Offseason salary cap woes, Flyers currently sit over $64.3 million limit

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 05/06/2013 at 9:00 am

On this week’s CBA Explained I didn’t want to just explain how the salary cap functions in the offseason, I wanted to illustrate the current state of the Flyers. It’s no secret that the Flyers have salary cap problems, but I wanted to see just how limited they would be this offseason. The salary cap is calculated slightly differently during the offseason than it is during the regular season. For one, teams are temporarily allowed to exceed the upper-limit by 10% during the offseason for the sake of maneuverability. (The new CBA Summary of Terms does not indicate any change in …

CBA Explained: the cap; 35-plus contracts; free agency; re-entry waivers; LTIR; NHL Entry Draft

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 04/22/2013 at 11:00 am

While I believe I’ve covered most of the major changes in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in CBA Explained throughout this season, there are a few other points I wanted to touch on. Some of them are unchanged from the previous CBA, but are worth pointing out. They are all critical details in understanding how the league and its teams function. Wherever possible, I will link to my old CBA 101 articles for more detailed explanations of some of the old CBA’s stipulations that remain in place. From the CBA Summary of terms: The salary cap The 2013-2014 cap …

CBA Explained: Compliance buy-outs

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 04/15/2013 at 11:00 am

With this pathetic Flyers season dwindling down the topic of compliance buy-outs will be a hot one into and perhaps throughout the summer.The Flyers’ disappointing season combined with continued salary cap issues on a reduced salary cap next year will lead to a lot of conversation about if, or perhaps more accurately, who the Flyers should use the compliance buy-outs on. Currently, Danny Briere and Ilya Bryzgalov are the most popular targets. I had thought that most people were aware of the details of the compliance buy-outs because it is/was such a highly visible change in the Collective Bargaining Agreement …

CBA Explained: No move/trade clauses

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 04/01/2013 at 11:00 am

I discussed no move and no trade clauses in my CBA 101 series last year, however, the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) introduced a slight tweak to those rules that we have already seen come to fruition this NHL season. You may as well call this the “Jeff Carter clause”. From the CBA Summary of terms: “No Move/No Trade Clauses that are negotiated as part of a contract extension may become effective immediately upon execution of, but prior to the effectiveness of, the extension contract, provided: a) The Player is otherwise currently eligible to have a No Move/No Trade Clause, and b) …

Cap advantage recapture makes trading for Shea Weber far too risky to even consider

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 03/30/2013 at 11:00 am

Recently, Flyers beat report Tim Panaccio offered the following prediction for this summer: Let me be first to predict: #flyers re-visit NSH and Shea Weber this summer — Tim Panaccio (@tpanotchCSN) March 29, 2013 Even outside of the fact that I’m not sure Nashville would be eager to trade him after paying him such massive sums of money in his first year, I would argue, with all due respect to Tim, that it would be a terrible, terrible decision because of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement’s (CBA) “cap advantage recapture system”. If I were an NHL general manager, I wouldn’t …

CBA Explained: Retained salary transactions

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 03/25/2013 at 11:00 am

One of the most interesting wrinkles written into the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) are retained salary transactions; or more simply, the ability for teams to retain salary on a player they trade away. This edition of CBA Explained will expand on the topic. Many fans had been clamoring for this rule to be implemented for some time now. Major League Baseball allows you to include cash in a trade, which dramatically helps teams consummate deals involving highly paid players. I would suspect this to be the case in the NHL as well. While a highly-paid, under-performing player is typically unattractive, if something could …

CBA Explained: Cap Advantage Recapture penalty

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 03/04/2013 at 11:00 am

This week CBA Explained will dive into one of the more unique aspects of the new collective bargaining agreement; the “Cap Advantage Recapture” provision. It is designed to penalize teams for signing players to “back-diving” contracts that serve to reduce a player’s cap hit. It has the potential to haunt teams that signed players to these cap circumventing deals, even if those players were traded away. This led to some worry for Flyers fans in the cases of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. As stated in the summary of terms: “For all existing SPCs with terms in excess of six (6) …

CBA Explained: Contract variability

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 02/04/2013 at 1:00 pm

This week we are taking a look at contract variability which is essentially the amount that salary can vary from one year to the next within a player’s contract. Previously, only the 100 Percent Rule existed, which essentially states that salary can’t vary by more than 50% of the lesser salary in the first two years of the contract. Now the summary of terms states: “For multi-year SPCs that are “Front-Loaded Contracts,” i.e., where the average of the Player Salary and Bonuses in the first one-half of the contract is greater than the AA over the full term of the …

CBA Explained: Contracts outside the league AKA the Wade Redden Rule

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 01/28/2013 at 1:00 pm

For this week’s installment of CBA Explained, I tackle “Contracts outside the league” or what many are calling the “Wade Redden Rule”. It’s been a relatively hot topic since it was first proposed, and now that it is in effect, the Flyers are already feeling its effects. From the summary of terms, item #10: “Money paid to Players on NHL SPCs (one-ways and two-ways) in another professional league will not be counted against the Players’ Share, but will be counted against the NHL Club’s Averaged Club Salary for the period during which such Player is loaned to another professional league as follows: a) …

CBA Explained: Contract term limit, additional year expires upon reaching free agency

By Kevin Christmann
Posted on 01/21/2013 at 1:00 pm

Prior to the expiration of the old Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), I ran a column I called CBA 101. In it, I attempted to explain some of the more important nuances of the CBA as it relates to putting a team on the ice. Many (honestly, most), of those topics are still applicable today, so I would encourage you to check them out. People frequently ask me “why do you care about that stuff?” Well, the way I see it, this boring, legal verbiage directly effects the team that Paul Holmgren and other General Managers are able to put on …