Red Wings player contracts, by cap %
 

In the interest of adding some perspective to player contracts, I went through and calculated the Wings cap hits in terms of cap %. That is, the % of the salary cap, in the year the player signed, that their cap hit takes up.

Because there are a number of variables that affect the meaning of the cap %, I tried to add some context....

- "Term" theoretically skews the cap hit; longer terms cause it to be lower than it otherwise would be and shorter terms cause it to be higher than it otherwise would be

- "Year Signed" indicates how far along they are in the contract

- "Status" indicates whether it was an UFA, RFA, or entry-level contract

- "Age at Start" indicates the age of the player at the moment the current contract began (Day 1 of the given regular season)


Cap % - Term - Year Signed - Status - Age at Start - Name

Forwards
13.37% - 12 yrs - 09/10 - UFA - 28 - Zetterberg (first 7 yrs of contract only)
13.32% - 07 yrs - 07/08 - UFA - 29 - Datsyuk
10.71% - 12 yrs - 09/10 - UFA - 28 - Zetterberg
09.05% - 11 yrs - 09/10 - UFA - 29 - Franzen (first 7 yrs of contract only)
06.96% - 11 yrs - 09/10 - UFA - 29 - Franzen
05.29% - 05 yrs - 08/09 - RFA - 24 - Filppula
04.94% - 05 yrs - 08/09 - UFA - 29 - Cleary
04.27% - 02 yrs - 12/13 - UFA - 35 - Samuelsson
03.03% - 04 yrs - 12/13 - RFA - 25 - Helm
02.96% - 02 yrs - 12/13 - UFA - 37 - Bertuzzi
02.71% - 03 yrs - 12/13 - UFA - 29 - Tootoo
02.56% - 04 yrs - 12/13 - RFA - 25 - Abdelkader
01.92% - 01 yrs - 12/13 - UFA - 26 - Brunner
01.87% - 03 yrs - 11/12 - UFA - 27 - Eaves
01.36% - 02 yrs - 11/12 - ELC - 22 - Nyquist
01.30% - 02 yrs - 11/12 - UFA - 27 - Miller
00.86% - 02 yrs - 11/12 - RFA - 23 - Mursak
00.83% - 03 yrs - 11/12 - RFA - 23 - Emmerton

Defensemen
06.77% - 07 yrs - 12/13 - UFA - 31 - Kronwall
05.38% - 02 yrs - 12/13 - RFA - 27 - Quincey
05.05% - 03 yrs - 11/12 - UFA - 27 - Ericsson
04.47% - 02 yrs - 11/12 - UFA - 27 - White
03.56% - 02 yrs - 12/13 - UFA - 29 - Colaiacovo
01.49% - 03 yrs - 10/11 - RFA - 23 - Kindl
01.47% - 03 yrs - 10/11 - ELC - 21 - Smith

Goaltenders
03.50% - 02 yrs - 11/12 - UFA - 27 - Howard
02.14% - 02 yrs - 12/13 - UFA - 27 - Gustavsson

Salary Cap by Year
05/06 - $39.0M
06/07 - $44.0M
07/08 - $50.3M
08/09 - $56.7M
09/10 - $56.8M
10/11 - $59.4M
11/12 - $64.3M
12/13 - $70.2M

Sources: Capgeek, Windows Calculator


Further signings will be added. And if I'm missing anything or made a mistake, fire away.

Matches very well with the role, and importance of each player at their respective position. At least, in my opinion. Hopefully Smith and Nyquist can really make their contracts a bargain over the years covered on their ELC. Also, this really helps show how good the value of Helm's contract is.

To add on to the context portion, here are a couple examples where I think it is important, at least when it comes to term:

- Datsyuk is nearly 3% higher than Zetterberg, but Zetterberg's contract is 5 years longer, and that likely lowered his cap %.

- Ericsson is only about 1.7% lower than Kronwall, but Kronwall's term is more than twice that of Ericsson, likely lowering Kronwall's cap %.

I'll assume the percentages are based on what the cap was the season they signed? Not the current one?

Also, I lol'd at the calculator being credited as a source.

Nevermind, read too fast. I see now.

For more context, you can easily say Pav and Hank took big discounts. A lot of players did but those are the noteworthy ones.

I'd like to see Franzen's and Z's numbers without the cap massaging years.

While term works to lower the impact for some players, Datsyuk signed for the same amount for every year. If anything, one correction might be to limit the avg to the first 5-7 yrs, and use that as the basis. For those cap massaging contracts, we all know that the players will receive the majority of their money in those first years, which also happen to be the years where they might stand any chance of actually earning their actual pay.

So, obviously, the thinking is that the players will retire and the team won't be penalized for the cap hit.

It's very unlikely that at 38 years old, or whatever, these guys are going to play for $1M.

