WordsOfWisdom

I've always understood that the Norris trophy is supposed to be given to the best defenceman..... but then they always seem to give it to the highest scoring defenceman anyway. Oh well. Nicely done.

Different era in terms of scoring. None of those scoring milestones will ever be beaten without massive changes made to the current game.

Anaheim and Pittsburgh are both going to make the playoffs. Look at the standings and both are trending upward.

Yeah baby!!! We'll celebrate 30th place for now, knowing that it may be a while before we're back here again.

I really thought the Leafs had 30th place locked up this week.

"Tyler Seguin" Who needs Tyler Seguin when you've got...... Full Kessel? #BrianBurkeTradeLegend

"Parity = mediocrity = boring...." Agreed. "NHL = No Hitting League." Agreed. "We need a juggernaut to make things interesting....." A few actually..... so we can look forward to when they play each other.

I'll always remember that day, and even how one of my classmates broke the news to me, saying: "a plane just hit the World Trade Center (chuckle)". To which my reaction was: 1. What's the World Trade Center? 2. Where is the World Trade Center? 3. WTH are you talking about you nitwit? 4. How did a plane hit it? Must have been a dumb pilot in a Cessna or something. Then I walked into a packed lounge after class and saw it on CNN, where things immediately became clear. 1. Those two big buildings in New York are/were the WTC. 2. It wasn't a small plane, it was a commercial airliner. 3. It wasn't an accident. That's when the full gravity of the situation began to sink in. As a sidenote, how long has it taken them to rebuild the WTC? In that same amount of time, an entire city more impressive than New York has been built in Dubai. Just sayin.... construction crews in North America need to step it up a little.

Couldn't have a sharper contrast in that photo: from Yashin (classless) to Alfredsson (total class). I'm so glad the Senators got a great return when they got rid of Yashin. All too often it goes the other way, and the team loses out big time when trying to move a disgruntled star player. The Sens managed to maintain their momentum and take the team to a higher level of performance without Yashin. It was a victory in terms of the team winning out over the individual. Anyway, I'm happy to forget about Yashin. I actually forgot about him many years ago.

Yashin just might be the most hated player in the NHL. (By fans.) His actions were entirely selfish, and he broke all of the rules regarding contracts. That man had no honor.

My point is that the owners fought for the current system because it potentially gives them more money and less to the players. They didn't do it to make everyone richer. They did it to make themselves richer. Didn't they reduce the percentage that goes to the players?

A 6-pack of McNuggets that have been sitting on the rack for two hours and are only slightly warm.

You never know what can happen. (Other than NHL lockouts, which we know are guaranteed to happen lol.) AIDS and cancer aren't going away either. Let's all stop talking about those topics. Whaaaat? That's not a reason to avoid discussing something. This is a thread specifically created to discuss the salary cap!

That's because in a cap system player salaries are limited while owner salaries are unlimited. That's why the owners fought for it. (Granted, they shot themselves in the foot by having such a high floor, but that's just the owners being dumb.)

The following statements simply cannot be disputed: Bad management hurts all teams. (We've seen countless examples of this at both ends.)A salary cap, luxury tax, and revenue sharing work to eliminate the advantage that the most free-spending teams would otherwise have. (You already admitted that you don't watch baseball because of the discrepancy between rich and poor team payrolls.)A salary floor hurts the poorest of teams by forcing them to overspend on payroll.Also, I'm not sure who said it (about the NHL being more popular and more profitable than ever before) but the exact same thing can be said of Major League Baseball. Overall profits for MLB are higher than they have ever been, and MLB does not have a salary cap. That means the "NHL profit argument" is no longer valid. I just disproved it by counterexample. Who knew I would ever use a mathematical proof technique in a hockey forum. Awesome! To clarify, you (or someone) made the argument that: P1. The NHL has a salary cap. P2. The salary cap creates competitive balance. P3. Only a league with competitive balance can be profitable (implied, unstated premise) C. The NHL is profitable because it has a salary cap. Disproved by the fact that MLB does not have a salary cap and has achieved the same positive financial results (even more so than the NHL), thereby removing the salary cap as the causal factor in the NHL's current financial situation.

But you have to admit, baseball is fun to watch for the fans living in the cities that can afford to spend anything on payroll. (New York, Boston, LA, etc.) The fact that all the other stadiums are empty doesn't seem to matter to MLB. It's a joke, but that's MLB. I just think it would be fun to be "the evil empire" for a change, and to crush everyone else like ants. That would be very fulfilling. Being more like Star Wars instead of Space Balls would be a welcome change. (Shameless old movie analogy.)

