NHL Needs To Modify Its Salary Cap Rules

The NHL needs a salary cap to keep costs under control. That is unquestionable.

But taken to extremes, as it works now, it punishes excellence and almost orders successful teams to commit suicide.

The latest victims are the current Stanley Cup Champions, the Chicago Blackhawks.

Their recent quest for the Cup was on a fixed timetable: win now before the team has to be dismantled to fit under the salary cap rules.

Scarcely two weeks after winning the Stanley Cup, the dismantling process has begun.  Key forward Dustin Byfuglien and some other players was shipped to Atlanta, with more star players to be moved later.

That keeps costs under control, but the move is fundamentally illogical, for in effect, it tells winning teams that once they hit the top, to commit suicide.

This will prevent any NHL hockey dynasties from ever happening again.

This doesn't happen in real life.

You don't dismantle a victorious army, an ace medical team, or a competent corporation staff.

The present system could have a negative effect on ticket sales.

If you were a Chicago Blackhawks fan, why would you want to see the team any more?  It's not as good.

One obvious solution is to raise the salary cap but this undermines the attempt to keep costs under control.

A better solution would be to give the Stanley Cup Champion a salary cap reward as well as the trophy.

If teams are fined for bad conduct such instigating brawls, tampering, or deliberately trying to injure opponents, then they should also be rewarded for good behaviour.

The Stanley Cup Champion would be allowed to have its salary cap restriction raised by a certain amount for a fixed time period, say one or two years.

The new limit would be renewed each time the champion repeated within the time period.

If they failed to repeat as champions within that period, then the new limits would end, the champion would return to the salary cap restrictions of every other team, and the process of dismantling would then begin.

The Stanley Cup runner-up might get a smaller cap raise for a shorter period. But right now, the present system is illogical. 

Win the Stanley Cup and then commit suicide. Only lemmings do that.