There's been talk about closing the loopholes...I wonder what happens if these contract loopholes aren't grandfathered in...

I added additional lines for Zetterberg and Franzen when only accounting for the first 7 years of their contracts. I picked 7 because that is the next longest contract on the team (both Datsyuk and Kronwall).

I love how on one hand we call it a loophole and on the other we say teams are screwed for making signings this long. There are risks, you could end up with a guy like Franzen who has no motivation or work ethic and he's locked up until we put a man on Mars. Or you could sign a guy for 12 years and he gets injured in such a way that he can play 10 games a season before his hip snaps every November. You could also be locking up let's say a 10 mil player for 6 per year until he's 40. There are ups and downs. What I want to see gone is the safety net underneath the tightrope where teams can bury a player they don't want, ala the Blackhawks.

Worst case is that they chop off the cap-crunching years at the end, right? In which case Hank's hit would be around 7.5 and Mule's around 5.0.... so a total increase of about $2.5M in cap hit. Seems like almost nothing given the amount of cap space the Wings have.

Shows the importance of getting the cap hits down. Trimming down both Z and Franzen's cap hits by roughly 3% each allows you to add another top6 forward.

Theoretically.
In practice, it hasn't happened yet.

this,and i'd also like to see putting players on 35+ contracts(Pronger for example) on the LTIR no longer free up their cap space

I mean....isn't the entire point of the 35+ rule in the first place supposed to be that you can't get rid of their cap hits no matter what? it's not quite exactly the same as being able to completely remove it since it eats into the 10% overage you are allowed between seasons but it's way too close

I can't imagine the Players Union would agree to any CBA that doesn't allow those players to keep the contracts they agreed to.

At the same time, since they earn about 50% of their earnings in the first few years, the players might welcome geting out of those low salary years and getting even more salary.

What's even more eye opening is that the cap averaging method lets you spread the total equally over the term. Now, if you take Z's actual pay per year and were to look at the actual pay as a percentage of the cap, his share is even higher.

If you take Suter's actual pay of $12 MM, he will get 17% of the cap. His cap hit says he only gets 10.7%.


Moral of the story? This system is really screwed up.

They will almost have to be grandfathered in cannot imagine the fallout from the union if they come after this.

Although the end of contract brings up an interesting point, I think this is a big problem for Alfie in Ottawa. He can only earn a million bucks this year and it looks like he still wants to play but to put his body through that for just that amount is interesting. We all assume Z and Franzen won't meet the end of their contracts, the truth is if they are still playing at a high level and want to keep playing hockey you almost feel sorry for them at that point considering the grind it takes and physical punishment at that age.

Easy fix: cap hit is the salary. Can change year by year. Never understood why they averaged it anyway, since that mostly just creates those massage years that nobody expects these guys to play. Anyway, let's see how Minnesota swings Parise and Suter when they have to devote $24 million in cap on the two for several years ;)

In deals like that, the guys got paid UP FRONT. So they already earned that cash by the final years. You can say "only a million bucks for that punishment" or you can say "Was Brad Richards really a $12 million dollar player this year?"

^Getting only a mil in your last season? Let's just call it earning that massive amount in the first year or few of the deal. Sure it's saving the worst for last but that's how it goes.

Wings were up against the cap in 9/10. Franzen and Z's lower cap hits were supposed to allow the wings to fit Hudler's RFA/arbitration contract under the cap, but he bolted for the khl. It would have allowed them to keep sammy (borderline top-6er) if they had known hudler was leaving. As is, it allowed for the signing of bert (and j will) once hudler left and the free agent market had been picked over, if memory serves.

Thanks! This is how contracts should be judged. Suter + Parise signed for 10.7% of the cap, equivalent to Z and just slightly more than Kronwall. Anyone saying that "Datsyuk sets the cap limit" on this team should be going by the 13.3% above, not 6.7 million. In this context, I think Suter is slightly underpaid, although he is slightly underpaid now, not sure about 12 years from now ....

The way hockey is played today, there is no way these players will play for 1 million when they have 30x that amount in the bank. The game is too dangerous to play for that little. The only reason Alfie is coming back is because he's getting extended. He's lucky he only added 1 year at 1 million on the tail end. If it was 2-3 years at 1 million, I think he'd definitely retire. Can't see Z and Franzen playing multiple years at 1 million unless the team really wants them to and guilts them into playing, which they'd only do if they were still worth their cap hit.

Absolutely. I think these long contracts might actually be one reason why I fear the league is headed for a lockout.

Well that's not how Holland used to set the team cap, e.g., the Lidstrom Rule. It wasn't based on the percentages we're seeing here. ;)


Now, if we are to use your method for a player's share of the cap maximum, why didn't Holland go higher? He wanted Suter here for Kronwall money?

Didn't he offer 13 years 90m?