How Could We Have Ever Doubted Him? Ken Holland Is Looking Like A Genius
Our faith was weak. We doubted him all summer long. We said, what the hell Kenny? What happened to that plan? When did it change from being an active player in the market to sitting on your ass? We were pissed.
We should have known better, but we are, alas, just mere fans.
Turns out, it’s looking like Holland was smarter than us and almost every other GM in the league. Of course he was.
Take a look at the NHL’s recent proposal as explained by Puck Daddy today:
The National Hockey League's counterproposal to its players on Tuesday included a reduction of the salary cap from its expected $70.2 million for 2012-13 down to $58 million for next season. It would slowly creep up over the six-year term to $71.1 million in the final season.
This was expected. That there wouldn't be a rollback on existing contracts, as the NHL stated in its proposal, was a shocker...
So let's see: a $58 million salary cap with no rollback on existing contracts. Which would mean, via Cap Geek's numbers that over half the NHL would be over the cap should $58 million become the ceiling.
Detroit’s cap hit? $57 million, under the proposed cap of $58 million by less than a 1M bucks.
Hit the jump for more on Kenny's genius:
Boom. It’s almost like Kenny could see into the future or something.
What’s going to happen to the teams that are as much as $10 million over the cap? Puck Daddy has some ideas, but who knows. All I know is that if teams like Vancouver or Minnesota have to cut 10 million from their payroll, there’s going to be some quality players suddenly available on the free market.
Of course, this is just a proposal, but it’s one that I can see the NHLPA working with and I believe it would be a decent basis from which they will work with.
And of course it’s looking like Kenny was right all along.
Correct me if I am wrong, but we would only have $1m in cap space, so how would we stand to capitalize from those teams who have to cut a lot? Just because a team has to move $10m in cap space, doesn't mean we can grab it and go $10m over the cap. The only teams who would really be able to capitalize would be teams well under the cap now.
@ThroatShot it depends. if players are traded in order to get them off the books, they would keep their salary. but i think some good/decent players with horrible contracts would be bought out so they could be paid what they are actually worth all while still collecting their paycheck from their original team. i could be wrong, of course, but that's my guess.
so in NHL12 terms, say a d-man had one good year and his team paid him $7.5 per for too long. he's now an 84 rating. very good but not worth his hit. they buy him out. another team signs him for 4 million. he's making bank.
when we had commie, he was getting paid more from the blue jackets than he was from us.
@Twig None the less, we have $1m in space. Said defenseman might be a great bargain for someone, but not a team with $1m in space. Say the cap gets negotiated up by the players from this most recent offer. We have more space, but teams would also need to cut less (thus able to be more creative to keep the best players). I just don't see any salary cap situation working in our favor. It may work against some of the higher paid teams and in favor of those with the most space, but for those near the cap it won't matter much.
@ThroatShot @Twig we could cut guys or i believe that there will be a slight pay cut across the board and that would give us a little working space.
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Kenny a genious because of this?... absolutely not.
Lets not forget that they had money in hand to shell out to Parise and Sutter. It's not at ALL like he sat around waiting for this to happen. Especially considering the fact that he went up to the 57 on the first day of free agency without even hearing from Parise and Sutter.
Kenny might just happen to end up the luckiest GM in the league... not the best considering he tried to make his cap much higher.
@magnum9 You don't pass on the opportunity to sign someone like Suter, and he was predestined to go to Minnesota from the start, the whole shopping around thing was a complete charade. Doesn't matter whether you make the right decision by accident or not, he still did.
@magnum9 as soon as we didn't land Suter this became Kenny's plan. That's why we didn't pursue many other free agents after our bust on Suter.
@magnum9 Maybe, but it might be a hell of a backup plan and put the Wings in a decent position going forward.
this has been my hope since July 4th. we'd still need a 7th d-man, so we might still need to make a cut or two of sorts, but nowhere near what most teams will have to do.
Despite this being said, I actually felt for a long time that MAYBE he knew from some major sources, that MAYBE the possibility of a lock out was very real. Therefore he didn't go nuts trying to sign guys??
I don't see the players agreeing to such a big cut without some salary guarentees(multiple buyouts, etc.). Either way, we'd still not be in a position to compete, up against the new cap while still missing a top 4 D or two and a top six winger. I doubt anything would happen that would greatly enhance our standing in the West. Sorry to be the Debbie downer of posters, just seems like everyone always wants to apologize for Holland.
@AppState I haven't been apologizing at all. In fact, I've been hard on Kenny. But if cuts are made, there are going to be some teams that are way over the cap that are going to have to make some changes and have some big holes in their teams. We have some holes too, but how can't that help us? Plus, we could make some cuts if needed too.
@moorecha @AppState Isn't this just going to force more parity as those teams over the cap are going to cut good people and then only the teams at the bottom of spending now are even going to have the space to pick them up? Sounds like socialism in action within this closed system. We go from being in the upper middle (maybe) of a pack to being on par with basically everyone if what you suggest is true. The better teams get holes and the worse teams fill theirs. We would basically be standing pat.
