NHL CBA: This Is BAD NEWS For The Montreal Canadiens!

NHL CBA: This Is BAD NEWS For The Montreal Canadiens!

Uh, congratulations Gary Bman, hockey hall of fame commissioner that you are. Uh, new CBA has been ratified, done, done, and dusted. And some of the interesting tidbits that have come out is an 84 game season is coming to the NHL as part of an extension of the CBA that has been tenatively agreed to by the league and the NHL PA. What can you tell us about how quickly this came together? Are you surprised that they were able, both sides, the league and the PA were able to sit in a room, find uh commonality, and here we are reacting to a new CBA and a very healthy NHL? Yeah. Well, the negotiations hadn’t yet started at the Four Nations in midFebruary, but they were about to start. So, I’m assuming they started preliminary discussions as of early March. And yeah, most of the pieces were in place by late June. So, they weren’t ready to present all of it, but they definitely presented the key the key rule changes and everybody seemed to be in favor of it. And then it was ratified uh earlier last week. And I think, you know, from a from a fan perspective, the fact that you don’t have a threat of a of a lockout, which uh this fan base uh the NHL fan base uh has been unfortunately privy to more than most leagues in, uh in North America, you know, at least, you know, you could rest easy until 2030. Now, my deal here is this CBA seems to be very much in favor of owners, right? Contract lengths contract lengths got reduced. Yeah. You know, um yes, the players, you know, now no longer have a dress code. That’s a win for them. And yes, the players no longer have to pay into workers comp, which I found very weird. And that’s taken off. But then you know the double retention has been tweaked. So you in the past you could trade a player at retain 50% trade him to another team that team would retain 50% and then you trade him to the final destination. So a player that was making $10 million would count for $2.5 million you know in terms of prorated or if you’re using LTI or the full amount 2.5. So, you can’t do that anymore on the same day. There is a 75day rule where you can retain on a player and then you have to wait 75 days to retain on them again. And again, there’s only a maximum of two retentions you can do on one on one contract. But here’s the kicker. If you retain on that player a trade deadline, 75 days, there is no there’s not 75 days between trade deadline and the end of the season. So, what happens? you pause the counter, lasts the whole summer, and then start day one of the NHL season and start the counter up again. So that means that even if you if you trade a player with retention at the trade deadline, you can’t even trade him with retention again, right, until like the first two months of the season. But to but to counter that to to to counter that, aren’t the isn’t the shorter contract situation better for star players? Like I believe hockey is better when there’s more gossip, when there’s more speculation. Like Austin Matthews as an example, four years. Like what’s going to happen in year three of a four-year deal? You and I are going to be talking about the Leafs going to lose their generational talent. Like I believe player movement in pro sports is better for the game because it gets more people talking and it gets more people speculating and I think it just makes for a more exciting product. So, is that a valuable counterargument to suggest that, you know, maybe not to the extreme of the NBA where players dip in, you know, for two years and then get another super max for another two years. I think a four-year kind of contract could be dangerous because the Canadians have a superstar and his name is Lane Hudson. They potentially have a budding superstar in Yvon Deidov. And so be careful what you wish for because I believe in this instance if a player doesn’t like how the team is being built in year three of a four-year deal, you’ve seen three seasons, maybe that’s enough. Player empowerment to me is a good thing. Marco, your perspective on the shorter contracts. I agree. But at the end of the day, it does it’s the star players are always going to get paid one way or the other. Always going to get paid. But I think this significantly hamp like hampers the security of the second and the third wave of of tiered of players. And I think that’s where I feel like it’s kind of a it kind of sucks for them. But on the flip side, if the salary cap continues to increase as aggressively as it does, there is a benefit to it as well. And we’re only knocking off a year. So to me, you know, eight-year contracts are done. Now, if you hold that player’s rights as of the as of the trade deadline, it’s seven years. And if you try to sign him as a free agent, it’s six years maximum effective July 1st, 2026. But that’s not the thing that that gets me. The thing that gets me is the limitation on signing bonuses. Okay? And I think that’s the thing that it, you know, I was talking to a couple of agents about this. That’s the thing that’s going to impact Canadian teams the most. And so, you know, let’s walk let’s walk through memory link. When you look