilini for his meddling, and unwillingness to hire a decent GM who might actually want autonomy.  Being a slumlord who traffics in unsafe truckloads of underpaid immigrant farm labourers does not mean you are qualified to stick your fingers into every Canucks decision, and when you do, we get Luongo's contract penalty, the Erikson contract fiasco, and countless years of overpaid Beagle.  

Good luck to all the hosts who no longer have jobs, as well as all the producers and other staff who are unemployed.  You all deserve better than Bell's treatment, and I hope to find you back in the media soon!

Long Time no See--

Wow, almost forgot about this blog.  I think it was getting too depressing writing about the team for a while, but things are giving us some hope now at least.

Not going to rehash the changes since 2016--no doubt if you're reading this you know what's new and what is hopefully improved.  Want to look at the current team situation though, after the hot start, the current slump, and the nice comeback with two goals with Demko pulled late in the 3rd last night to tie it up against the Avs, only to lose it on OT.

1. Gaudette is showing more and more that he should be at centre and not on the wing--he seems more comfortable and has more offensive looks there. 

2. The power play is best when it's moving around, Hughes-driven, and dynamic.  It seems to fairly quickly revert to a static "pass it to Petey in his office" but the passes aren't crisp and accurate enough to allow him to get off a one-timer, so then he has to send it either back to the point or down low to try to set up for yet another try to get him that perfect pass.  Teams have figured this look out.

3. If Bo gets hurt, they're screwed--same with Miller.  Both of them are more at risk getting the amount of ice time they are now, and if either go down we could be back to worrying about Tampa getting a first overall when they are granted the pick traded for Miller.

And on a non-game-related topic--Ron McLean needs to just live with what's transpired now.  His lengthy monologue trying to position himself as the woke guy who's also Don's best friend wasn't really necessary.  Nobody thinks what Cherry said is Ron's opinion, and people understand that he probably needed to distance himself from the comments that he didn't really seem to listen to (if the "thumbs-up" he gave at the time indicates) and now that he's solidified his job security with Sportsnet/HNIC, he can let this fade.  It all seemed a bit self-indulgent last night.

Elsewhere--nice to see the Leafs self-destructing and the Babcock torches out.  Dubas will sacrifice his coach and hope that someone else can get past the issues in that team's construction and get them more success.

In a bit of a Canucks-related spin, the dissatisfaction with Tyson Barrie there is clear, and he doesn't seem to be working out.  It's early, but I wonder if this continues might his price point as a free agent next summer drop a bit nearer to what the Canucks might be able to free up to sign him.  I'm not convinced he's a problem there--that whole team looks broken right now.

Tanky McTankface

After Boaty McBoatface and Trainy McTrainface, I just thought the name fit.  Or would, for a real tank and not the plummet that may take the Canucks to the bottom of the standings.  If you aren't up on the Boaty McBoatface story, you should have a look:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/boaty-mcboatface-could-be-the-name-of-200m-research-vessel-after-public-vote-a6942551.html

Oh, those silly Brits.

After Daniel calls out the team, particularly the rookies, the whole group provides another craptastic effort in Winnipeg last night.  Not that I mind--the more losses the better at this point.  It's kind of too bad that last overall only has a 20% chance of getting first pic the way this team is crashing.

Someone needs to explain to the morning crew on 1040--"Bro Jake and the Pratt man" that no matter how many losses they pile up, Austin Matthews is a long shot.  They act as if it would be a sure thing, but at least if the tank continues, we know there's likely a good player coming from round one.

It will suck if Edmonton gets #1 overall yet again, though.

Hamhuis next year

Heard an interesting point on 1040 yesterday--the Canucks line-up yesterday had the absolute minimum number of 200+ game NHLers teams are required to play in the preseason.  This team is so young and inexperienced, that the league's rules preventing clubs from icing a squad of non-NHL players to rest the real team are being violated in the "real" season.

Well, it's real in that the games count in the standings, but there's nothing at stake beyond hoping they can lose enough and a few other teams win enough to get the Canucks in the lottery.

