5: Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins
4: New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders
3: Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Tampa Bay Lightning, Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals, Winnipeg Jets

…At first hearing the Rangers were playing the Flyers and Penguins five times I was annoyed but then I began to like the idea. For starters that is ten amazing games to watch, the Rangers made the Flyers their you-know-what last year, they always seem to stink it up against the Islanders anyway, and I like the fact that by playing their top two competitors the Rangers’ fate is in their own hands…

January: 5 home/2 away
February: 7 home/5 away
March: 6 home/9 away
April: 6 home/8 away

…It kind of sucks that the Rangers have such an away heavy schedule in the months of March and April. 8 of their last 13 games and 11 of the last 18 games are on the road. It is not ideal but I trust Torts to have the team ready and luckily in the last week the Rangers play the Devils at home twice so things could be much worse…

Based on Dirk Hoag’s analysis the Rangers have the least amount back-to-backs with 6 and the second least amount of miles traveled with 12,048.

…The low miles traveled is an added bonus, but the real winning ticket here is the 6 back-to-backs. No matter how well the Rangers have performed in the past in back-to-back games, the high volume is going to kill some teams this year. The Red Wings having to play 12 back-to-backs is just going to be brutal.

Overall I’d say the Rangers schedule is fairly favorable. It is nothing that the team can’t manage and I have to say I am excited to not have to wait three, four days in between games this year…

The 22-year-old defenseman set career highs in goals, assists, and plus/minus.

…A good move by both sides. The reports of Del Zotto seeking $3+ million seemed a bit far fetched and it was nice to see both sides come to an agreement so quickly.  Del Zotto made some nice improvements in his own zone last year but at his age he needed to report asap and get to work on the defending below the hash marks and improving the Rangers meek power play.

Some people suggested the Rangers should have tried to secure him for a couple more years, but if Del Zotto develops into a top power play quarterback in the next two years I have no problems with the Rangers making cap room to re-sign him and if he doesn’t it makes it easy to part ways…

NHLPA Executive Board voted last night,to give players a vote to AUTHORIZE Exec Board to chose to proceed on Disclaimer of Interest #TSN

— Aaron Ward (@aaronward_nhl) December 14, 2012

No indication as to IF/WHEN vote even occurs.This is simply AUTHORIZATION. No more,no less. #TSN #CBA #NHLPA #NHL

— Aaron Ward (@aaronward_nhl) December 14, 2012

…This sounds more like a threat than anything else by the NHLPA, but if they do wind up going forward with the Disclaimer of Interest it would likely signal the end of any hope for a season…

Update: 5:08 PM

NHL responds to NHLPA news today by filing complaint with NLRB claiming PA has engaged in bad faith bargaining. Another fight begins…

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) December 14, 2012

…I can’t imagine this leading to anything good. Could mean the end of the season is coming that much closer to a reality. However some have noted it only took basketball two weeks to solve the lockout after the NBA took similar steps. Anyone who claims to know what will come of this is completely speculating. The only thing I think it means is that we will have an answer on what will happen for this season sooner rather than later now that the courts are involved…

NHL press release:

NEW YORK – Today, in response to information indicating that NHL Players have or will be asked to vote to authorize the National Hockey League Players’ Association’s Executive Board to proceed to “disclaim interest” in continuing to represent the Players in collective bargaining, the National Hockey League filed a Class Action Complaint in Federal Court in New York seeking a Declaration confirming the ongoing legality of the lockout.

Simultaneously with the filing of its Complaint, the NHL also filed an Unfair Labor Practice Charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that by threatening to “disclaim interest,” the NHLPA has engaged in an unlawful subversion of the collective bargaining process and conduct that constitutes bad faith bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act.

Stepan is confident that the NHL will start in the coming weeks and he wanted to return to North America in peace to prepare for the NHL season.

…With the return of Stepan, all New York Rangers not named Lundqvist are back in the states. Hmmm. Couple that with today’s secret meeting and a decent number of players over in Europe citing minor injuries to return home and there seems to be some optimism the lockout could finally be coming to an end…

Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, has called the term limits on contracts “the hill we’ll die on.”

The NHL is currently calling for a two-tier system of contracts where free agents can sign up to seven year deals with their own club or up to five years with another team.  The NHL feels this is crucial to the long-term financial health of the league. The belief is it only takes one contract to cripple a franchise’s value, which then becomes a burden on the rest of the league. Along with the NHL’s five-percent year-to-year variance proposal, the term limits would help put an end to cap circumventing contracts (see Kovalchuk, Ilya).

The NHLPA was initially calling for a ten-year maximum, but came down to an eight-year max and and a twenty-five percent salary variance to be applied to seven and eight year contracts.

“We believe that these restrictions would devastate the “middle class” of players and result in the NBA model, where a few players earn huge salaries while pushing everyone else down toward the minimum.” – Donald Fehr

The NHLPA’s main standing point on the issue is protecting “middle class” player’s, i.e. the Brandon Prusts and Michael Rozsivals of the league. The basic idea is without being able to spread the money over the long-term someone like Evgeni Malkin is going to see his cap number rise from say $8.7M over ten years to $10M over seven years. This would reduce the Penguins remaining cap space to sign “middle class” because Malkin demanded more money annually in his shorter deal.