I agree the cap isn't the only reason, but you can't say a salary cap wouldn't hurt the Yankees. Any system that prevents the highest spending teams from spending will hurt the highest spending teams.

But I think the point is..... fans root for Chicago. Even non-Blackhawks fans are rooting for Chicago right now. They like the dynasty as much as anyone else. I'm not sure the same can be said of Toronto. I don't think people ever root for Toronto (outside of Leafs fans). I don't think anyone wants to see the Leafs in the playoffs ever again... outside of Leafs fans. It's a very different dichotomy and it's puzzling. I remember people cheering for New York when they ended their Cup drought in 1994. Most of the time, fans want to see streaks like that end.

The Yankees disagree with you. Spending lots on payroll doesn't guarantee success, but it's the exception (not the rule) when teams with money don't win in non-salary capped leagues. Can you name a team other than Toronto with lots of money that didn't win prior to the salary cap? I'm not whining about it. Toronto has been badly managed, no doubt about it. I'm just trying to point out that the salary cap hurts teams like Toronto more than anyone else in the NHL, because high payroll teams could atone for their mistakes by spending their way out of trouble. The Yankees are famous for having TWO starting lineups in the late 1990's: their 1-9 and their bench -- players that were in a starting lineup on any other team. That made the Yankees slump-proof and injury-proof. They had all-stars at every position and former all-stars backing them up. Not surprisingly, they used to win the AL East by 20 games.

...because it would be so awful that long suffering Toronto fans were able use their financial leverage to actually win something for a change? Ten years ago the Blackhawks were on the verge of bankruptcy because their owner had alienated every fan in Chicago. The team was invisible in its own marketplace. People in the NHL wanted to see that organization get back on its feet because it's not good for business to have an original six team on its deathbed. They went from being in the abyss (literally a dead franchise) to being a modern day dynasty in just one decade. All Toronto fans want is their turn. We can't win with financial might in baseball because of the Yankees, but you don't see Major League Baseball putting in a salary cap to help Jays fans. Hockey is the only sport where Toronto is #1 in revenue. It's the only sport where a Toronto franchise could (in theory) be like the Yankees if they wanted to be... but the salary cap prevents it. Speaking as a Leafs fan, how many Cups did the Leafs win prior to the salary cap (in my lifetime)? 0. The only difference was, the team was more interesting. At least they could make the playoffs 50% of the time. It's not like the Leafs were preventing anyone else from winning with their big spending. All they did was buy aging veterans at the end of their career. But that's still better than the no-name, no-talent crap we've had to put up with for the past decade. Chicago: Window of opportunity closes after this year. Boston: Rebuilding. Detroit: Moving backward. New York: Unknown. Montreal: Peaked. Due for a drop off. The best thing that could happen to the NHL right now would be Toronto winning 3 of the next 5 Stanley Cups.

That's too much to quote! I'm all for having a cap and revenue sharing (if they're set right), but when fans in some NHL cities are paying 10x more than others and not getting to watch a better on-ice product as a result, then I take issue with it. If you want to use the Yankees as an example, I guarantee you fans in New York wouldn't accept a salary cap in baseball.

So you're okay with all of that extra ticket revenue going into the pockets of owners and not players? When fans pay higher ticket prices, it either goes to the players or to the owners. If the team can't sign any more good players then ownership is pocketing all of that extra money.

(Steps on soapbox...) I guess I'm the only person in this thread that thinks I should get what I pay for. Would you pay $100,000 for a Hyundai Accent when everyone else is paying $15,000? Would you pay $25 for a cab ride if the bus arrived sooner and got you to your destination faster? Would you pay $100 for a meal if they served you McDonalds fries and McNuggets? (And made you fill your own drinks.) Would you pay $350 to watch Phil Kessel? (Has tantrum, falls off soapbox, takes ball, goes home.)

LOL.

If the NHL did nothing, that initial statement would hold true through inflation alone. You have to be careful with statements that compare financial figures to the past. Case in point: "Kids today earn more money than they ever have in history!" (Inflation) "There are more car crashes today than ever before in human history!" (How many people are driving?) How about setting the salary floor to 30 million and putting the ceiling at 100 million? Remember, the floor is what teams are forced to spend. That's the very bottom. Just because the floor is 30 mil doesn't mean teams will try to hit it. This would help cash strapped teams avoid bankruptcy by not having to spend tons of money when they go through a down period. They can shed payroll and rebuild. Meanwhile, good teams could load up for a Cup run. I miss those days.