This notion that money brings championships is beyond naive, and totally ignores other reasons why teams have continuous success. Of course it helps and makes it easier , I’m not saying it doesnt, but there are plenty of teams in all sports who spend foolishly and don’t win … ask the Red Sox and Dodgers about how easy it is to buy a championship.

As well, tell the Florida Marlins that revenue sharing doesnt work .. you know, the team that beat the New York Yankees with an entire payroll that was smaller than what the Yankees paid in luxury tax.

He’ll have what, a $6M cap hit, but only a $1M salary the final two years, they could easily find someone to take him by ten.

We’d turn the NHL into MLB … you know the one league with the best relationship between owners and players and where teams that exist almost entirely because of revenue sharing win pennants.

Lecavalier will earn $10-million per season in salary and bonuses for the first six seasons of the deal, before dropping to $8.5-million in 2016-2017, $4-million in 2017-2018, $1.5-million in 2018-2019 and $1-million and 2019-2020.

In other words, it’s going to be REALLY tough on us for the next few years. If we can weather that storm, the final 3 years would be a lot less painful. Vinny may have to take a pay cut(which he has done in the past) in order to make this feasible. Otherwise, we’d better hope there’s a very good amnesty clause.

The issue of Roberto Luongo here in Vancouver, is the perfect “case study” validating the argument against these idiotic “til death do us part” long term contracts ! The details of this particular financial travesty are well known to all, with the fool first signing for 12 years at 64 million and then turning around and quitting on his team less than two years later ! Now thanks to Einstein Gillis, the Canucks are saddled with a Lehman Brothers sized liability, that could potentially ruin their prospects for the next decade ? To put it into perspective, the following is a snapshot of the “opportunity cost” that Luongo’s contract will now put on the organization, regardless of whether he ever plays another game or not. Based on an annual contract cost of $5,000,000 per, the Canucks “must” sell the following just to breakeven on this outrageous liability (ie: COGS or “cost of goods sold” assumed to be 50%) :

- 50,000 x Team Jerseys ($200 “sell price” per)
- 325,000 x Parking Passes ($30 per)
- 1,250,000 x Beer Servings ($8 per)
- 2,500,000 x Peanut Bags ($4 per)

Of course this is impossible to attain, as it would necessitate “everyone” at a Canuck’s home game being “stoned drunk” while throwing money at parking attendants like it was confetti ! The bottom line friends, is that long term contracts > 5 years are nothing more than “reckless” speculation. And those parties involved in such contracts are engaging in activity that is “criminal” by virtue of the potentially “hideous” ramifications !

You get a ton of thumbs down for this but I’m with you, if the Owners want to finally fix their problem once and for all they need to be a little more creative than simply asking more from the players over and over again.

Come up with a solution that is actually A – slightly more creative than “please, oh please restrict your ability to earn a living and save us from ourselves!” and B – will actually ensure the long term health of the league. It’s called responsible revenue sharing …give it a shot kids.

(and @stakex …exactly, the Rangers and Leafs proved for years you can’t buy a championship, but … spread their luxury tax dollars around and you’re now giving smaller markets with good management a fair crack at it.)

The bigger problem for the Rangers next year is that Stepan, Hagelin, McDonagh all need new contracts… and McDonagh and Stepan could be in for a huge raises. Not to mention Del Zotto doesn’t have a new deal yet.

Though this doesn’t factor in the almost certain salary rollback that will happen with a new CBA. The numbers will look a lot different once a deal is signed.

Surely Rangers would be in a very deep trouble if they had to call Wade Redden back to NHL.

It’s for this reason I was relieved that the Pens didn’t make any big signings this off-season. Shero knows the deal.

And incidentally, I don’t see how the Pens are on here when the Rangers are not. I’m not suggesting that the Rangers are in major trouble cap wise, but they and the Pens have pretty similar #s for 2013-14. And more importantly, the Rangers are going to have some RFAs coming up in the next couple of years that are going to require serious raises, whereas the Pens do not.

PMB and Backstrom will be gone and or will be taking massive discounts to stay. The Wild can shuffle around the roster to easily make this work