Anyone else think the increase in salary cap was a little.....stupid?

Yes I know the teams who are right up against it are more than welcoming of the increase but is it really good for the league?

As it currently stands, 17 teams sit below the cap floor. Yes I know they are all incomplete rosters but the fact of the matter is, players need to be signed.

Great so a lot of action to be had right?

Well the problem is Look at the UFA crop......doesn't exactly set the world on fire now does it?

So we have 17 teams looking for players, some teams needing to spend a great deal of money to reach the $48m floor (Florida have to spend $25m!).

Defending Big D calculated that $149,149,964.00 must be handed out for the 2011/12 season alone. Add that to the poor list of UFA's and it looks like we could be in for rather a lot of over spending.....not through a matter of a simple bidding war but because teams are having to find ways to get themselves compliant with the Salary cap/floor. Surely this wasn't what was intended when we had the lockout as back then it was all about capping the stupid contracts that were being handed out as it was not sustainable. Now teams who have no money are being forced to hand out stupid contracts to keep within the very rules that were created to help them. I will be surprised if the league can carry on like this as I do not see how this is sustainable as it is now.

From a Stars fans point of view it is nice to see that we have to spend some money regardless of what the lenders in our sale say but from a practical point of view I do not see how this is healthy for the league.

so what happens if teams do not make the 'cap floor'?

They lose draft picks - and lots of them! I expect the likes of Souray, Finger and Huet will be back this season...

I think we could see a lot of over paid players heading for the smaller market teams in trades.

Jason Blake anyone?

Caps go up, it's what happens.

Again, my benchmark is the NFL, and I know their cap was related to league revenues. Is it the same in the NHL?

I recall something mentioning it was related to league revenues, but the problem was a lot of teams are being boosted by revenue sharing so the big markets are effectively proping up the smaller ones. That drives the price higher as they can afford it but they want to pay less to the smaller when that happens.

Finger is not coming back. We are well clear of the cap floor.

I meant to the NHL, not to their respective teams. Though God knows Toronto could use Finger on the blue line

I would happily take Finger back on the NHL roster, so long as we traded him and Komisarek for a bag of KP chilli nuts and a stack of Ikea catalogues.

I am pleased for Calgary, as it should mean we will be able to shift players like Hagman to teams needing to get to the floor.

But, it's a stupid idea for the league.

Jonzee, the cap doesn't just 'go up' it can go both up or down. As Buff said it is attached to the leagues revenue but the bigger teams do more to drive it up than the smaller teams do to drive it down and all that happens is the cap goes up, the floor increases and the struggling teams struggle even more. It is damaging to the league if they don't do something about it.

Pfffhhh, you and your miniscule revenue-generating teams - trying to drag us big boys down

There's no doubt the increase is a bad thing. The floor is now higher than the cap was in the first post-lockout season! The league can't sustain more than 1/2 teams suffering crippling financial losses - they've sorted Atlanta, but next season there could be a fair few more going tits up. Bettman = F.A.I.L.

This is it's 7th year of not going down, Beef. When was the last time it did go down?

I know the cap is done by league revenue....the problem with the floor is well...see Troy Brewer

It hasn't Jonzee but that doesn't mean it can't. It isn't written in any rules that the cap has to go up.

Well I imagine if league revenues fall, then it will go down.

The fact that the revenues will have to be averaged at some point will cause the problem. There is such a discrepancy between the smaller and bigger markets that even an increase along that average hurts the smaller franchises.

The current CBA is due to end in 2012. So there will be uncertainty about what changes will be made. I've read that it's likely the owners will want to reduce the percentage of revenues handed out to the players so the salary cap could actually fall. This is why some of the big long-term contracts handed out over the last couple of days could potentially be damaging to a franchise; but then at the same time clubs like Florida are forced to reach the cap floor and have little choice to take on board bloated contracts - also reducing the possibility to give its younger players a chance.