Free Agency - signing bonuses?

[BluesGM]

I was thinking of a little twist we could possible add to free agency this offseason....

with the 50+ mil we got in $$$ - money in this league has sort of become obsolete. we're all drowning in it, so it really has no use in trades since we all have plenty. supply/demand...theres no demand.

i think a way to fix that is to allow signing bonuses to be offered to unrestricted free agents. we can have the same setup nick used last year, where the first round of bidding would be determined to see who the serious bidders are, and then from then forward you can add a signing bonus to your offers.

for example:

round 1: Blues offer Bryan Allen 4 years, 5 mil per
Canucks offer Bryan Allen 4 years, 4.75 mil per
Jets offer Bryan Allen 4 years, 1.75 mil per

Out of those offers, the Jets would be excluded as they're not in the ballpark of the other 2 offers.

in round 2, 3, etc you can up your offers and also offer signing bonuses

for example:

Blues offer Bryan Allen 4 years, 5 mil per, $6 mil signing bonus
Canucks offer Bryan Allen 4 years, 4.75 mil per, $8 mil signing bonus

in that instance, the Canucks offered $1mil more total, so they would sign him.

the only problem with this is it could become a cheap way to circumvent the cap. i could offer Allen 4 years at 500k per....but offer a $40 million signing bonus and my offer would be the best by far. that's why I think the setup Nick has is perfect - as you could exclude any offers that are clearly just attempting to circumvent the cap. that's why breaking it down by "rounds" makes sense. the first round seperates the serious bids (cap-hit wise) - and then the next round could be a "tiebreaker" of sorts.

last season, sedin got the same offer from like 4 different teams but Florida got him by pure luck of guessing a number. i think signing bonus would be a cool twist to add. money would serve a purpose, IMO. whatever signing bonus you give a player would be deducted from your finances. so if i have $50mil right now and gave Bryan Allen a $40m signing bonus, i'd be left with $10mil.

it's 4:30 AM when I am posting this and i'm pretty retarded after midnight so i hope this makes even a modicum of sense. just an idea, it's obviously nicks call ;D

[LosAngelesGM]

I honestly think thats a great idea. Keep the rounds of bidding to make people have serious offers, then starting Round 2, we can utilize the money we never use anyways for separating offers on free agents. i think its a very good idea. Hopefully Nick likes it.

[oilersgm]

I thought this was NHL not NFL

[Avs]

If this were the NHL, 20% of the teams would be bankrupt by now.

As for Alex's idea, I like it.

[leafs]

hate the idea....I've lowered my salaries by $20 mill and am still not making any cash soo its not really an even playing field

If you do it though you will have to make it a max of 2 or 3 times the base salary or else it will get way out of hand....(ex. $2 mill (2) offer max SB would be $4 or $6 mill)

I'd be way more in favour of us getting to use the cash or player upgrades on guys before each season (something like this as an example www.legendshockey.raksimassociation.com/endorsements.htm

That way rebuilding teams aren't shut out in FA by teams who have $80+ mill and everyone can take advantage of some rating boosters that wouldnt inflate ratings because they would only last 1 season

[rlow34]

Feb 19, 2012 12:06:06 GMT -5 oilersgm said:

I thought this was NHL not NFL

agreed

[rlow34]

it's 4:30 AM when I am posting this and i'm pretty retarded after midnight so i hope this makes even a modicum of sense. just an idea, it's obviously nicks call ;D

Drink to many wine coolers again?

[BluesGM]

Feb 19, 2012 13:32:45 GMT -5 @leafs said:

hate the idea....I've lowered my salaries by $20 mill and am still not making any cash soo its not really an even playing field

If you do it though you will have to make it a max of 2 or 3 times the base salary or else it will get way out of hand....(ex. $2 mill (2) offer max SB would be $4 or $6 mill)

I'd be way more in favour of us getting to use the cash or player upgrades on guys before each season (something like this as an example www.legendshockey.raksimassociation.com/endorsements.htm)

That way rebuilding teams aren't shut out in FA by teams who have $80+ mill and everyone can take advantage of some rating boosters that wouldnt inflate ratings because they would only last 1 season

well in my proposal, cap room is still far more important than money. if you offered a better deal in round one than a team with 80million in finances, they wouldnt even get the chance to offer a signing bonus in round 2. it would just be a tiebreaker of sorts used to differentiate offers that are pretty similar.

i also dont think signing bonuses would need to get capped....if someone wants to be retarded and offer $60 mil signing bonuses to mediocre FA's - let them, just make sure they are punished once they are in the red.

btw...that link didn't work.....

[ECFHL Commissioner]

I wouldn't necessarily be against signing bonus', but I also agree with the Leafs. Most teams still aren't making that much money. I do plan on tweaking the open market a little bit. Not exactly sure of the details yet, but I don't want every FA to get a 4 year deal, we'll eventually run out of free agents.

As for the money for seasonal upgrades, it's a thought, but I think with the amount of trades that happen in our league, it'd be tough to regulate.

[CanucksGM]

I like the leafs idea with endorsements.