Gone Wild Mailbag: The Parise and Suter Edition!

I asked for your questions on the Minnesota Wild and everyone had something to ask about Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. Pretty popular guys.

I have to imagine this is a growing concern for teams across the league as these massive contracts come closer to the end. I somewhat understand how the Cap Recapture stipulation came into place, Owners and the NHL didn’t like paying out these expensive, long, front-loaded contracts when these players weren’t producing at the same level. The NHLPA looked to protect their players. As long as the members of the association are protected, they aren’t overly concerned with penalties that could occur to the franchise. I do doubt that the NHL Head Offices or the NHLPA has an issue with these penalties.

The group that is likely to complain are the General Managers, but it’s tough to see where they lie, in terms of the CBA. It would naturally make sense that they would side with owners/ownership groups and the league, as they hired them to run their team in the first place, but they also have to keep players comfortable and happy. That isn’t to cave to every one of their demands, but more build a roster and staff that is cohesive, competitive, and responsible. General Managers Bill Guerin and Nashville’s David Poile might be growing concerned that the Cap Recapture Penalty might handicap their respective franchises.

In the most recent lockout, the NHL retroactively added language to the CBA that penalized teams should their players retired before the end of their contracts. The math works like this:

Player Average Annual Value (aka Cap Hit) – Salary Owed= Cap Advantage, and that Cap Advantage would be spread over the remaining years on the contract after the player’s retire, similar to a buyout.

The Canucks and the Kings have both already been victimized by the Cap Recapture Penalty, albeit on a much smaller scale. The Canucks have to pay just north of $3Million/year for the next three years for Roberto Luongo and the Kings are in the last year of paying Mike Richards $1.3M over the last five years.

As I described in my plan for the Minnesota Wild rebuild, with thanks to KyleHatTrick at HockeyWilderness for help, Parise and Suter could cause nightmare situations for the Minnesota Wild’s cap situation. If they were to stay with the franchise for the rest of their careers, and retired with two seasons left in their contract (2022-2023 season), they would cost the Minnesota Wild more than $13Million/Year for two years. The situation is much worse if they were to get traded… (check out Hockey Wilderness’s Article to find out)

The Nashville Predators are in a much worse state than the Wild, in terms of Cap Recapture Penalty. The Philadelphia Flyers attempted to offer sheet the young Shea Weber in 2012 with a contract that was massively front-loaded and frothing with cap recapture penalty potential, thinking it would scare the Nashville Predators off. It didn’t. They had just seen Ryan Suter walk in free agency and could not allow another all-star to leave, so they matched it. Then they traded him in 2016 to Montreal, which locks in how much Cap Advantage the Nashville Predators used for the remainder of the contract. So let’s say he were to retire this year: The Preds have to pay $3.5M/year for seven years. Not bad. If he retires in 2022-23, the Preds have to pay $6.14M/year for four years. Ok, scarier, but still below his Annual Cap Hit. If he retires in 2025-26? $24.57M for one year. About a third of the present-day cap. That’s absurd. That’s two Connor McDavid’s. Or Three Sidney Crosby’s. Or 3 1/3 Drew Doughty’s. That completely handicaps the franchise’s ability to field a competitive team and could be detrimental to the wellbeing of the fanbase.

The NHL has come in and given alternative punishment in the past to franchisees who circumvented the cap with front-loaded contracts. The New Jersey Devils paid Ilya Kovalchuk a $102M/17-years, where 97% value is paid in the first 11 years. Instead of demolishing that franchise with Cap Recapture Penalty when Ilya retired, the NHL imposed a Cap Recapture Penalty of $3M spread over 12 years ($250K) and forefitting draft picks. Should another nightmare scenario occur, the NHL could give an alternative punishment to teams.

It would be unsurprising for the cap recapture penalty to be discussed after the 2021-2022 season because Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, and Shea Weber would all be nearing the end of their respective contracts (and likely careers).

While I understand the necessity to protect the owners/ownership groups, the Cap Recapture Penalty inadvertently will handicap their team’s ability to be competitive. If several million dollars cannot be used on worthy players, the ability for a team to contend will be severely inhibited and affect the viewership of certain NHL teams, in a time where consistent growth is desperately needed.

I think the correct situation is for a complete restructure of the salary cap system and for contracts to become more flexible. As it is now, wise teams can circumvent the hard cap system via the Long-Term Injury Reserve List (Like Arizona with Marian Hossa and Toronto with David Clarkson and Nate Horton). Rather than punishing the creativity of these teams, why not implement a system that allows for teams to surpass the salary cap (soft-cap) at a tax expense, like in the NBA? Or allow teams to restructure contracts, especially after the NHL created a punishment for these front-loaded contracts against teams retroactively after they were signed? The money is all guaranteed to the player, so allow for organizations to restructure the contract and get themselves out of the Cap Recapture Penalty?

When Bruce Boudreau said he would be making in a change in his overtime 3v3 strategy after the Wild lost in the extra frame AGAIN, we expected more youth and speed.

We haven’t seen that yet.

The likes of Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, and Eric Staal still frequently see ice time in the additional five minutes, and more often than not, are on the ice when the Wild inevitably gets scored on.

As the Wild continue to fall to a league-worst 12-32 in 3v3 hockey, it’s time for the strategy to change. I don’t mind so much Parise playing with the extra skating space, but Suter and Staal have no business being on the ice. They already log heavy minutes throughout the game and don’t have the speed to keep up with all the available space given to today’s talent.

I don’t know when they’ll stop playing in OT, and all likelihood they won’t stop playing in OT. But I’m ready for them to stop starting the OT period.

Here are the starting lineups I want to see, in no specific order:

JEE-Greenway

Spurgeon

Kunin-Zucker

Brodin

Koivu-Fiala

Hunt

Staal-Zuccarello

Dumba

I’m done seeing two defensemen getting trotted out for the opening faceoff and you have to pair the vets with youth and/or speed.