This brings us to Hamhuis and his future.  With Edler and Sbisa out of the lineup last night, Hamhuis and Tanev were the only defencemen who'd qualify under the 200 game rule.  Pedan and Tryamkin together had three games (all Pedan's) between them prior to the game.  There are a lot of young D on this team and while many of us are choked about the inability to trade Hamhuis (I agree with those who think the blame likely rests on the Aquilini factor and hatred of Dallas ownership) it may be that he's back in the fall to mentor this very young back end.

He wants to stay in Vancouver.  He's a B.C. guy and his family are established here.  He took less to play in Van last contract, so will he give an even deeper discount if required?

He'll want the no-trade clause again, and while I hate them, it may be a good trade-off to keep his price point low.  Right now, the league is waffling about whether the no-trades will be respected in the anticipated expansion draft if Vegas is coming into the league in October 2017.  If the clauses do apply and prevent players from having to go to a sure to suck Vegas team, guys like Hamhuis will press for no-trades even harder.

Maybe they should honour the no-trades only for guys who have kids...

With the ridiculous number of entry-level contracts this team will still have for the next two years, it's not going to be difficult to pay a player like Hamhuis his money if he is useful as a mentor for the young guys.  If he'd ever sign a two-year deal, it would be perfectly timed to get him off the books just as the Sedins are likely coming off as well and the young players are starting to get bigger salaries.

But someone will offer him more term, and that's what Vancouver shouldn't do.  It's the reason that Lucic is a landmine I'll be glad to see re-sign in L.A. as well--he'd be good for three years, but an anchor in the longer contract he'll demand.

I like Hamhuis.  If guys like Pedan and Tryamkin are going to stick, and Sbisa plays with fewer brain freezes, they have the size they need to allow Hutton and Tanev to provide the skill, while Edler sort of does a bit of both.  Hamhuis isn't really necessary if the young guys develop and there aren't a rash of injuries.  Management has rewarded Biega with a contract, and he's looked fine--but the small fast d-man role may eventually be filled by Subban.  

Lidster can teach the position, but watching what Hamhuis does on the ice, if he doesn't get too slow as his body shows evidence of the miles, is valuable to all the defense prospects.  Realistically, he's not a top two guy any more, but the Canucks top pairing will probably be some combo of Tanev, Hutton and Edler next year anyway.

But if he's looking for a payday, well, Edmonton needs mentors more than anybody in the league.

Nostalgia #1

From the first period of Game 5 in the semi-finals against Toronto in '94

Game 6+ Game 7 + Anger + Photoshop =

And it comes down to another game 7

Dear Lou,

Please don't suck at home.  I know you've sucked in Boston, and maybe that's partly because the team hasn't been great.  Maybe you don't like the bumblebee colours, the annoying drunken bulbous-nosed louts who speak in that Good Will Hunting manner that I'll forever associate with Mayor Quimby on The Simpsons.

But you've got one game.  You'll have a chance to erase a lot of the enmity you've earned from those of us who think you're a tad overpaid and at times overrated.  You shut the door one last time this year and we'll forget about those three games where you didn't get it done.

If you and the lads fail, then I'll be on media hiatus for a while.  Seeing Tim Thomas and crew's faces smugly celebrating their "underdog" win will be too vomit-inducing to tolerate.  Watching the refs look away while the Sedins, Kesler and others are constantly slashed and yet causing a breeze by skating near Thomas earns a penalty has sorely tried my resolve not to shout expletives while my kids are in earshot.

Game 5s penalty on Burrows when he was slew-footed on that faceoff to even up the manpower, or the same thing happening early in game 6 when Henrik got a penalty for being weak enough not to stay on his feet when petite Chara tossed him to the ice and then knocked him down again simply shows this series has been, by the nature of the officiating, designed to favour a less-talented, dirty approach.

The Canucks didn't do themselves any favours early in the series with the bite and the Rome hit.  Admittedly, there were numbers of times when the media could've jumped over some Boston cheap shots (Hamhuis being cross-checked when he was down, Tim Thomas's bizarrely non-called shot on Daniel) but still, you gave the haters a little bit of ammo and they've run with it.  Milbury has shown his true classlessness, and I hope to never see him near a Canucks HNIC game again.

If you want a good read about the overall media hatefest, try this:

http://vansunsportsblogs.com/2011/06/12/on-stanley-cup-final-coverage-and-bias/