The new WHA salary systems

[CerebusClones]

While NHL will be stuck in a lockout to negociate a new CBA between the players and the owners, the WHA will come back to life. It appears that quite a few players without NHL contracts will play for the WHA, and lucky for us, we migth still be able to watch players like Hull or Kariya next year durint the lockout.

I really like the salary system for the new WHA, and the NHL could pick a thing or 2 from it. It's actually very close to what a feel would be the best way to award salaries.

From what I've read, every team will be allowed a hard salary cap of 10M dollars, with the exception of one star player, whom could be signed at any price.

That allows the star players, the guys who attract crowds, the guys that are hard to replace, to be paid according to market prices. I've mentionned it before, I have no problems with star players making 8-12 millions a year. What I have a problem with is Brisebois making 4M+ a year, Holik making 8M a year, Lapointe making 5M, or even Dackell making 1.5M. People don't pay 120$ to see these guys, they pay it to see guys like Forsberg, Thornton, Lidstrom, or Pronger. Dackell should not be a millionaire.

Obviously, the amounts would have to be higher for the NHL than the WHA. However, a hard salary cap of 20M with the exception of 2 star players. That means that even the richest teams would hardly ever spend more than 40M dollars, which is not much higher than the 35M wish expressed by Gary Bettman. That also means that every team would have a chance at lending one or 2 star players. Detroit would have a hard time signing all of Yzerman, Fedorov, Hull, Shanahan, Lidstrom, Hasek, etc, thus some of them would go to Nashville, Montreal, Buffalo, ..

However, the NHL might lose some players whi feel they are star players to other leagues like WHA. But then they'll just have to convince them that the glory of the NHL is worth playing for less. For example, if the NHL markets its players better, they will lend more sponsor deals.

Unfortunately, this will never happen because the owners are likely to cave in to the NHLPA.