The View From Wisconsin

As the NHL and NHLPA continue their never-ending quest to completely ruin hockey, I stumbled upon a proposal made by Jeremy Roenick that could be a theoretical "compromise solution" to the bargaining stalemate.

Now, I have as little hope of this agreement being approved as I do of winning the Powerball lottery jackpot, but here goes my take on the so-called "Roenick Plan":

• Top salary for any player - adjusted to include bonuses and incentives, as would be agreed upon by the league and the players - would be set at a particular level for a given year, based on average salary. For the first year, this amount would be $7 million.
• No more than three players would be allowed to play at this top salary level for any one team.
• A second-tier "cap" would be set at an amount below the top salary level of about $2 million, or the amount of the average player salary in the league. For the first year, this amount would be set at $5 million.
• No more than three players would be allowed to play at this salary level for any one team.
• Teams would not be required to have any of their players in either of these top tiers in salary.
• The six lowest-paid players on each team could not exceed a set amount, which would also be based on the league minimum salary. The total would be no more than twice the league minimum, times five. This would be set at $5 million for the first year.
• Rookies and first-year players could not make more than the league average salary in their first two years, including all bonuses and incentives.
• Bonus numbers would be pro-rated over the term of a contract when determining a player's cap number (i.e., a $1.2 million signing bonus on a three-year deal would be pro-rated at $400,000 in year one, $400,000 in year two and $400,000 in year three, unless specified in the contract).
• Incentives would be figured by the attainability of the incentive. Appearance and/or minute incentives would be figured on a dollar-to-dollar basis (That is, every dollar of the incentive would count towards the cap number). Statistical incentives would be figured based on the player's last three years in the NHL; if the amount is at or below the player's established levels, the amount would be figured on a dollar-to-dollar basis. If the amount was up to 5% above the player's established levels, the amount would be figured at a 75% basis (3/4ths of the incentive amount; if it was 5-10% above, it would be figured at 50%. 10 to 20% would be figured at 25%; while anything over 20% would not be counted towards the cap. Example: if player A had an incentive of $10,000 for 50 goals, and the goal totals from his last three NHL seasons were 49, 50 and 51, the entire $10k would be counted towards the cap. If player B had the same incentive, but his goal totals were 39, 40 and 41, none of the $10k would be counted towards his cap number.
• Player award incentives may not exceed a set amount, regardless of the player. Such amounts are not counted towards any cap.

In theory, the highest a team's payroll could be for the first year of this plan would be $94.9 million. If a team chose not to have any "capped" players, the maximum would be $88.3 million.

Conversely, a team could be put out on the ice for "only" $15.2 million (six bottom players at $5 million, plus 17 others at $600k).

A team with 17 players at $2 million each would have a payroll of around $39 million.