Salary Cap...ouch

[anticubicle]

Yeah...just finished my first season. Won the Cup. Did great but damn...for me to resign even 1/2 the players from last year's team, no new additions at all I need to trade away a player or two to free up cap space.

Some of my players (Staal, Girardi) wanted slight raises but I'm guessing my maximum cap went DOWN this season.

Gonna really need to plan this out now

[TwisTz]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

My first line is

Ovechkin - Crosby - Gaborik.

I'm stuffed... lol

[GlennN]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

Yeah...just finished my first season. Won the Cup. Did great but damn...for me to resign even 1/2 the players from last year's team, no new additions at all I need to trade away a player or two to free up cap space.

Some of my players (Staal, Girardi) wanted slight raises but I'm guessing my maximum cap went DOWN this season.

Gonna really need to plan this out now

Congrats on the Cup! Yeah, the cap is hard to take when you work hard building a team, only to have to tear it apart. Me? I can't handle such restriction in my videogaming. I say no to cap!

[Vikes1]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

Congrats on winning the Cup Ant!

Yeah...I've been kinda wondering what I'll face as far as the cap goes myself. I know of a few players I don't plan to resign. Their current contract demands would most likely put me in a real jam, if I resigned them.

I can't say I'm looking forward to losing a bunch of my top players. But I really enjoy the thought process of trying to decide who to keep/let go...and who to bring in.

That to me, makes any franchise mode interesting. And better yet...I actually believe it really matters with the NHL game, the ratings of the players. And their strengths and weakness make a difference. It normally takes me a few hours to go through an off-season. Because I really enjoy, making the most of it.

[anticubicle]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

So here is what went down...


Resigned my core players: Jokinen (@ a discount!) Staal, Girardi, Prospal, Dubinsky as well as other important players to long term deals. I signed a lot of my less skilled but still important players to 1 year deals.

Unfortunately, I had to trade away Bryan Rafalski to free up cap space to resign a lot of my prospects. Lost quite a few defensivemen from my AHL affiliate

I only made three pickups. Blair Betts to replace Eric Christensen on my 4th line. His defense is going to be a big plus. I'll have him on the PK. I also picked up Jamie Lundmark to add some depth. (I always liked both of those guys). And Auld to backup goalie.

To replace Rafalski, I've brought up Bobby Sanguienetti full time. His performance in the playoffs really impressed me.

That puts me 1 million under cap.


Hopefully I can pull the trigger early in the season for a 1st line forward

[jsquigg]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

I'd play with the Cap on if it was realistic or even if certain players didn't end up stuck in the free agent market for years and years. You have a different strategy as a GM without the cap and other GMs are much stingier with their players. The free agent market is filled with average players as all the good players get swallowed up. I'll have to wait to see how the off season goes, but I have already resolved not to abuse the free agent market.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

The Blackhawks seemed to figure out their problems in real life, however I'm about go go into the offseason and Kane Toews and Kieth are all free agents.

[anticubicle]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

The Blackhawks seemed to figure out their problems in real life, however I'm about go go into the offseason and Kane Toews and Kieth are all free agents.

You ought to be able to resign them both but be prepared to let some of your AHL guys walk.

[sabres32]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

why is it that about 9-13 good players are left on free agents at the end of the year. Marc Savard was a free agent for 2 full years in my be a GM. its stupid.

[SENS_AK27]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

In this situation I would sign the free agent then trade them for picks to others teams. Marc Savard would fetch a nice 3rd or 4th rounder for sure.

[D-MAC©®]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

In this situation I would sign the free agent then trade them for picks to others teams. Marc Savard would fetch a nice 3rd or 4th rounder for sure.

I've done this & now I can't sign free agents because "I'm known to have a reputation to sign FA's just to trade them away."
It's all good because I take advantage of the waiver.
I just picked up Salo 35 & Salvador 33 on waivers, & traded them for Brent Burns 24 (3 years left on his contract).
Plus I added in Dennis Seidenburg 28. 1 year left on contract(healthy scratch) he was taking up $$$ & I wasn't going to sign him next year.

They even placed Salvador back on the waivers so I grabed him again to add depth to my AHL club.
Out with the old & in with the younger.

EDIT:
I just traded Burn & Salvador for Brent Seabrook.
LOL.

[fudgie]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

Upgrade the Assistant Coach in BeAgm
i'm pretty sure that makes players take paycuts to sign with you.

In my 6th year Toronto Be a Gm i have no players under 76 on my WHOLE orginazation. I have five players who are 90s on my NHL team. My average team age is 26, and my highest paid player makes 5.8 million (pat kane, 93ovr 5yrs left on his contract). And i have about 6million in Cap. This kinda ruins free agency for me, but i haven't signed a free agent in 2 years and have made only three or four trades the past two seasons. My top AHLers are about 82ovr with B potential..but their isn't an age difference between my ahl and nhl teams, so i'm kinda screwed there

[anticubicle]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

Upgrade the Assistant Coach in BeAgm
i'm pretty sure that makes players take paycuts to sign with you.

In my 6th year Toronto Be a Gm i have no players under 76 on my WHOLE orginazation. I have five players who are 90s on my NHL team. My average team age is 26, and my highest paid player makes 5.8 million (pat kane, 93ovr 5yrs left on his contract). And i have about 6million in Cap. This kinda ruins free agency for me, but i haven't signed a free agent in 2 years and have made only three or four trades the past two seasons. My top AHLers are about 82ovr with B potential..but their isn't an age difference between my ahl and nhl teams, so i'm kinda screwed there

My Asst. Coach is almost maxed out.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

I spent quite a while figuring out my what I was going to do last night. During the draft I freed up quite a bit of cap space.

I traded Troy Brouwer and Corey Crawford to Edmonton for some draft picks.

Then I parted ways with Brent Sopel for Todd Fedoruk (saved about $1,000,000).

I then turned Fedoruk loose, trading him for a couple more picks.

All in all I saved about $4-5 million.

I signed Kane, Toews and Keith first thing. Got tha tout of the way. Then I signed Andrew Ladd, Adam Burish, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Antti Niemi. I signed my first 2 picks of the draft, the first-rounder will likely be playing in the NHL from day one.

To be honest, I know a lot of people don't like to have to mess with the cap, but I think it adds a new element to the game. You really have to think about what you are doing.

In the end I did not bring back Kim Johnsson, Brent Sopel, Troy Brouwer, Ben Eager or Colin Fraser. I picked up a couple of average free agents and will have to rely on a couple of my prospects from last year to fill out the 4th line this year. I think it is a very similary situation to what the Hawks might deal with in real life this year.

I almost parted ways with Kris Versteeg, which would have freed up a ton of cap space, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I feel like I've got a team that can win a Cup, so I'm going for back-to-back in 2010-11.

[bill2451]

Re: Salary Cap...ouch

To be honest, I know a lot of people don't like to have to mess with the cap, but I think it adds a new element to the game. You really have to think about what you are doing.

its not that we don't like to mess with the cap, it's that the cpu isn't smart enough to handle the cap/the game isn't programmed correctly

there is no reason for superstars to rot in FA for years because they dont change their demands and no one can afford to sign them... its just stupid

I love the aspect of managing my cap though, which is why when I turn the cap off, I still set a realistic budget for myself that I have to stay under