The Trade-Offs of a Salary Cap Era

Quick historical facts:

• I once watched a championship team comprised of: arguably the most talented center of all time, a "second-line" center who would be a first ballot entry into Hockey's Hall, a bevy of scoring wingers (at least four) who would end their careers having scored hundreds of goals in the NHL, and two defensemen who ended their careers atop the list of the highest scoring defensemen of all time.
  

• The first championship team I watched played in 1991. Before NHL salaries skyrocketed. Before a salary cap had to be implemented.

• While I grew up watching superstars do what superstars do by default--star-- for my team, I watched a team owner try to keep a team together, saw my team fall into bankruptcy, and watched superstar talent, quite literally, auctioned off for very little in return (the initial "return" was years of losing, the later "return" would come in the form of very high draft picks earned during those losing seasons).

Quick present-day facts:

• The NHL has a salary cap designed to ensure that a well-managed, well-run team can remain competitive. That no "rich" team or "rich" owner can merely "outspend" and in so doing, capture a championship. To level the playing field, so to speak. And, of course, in an attempt to keep salaries, at least relatively speaking, in appropriate line with revenue.

• I watched a flawed, imperfect team capture a championship last year. Make no mistake: the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins earned the right to be called champions. Make no mistake, either, that the Cup champions of 2009 were no match for the depth of the 1991 Cup champions. That 1991 team had centers of Lemieux-Francis-Trottier (admittedly Trottier in the twilight of his career), flanked by wingers named Recchi, Stevens, Mullen, and Jagr, and, were not that enough, the back-end featured the names of Coffey, Murphy, and Samuelsson.

• In the 2009-10 season, I watch Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and know they have no equivalent of wings who went by the names of Jagr, Recchi, Stevens, Tocchet, or Mullen. I watch deep, deep teams, like the Chicago Blackhawks, and know that there is going to be "cap space" trouble as soon as next season. The salary cap and contemporary salaries simply do not allow for a team with the depth of the 1991 Cup champions to be comprised, or, if somehow comprised, to remain together for more than a season.

Reflections on the Inevitable "Trade-Offs" that come with a Salary Cap:

• I watched my team go through bankruptcy. I watched superstars and even just above-average NHL players traded because of poor financial decisions, sure, but also because the league didn't have an appropriate economic structure with a salary cap in place. I saw the heights of hockey glory in championships captured and the dearths of superstars traded for a bag of money (yes, literally in one case) and the hockey equivalent of dead weight.

• Trade-offs have to happen. In a salary cap world where it is simply impossible to have it all, choices have to be made. You want the best top three centers in hockey, it means you're simply not going to have an elite winger, unless you somehow luck into a kid like a teenaged Jagr, who can pop in around 30 goals on a rookie contract. If you want to pay for a clutch goaltender, for an elite #1 defenseman, you give your superstar centers the best you can give them. But you can't give them everything. And, yeah, that means, in some sense, you will never have a team that's as deeply laden with future HOF talent as were the previous championship teams of your franchise. It's simply no longer feasible in the actual circumstances of reality.
  

A Few Conclusions About the Inevitable "Trade-Offs" that Come with the Cap:

• Trade-offs get made. You want an elite winger; you're likely going to have to give up an elite center. Your team is going to change. Or, if you want to keep your center depth, you live with the fact that your wingers will can never match the "elite" skill set of your centers, and you go for players who can complement rather than seek ones who can independently dominate.
  

• If there ever comes a day when someone marvels--as I do when I look back at the HOF-laden roster of the 1991 Cup champions--at how in the world the Penguins once had Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Fleury, and, for kicks and giggles, let's hope Letang and Goligoski and Kennedy and Talbot all develop really, really well, on the same roster, there's going to be an answer that anyone who watched the 2009 playoffs knows too well. That Crosby and Malkin, while already dominant, were only becoming who they would be. That Staal showed glimpses of the utterly dominant two-way force he'd eventually become in his prime. That Goligoski didn't even see the ice except for an injury to Sergei Gonchar, that Kris Letang( who we can dream becomes a dominant two-way stalwart) was a 21-year-old playing protected minutes who didn't see any penalty killing time, that Talbot and Kennedy weren't yet known for who they'd later be known as: clutch, incredibly important, supporting role players who threw in key goals. We'd know that we watched a championship team that had the fortune of having many of those "kids" still on rookie contracts. And we'd know that when those kids became champions and started consistently performing as they did in the playoffs, that, given the cap, given real-world constraints, at some point, without the NHL exploding in new revenue, it wouldn't be possible to keep that core together, forever. Not if five of those kids somehow become worth $10 million dollars apiece.
  

Overall Summary:

Having seen what I saw when the Penguins couldn't sustain the superstars in the old NHL economic model, I get the need for the new one. For the cap. For long-term sustainability. Simply put, it just makes sense.

And, I get, too, the reality of the salary cap means that it's only going to be at the Olympics, or All-Star Games, where a trio of three expensive, superstar centers gets to have equally elite wingers as playmates/linemates.

More than that, though, go, the salary cap speaks of a reality I've learned too well, that nothing good in sports lasts forever. That contenders contend for a finite amount of time.

That, for the moment, I need to enjoy whatever I have the chance to watch. Whether that's an infuriatingly underperforming Penguins' power play featuring, perhaps, three future Hall of Famers (or, who knows, maybe there could be five depending on how the kids develop) or last year's championship team or this year's defending champs, the thing is: the trade-offs happen. In a cap era, for the promise that every team will have a real shot to experience what my team got the chance to experience last year (the Cup!), I live with the inevitable reality that I will never again see--except for All-Star Games or Olympic games--a power play that looks anything like the one the 1991 Penguins iced. And that, on the off chance I'm seeing five future Hall of Fame players on the ice at the same time, I'm likely seeing them before they're who they're going to be with time and development.

But do you know what? For every team to have a fair, equal shot at hockey's holy grail? Seeing that glimpse of glory, achieved last season, by those Pittsburgh kids--it's only right to make sure there's an even playing field. An actual chance.

That's what the cap, and 21st century economic reality, provides for every NHL team. Every season.

So when your flawed team captures the crown, rejoice in what you've had the chance to witness rather than wince because you've just watched an inevitably, in some way, flawed team win it all.

In economic terms, is this "satisficing"? Yes. It's not going to be the Penguins of the early nineties or even the Red Wings of early this millennium. But ask the players who capture the Cup each season, and ask the fans.

It's the best trade-off we can make. And, when the Olympics and All-Star games, or that one special season comes, just sit back and watch.

As I've already done tonight....Sidney Crosby with a playmate, now Evgeni Malkin with one, too.

Please, simply, just, only, always, enjoy the show.