Loophole Found in New CBA?

It was a nice attempt by Vancouver GM Mike Gillis to build a market for goaltender Roberto Luongo as the Canucks continue to shop his services.

One thing we do know, Gillis isn’t looking to give his goaltender away otherwise he’d be long gone by now. I will say this, sources close to Cory Schneider say the two get along great and by all accounts Luongo is well liked inside the Vancouver dressing room.

Some people believe a new provision in the CBA called Cap benefit Recapture is preventing a Luongo deal from going down. While I don’t necessarily agree, here’s what it means.

Teams who signed players to long-term back diving contracts under the old CBA will take a cap hit should the player retire before the contract expires. You simply add up the cap hit and cash paid over the years of the contract. If there’s a positive difference between cash paid and actual hit, then that number is applied to the teams salary cap for the remaining years left on the deal.

In other words if a player has a $6 million cap hit over the length of a 10 year deal but retires after eight seasons, you would add up the amount of cashed paid and the cap hit. If the cash is higher than $48 million ($6 Million hit x eight seasons) that difference would be applied as the cap number for the two seasons the player doesn’t play.

If the player is traded to another team and still retires early, both the club that signed the player and the new team would be on the hook for a percentage of the remaining cap hit.

This helps small market teams who could use imaginary money to get to the floor but could also hurt a large market club that spends to the cap.

This only applies to those contracts, in excess of six-years, signed before the new CBA. Los Angeles is not on the hook for the Mike Richards contract since the trade was made prior to the new CBA.

I’ve spoken to several NHL people who believe there’s a loophole in the new CBA to avoid this. In the case of Luongo, teams aren’t looking that far down the road and this provision is not preventing a trade from getting done.

I’m told as long as you put a player on long term injury for the last few years of a contract you can avoid taking on the cap hit. Many feel Luongo won’t play until he’s 42 not because he’ll retire but because he’ll get hurt.

There’s an incentive for the player here as retired players no longer get paid.

One would think the NHL would have a hard time proving a player is healthy enough to play.

There’s always a chance some of these guys are bought out before their contract expires as well.

In the case of Flyers D-man Chris Pronger it doesn’t apply as his contract kicked in after he turned 35 years old.

Blues Clues!

Jaro Halak starts tonight as the Blues play in Dallas.

As we reported Friday, Blues players will wear the number 6 during pregame Sunday with the jerseys to be auctioned off later. All proceeds go to Cardinals care, a tremendous St. Louis Cardinals charity.

Rangers Head Coach John Tortorella sent Wade redden a nice congratulatory text message prior to playing his first game for the Blues.

The Blues know they have to improve on the face off dot. David Backes and Alex Steen lead the blues in draws taken yet have won just 41% and 32% respectively.

Steen tells me he just needs to bare down.

Vladimir Sobotka, Andy McDonald, and Scott Nichol are each over 50% with Nichol winning 66% of his draws.
Backes is 6th in the NHL with 16 hits.

David Perron is tied for 3rd in the NHL with 5 minor penalties, each taken in the offensive zone which Ken Hitchcock attributes to bad angles and over pursuit.

Vladimir Tarasenko leads the Blues in goals, points, shots, and plus/minus.

Kevin Shattenkirk will be my guest next Tuesday for Blues Buzz live from Johnny Mac’s.

More to come,
Andy Strickland
Strickland.andy@gmail.com