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Toronto Maple Leafs: 3 Changes The NHL Should Make When It Returns

By Stephen Nixon

TORONTO, ON - DECEMBER 21: Mitchell Marner #16, Auston Matthews #34, and Morgan Rielly #44 of the Toronto Maple Leafs wait for play to resume against the Detroit Red Wings during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on December 21, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Red Wings 4-1. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - DECEMBER 21: Mitchell Marner #16, Auston Matthews #34, and Morgan Rielly #44 of the Toronto Maple Leafs wait for play to resume against the Detroit Red Wings during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on December 21, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Red Wings 4-1. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images) /
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Toronto Maple Leafs
DALLAS, TX – JUNE 23: (l-r) Kyle Dubas and Brendan Shanahan of the Toronto Maple Leafs . (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

#1. Changing the Salary Cap Structure

When hockey returns, there are going to be a number of question marks about the salary cap.

With zero dollars in gate revenue generated for the rest of this season, and potentially next season, teams will be losing a ton of money. Although not every team budgets playoff revenue into their business plan, many are dependent on those games to make up a large percentage of their ticket sales for the season.

Playoff gate revenue is much higher than regular season revenue because you can charge much more per ticket and you’re more likely to sell-out the building. With every single team missing out on that gate revenue, hundreds of millions of dollars will be lost.

The only way to help subsidize these costs would be to have players take a pay-cut and you know that’s not going to happen, so what should they do?

The bigger teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs won’t be affected as much since they’re a huge organization, but the small market teams will be. Therefore, the NHL should adopt the ‘Designated Player Rule” from Major League Soccer.

This rule allows a team to pay three players whatever they want, but it only accounts for $612,500 of the salary cap. Therefore, each team in the NHL will be able to continue to pay their three highest players and it doesn’t affect the cap.

For example, John Tavares, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews would only cost $612,500 each against the salary cap, although the Leafs are paying them over $30 million total.

By doing this, maybe the cap falls from $81.5 million to $50 million so that it gives each team the ability to take on cost or shed cost, depending on how badly this pandemic has affected them.

For example, the New Jersey Devils have already started giving out ticket refunds for next year, so they’re losing a ton of money by this work stoppage daily. With the money lost, they’d probably prefer not to pay P.K Subban $9 million per year based on his performance and price-tag.

Typically a team wouldn’t be able to take on a $9 million contract due to salary restrictions, however, a team could now use one of their Designated Player spots to take on Subban’s contract. A team like the New York Rangers, who are more financially stable, could afford to pay Subban’s contract and it would allow New Jersey to get out of a financial jam.

The $50 million is a hypothetical salary cap number but the Designated Player Rule could help the struggling teams shed contracts, and keep spending to a limit in a time of need.

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