at Noah Dobson’s contract, it is so front-loaded and frontloaded with signing bonuses galore. I think like $12 million in signing bonus in his first year. The new CBA states and all these contracts that were signed before are grandfathered. So, don’t worry about it. But any contract signed July 1st, 2026 cannot have more than 60% of the total uh revenue in the total contract and given year be uh a signing bonus cannot account for more than 60%. So, if you look at a guy like um Vladislav Gabriov who signed in with the Rangers, I think he’s got a $1 million signing bonus, $1 million salary and the rest is like 10 or 11 million in signing bonus. That cannot happen. It would have to be more along the lines of like, you know, if it’s a $10 million payout, four million in salary, six million in signing bonus. Now, why does that impact Canadian clubs? Well, if you look at if you look at Austin Matthews contract right now. Yeah. Austin Matthews contract signed for four years, but very signing bonus heavy, right? And I think that’s the key. I’m McDavid 2 was M because McDavid 2 opted for shorter. I’m not I’m unfamiliar with the signing bonuses. No, he he went he went eight years. He went eight years. But if you look at if you look at the total salary structure, this is fantastic work by Jud Muldo. um also a co- agent for Noah Dobson. So, this kind of makes sense here. But Wasserman has figured out how to do this. Austin Matthews last season was the first year of his new contract. $13.2 million contract, but he had a base salary of $775,000. How much do you think he had in signing bonuses? Crazy. Crazy. You ready? You ready? Yeah. $15.9 million in signing bonuses. Ladies and gentlemen, why why would a team do that? And the reason why a Canadian team would do this is so granular that you literally have to be an accountant to figure this out. So, thank you, Mom. This is what happens here. A signing bonus as pertain to the trade agreement between the United States and Canada is seen as a performance yearly signing bonus. There was some debate about this uh that we saw with John Tvarez, for example, who was being pursued by the CRA. They’ve since lost that battle, and I think this will set a precedent. But because signing bonuses can be taxed in a different setting than where the player plays, it brings about a whole new dynamic. Austin Matthews is from the state of Arizona. As we know, the state of Arizona does not have state tax. So his signing bonus would not be taxed at the 52% that you would be paying in Toronto. It would be taxed to simple baseline federal tax in Arizona, saving him on six on on on $16.7 million in salary. It would save him, I believe, somewhere upwards of $4 million in taxes a year. Good for him. That is the advantage that Canadian teams had to compete with the no tech the no tax states because a player would be able to set up their dwelling in the United States in a tax uh what’s the word friendly uh state and then would be able to back channel the CRA in that way. That’s exactly what John Tvaris did. He sp he was a uh I believe he was naturalized in the United States because he had played at least seven years on on Long Island. Yeah. So all you have to do is set up a you know a dwelling like like Matt Duchain did in Nashville and then everything you sign after that all the signing bonuses are are on Tennessee tax or Florida tax as a lot of athletes do. And so the Canadians did this with Noah Dobson. If you look at Noah Adoptson’s contract, and again, same um same uh agency, so they clearly know what they’re doing here, but so does a guy like Kent Hughes who’s been making these contracts for a long time. But if you look at Noah Dobson, $1 million base salary this season, $11 million signing bonus. Crazy. And this is the case for the first three years of his contract. Yeah. And we’re gonna get to front-loaded limitations as well because that’s coming. But this significantly hampers specifically Canadian teams because a including signing bonuses like this are lockout proof. Yeah. So they there’s that security involved in well as well. So now the players kind of gave up that lockout proof kind of agenda with that. But at the same time, they would be able to use the signing bonuses to to at least create some equilibrium in the tax disparity between no tax states and high tax states. Uh and this also applies for example to the state of California and the state of New York visav their other American counterparts. So it creates a kind of situation where things get mutual complicated in terms of tax. I know my my eyes are glossing over listening to all my eyes are glossing over. But if you pay 20% in tax and 52% in tax on $10 million, that’s 30% difference. That’s a $3 million saving. And you know what? The real ones will know this because you’re probably in my head when I’m listening to Marco kind of break it down. I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, I see this guy’s got he goes to the Cayman Islands. I get it. It all makes sense. One of these tax havens there. Go back on the channel, Marco from the Cayman Islands.” I’m kidding, of course. Um, what about this? We I want to close out the CBA uh talk on on the fact