Current Deals Beyond Seven Years 

For something that has been a cause for the recent stalemate, this clause would not directly effect that many contracts.

There are currently twenty-five players in the NHL signed for eight years or more. With twenty-three men active on thirty teams, that breaks down to just 3.6% of the contracts in the league or about one player per team. An extremely small amount of population.

At the moment some of these deals look smart and some look bad, but the overwhelming majority of these monster deals have occurred too recently to judge as good or bad.

It is interesting to note that a significant amount of these contracts have been dealt by the team that signed them (Rick Nash, Jeff Carter (2x), Mike Richards, Brian Campbell) and there is a high probability Roberto Luongo will be moved as well.

Based on this info it is hard to validate the owners claim that long contracts are too big of a burden on the value of the franchise when getting out of the contract has become a very plausible remedy to the mistake. However, this ability to get out of contracts may change with the recent surge of contracts exceeding thirteen years. None of the contracts traded thus far went beyond twelve years.

Numbers Regarding Team With Contracts Exceeding Seven Years

Fourteen teams, or nearly half the league, have no players signed beyond seven years on their current roster. Only five of these teams (Boston, Ottawa, Phoenix, San Jose, St. Louis) made the playoffs. These teams averaged 88 points with an average record of 39-33-10. Only Phoenix and St. Louis made it beyond the first round of the playoffs. (Note: Columbus, who was counted in this group, had two players signed for eight years or more on their roster last season.)

Of the sixteen teams that do have a player signed for longer than seven years, only five missed the playoffs (Buffalo, Carolina, Minnesota, NY Islanders, Tampa Bay). These teams averaged 94 points  with an average record of 42-30-10. (Note: Carolina and Minnesota, who were counted in this group, did not have a player signed for eight years or more until this off-season.)

Seven teams (Detroit, Chicago Los Angeles, Minnesota, NY Rangers, Philadelphia, Washington), less than a quarter of the league, account for 64% (16 of 25) of the contracts that go beyond seven years. The only one of these teams who didn’t make the playoffs was Minnesota, who just purchased their two big free agents. These teams averaged 97 points with a record of 43-29-10.

There are two ways to look at these numbers (1) Signing players to long term deals has actually been beneficial to teams willing to take the risk and it should be looked at as a smart business practice. (2) There is a select few teams circumventing the cap system and ruining the competitiveness for the rest of the league who is unwilling to guarantee years well beyond players’ prime seasons or cheat the system, as these contracts generally have done.

A Case for Two-Tier Contract Limits

Instead of viewing this clause in the CBA as the owners trying to “save themselves from themselve”, why not view it as a way to make the league more competitive?

The theory of the two-tier system is to encourage homegrown players to stick with the team that drafts them. It would be nice to see the Kovalchucks and Suters of the world stick with the small market teams that drafted and developed them. It also puts a greater emphasis on the draft and player development, two areas small market teams generally have to rely on to create a competitive team.

If the player is set on leaving, and wants the extra years, it allows for the team losing the player to receive some compensation via a sign-and-trade.

The sign-and-trade is relied upon heavily by NBA teams who’s league features a two-tier contract system. A sign-and-trade allows for the players to get the maximum amount of years and the team who lost the star player (assuming those are the only players getting six or seven year deals) to get something rather than nothing.

Think about a team like Nashville who lost Suter to a thirteen year contract. If they were able to offer two more years than anyone one else in the market there is a great chance Suter stays. Nashville likely does not have the resources to go out and replace a player of Suter’s caliber in the free agent market, setting them back a considerable amount.  If at the very least Nashville was able to pull of a sign-and-trade with Minnesota it would lessen the blow and help keep them competitive.

An argument could also be made that “middle class” players would actually benefit from this system because as the teams remained more balanced, games get better, when games are better ratings go up, when ratings go up revenue goes up, and when revenue goes up the cap goes up leaving more money for these players.

Summary

I am from the school of thought that the market should dictate the length of contracts and if teams are willing to risk handing out long term contracts they should be allowed to reap the benefits or face the consequences of their actions. Structuring contracts so the player can retire at the end of the deal and let the team off the hook needs to be fixed immediately (a compromise the NHLPA has actually proposed). But other than that teams should be allowed to retain players for however long they would like and players should be granted the freedom to decide where they want to play without having to accumulate some kind of loss.

However, the numbers do paint a picture that indicates ending these contracts could lead to a more balanced and competitive league—something everyone would all like to see. But I am still not convinced a system of two-tier term limits is the best way to achieve this.

Further NHL regular season cancellations today. Thru Dec 30th.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) December 10, 2012

…The max season is now going to be around 48 games. If we do get hockey this year that means expect some epically intense games. If the Rangers/Devils had a rivalry before imagine how those games are going to look when each one is worth twice as much in the standings. So if we do get hockey, a big if, I for one will be a very happy guy…