that I remember the Douggee Hamilton quote. We lost to a team that was $16 million over the salary cap in the playoffs. This is a big win, right? I’m also skeptic in terms of the very sharp guys are going to find another loophole as they did with this one with the Mark Stones, the Cooerovs, the Patrick Kanes, uh, exploiting of Matthew Kachchuck exploiting, um, this type of no salary cap in the playoffs. I think this is a great move for hockey that now you’re hurt or not, you count against the cap in the playoffs. No, actually you don’t. And I think this is where this is where uh more uh discussion needs to happen on this. You have to you have to deliver your 20man roster and that 20man roster the average of the 20man roster has to be cap compliant. Yes. So if you’re on if you have a player on LTI that suddenly comes back to life on day one of the playoffs like you know we’ve seen in the past that player counts against the cap if you try to use him. Now, you may see some uh what’s the word here? Shenanigans where they’re going to they’re going to have a rotation. So, basically on day one of the playoffs, you have to provide the NHL your 20man roster and the average of that total salary has to be cap compliant. But as of game two, you can still add and remove players at will. So, you can have a pool of players to choose from, and you can rotate some of these players in and out depending on their salary. So, as long as you’re cap compliant with the 20man roster that you would put on the ice, then you’re fine. Now, here’s the issue. That’s not how it works during the regular season. So, you can reach the playoffs, be cap compliant because you used LTIR and then get to your 20man roster, and as long as your 20man roster is compliant, no problem. So, what that means, that was the change then. Okay. I wasn’t sure. Okay. So, what that it opens the door for some potential loophole shenanigans. But for all intents and purposes, this was used to limit putting highriced players like Mark Stone or Patrick Hayne or you know, we’ve seen him Matthew Kachchuck on LTIR and being able to use large sums of money to bring that roster with you into the playoffs. And so, that is dead. that you cannot do because you like a team that could benefit and take advantage of a situation like this would have to use LTR and be over the cap by like one or two or three million. That’s okay because you can again rotate some of these players out. For example, if you’re the Ottawa, if you’re the Edmonton Oilers last uh last playoffs and you could have brought in an extra two three million dollars of players because you’d be able to use LTIR, but then you just don’t dress a guy like uh like Skinner, for example, who was making $3 million. Yeah. And was was like being used as like a fourthline player because they didn’t have a role for him. Well, you just don’t you don’t put him on your 20 player list and then you can bring in another guy that potentially could have made more of a difference. So, that’s where the difference is. If you’re using LTIR and you have a higher price player that’s just occupying place and isn’t really helping you, well, not a problem. Another example would be the the Canadians. Say the Canadians trade Patrick Lane at 50% and get under the cap and no changes happen to this roster. They get into the playoffs, they can maximize Carrie Price’s LTR. Why? Because Carrie Price isn’t going to be dressed. Yeah. Right. Right. So teams utilizing LT. Exactly. Teams utilizing LTI the whole season, no difference to them because the player would not count against a 20man roster. But teams that use LTIR at convenient moments and then that player suddenly becomes available for the playoffs. Yeah, that’s it. So unfortunately what this does is it kills my mother’s dream of Carrie Price coming back in the playoffs this spring or any other spring because at the end of the day that 10 million that would be $10 million to come back on. Obviously this wouldn’t happen and these changes would only take place as of the 2027 playoffs, but it gives you an idea of where things are going. So that’s not necessarily a limitation to Canadian teams like the signing bonus and the limitation on frontloading contracts does, but this definitely puts a pin on uh these teams with injured players trying to pull a fast one. So I like the change and the NHL has said within two years they’d like to reopen that discussion to see if there’s any other changes that they can make. I can think of a couple already off the top of my head, but it’s good to see that the NHL is on this after trying to convince fans that GMs didn’t have a problem with it. That’s Marco Demo. You could follow him at RG Media. Uh follow him and do on all your favorite socials. And thanks for liking and subscribing and and checking us out.

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The NHL and NHLPA agreed to a new CBA. Shaun Starr and Marco D’Amico go over some of the more important details and the impact it can have on the Canadian NHL teams. Montreal Canadiens. Toronto Maple Leafs. Ottawa Senators. Winnipeg Jets. Calgary Flames. Edmonton Oilers. Vancouver Canucks.

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