New Collective Bargaining Rumour Gives Toronto Maple Leafs Huge Advantage
The Toronto Maple Leafs got some good news yesterday.
Amid rumours that the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement would be extended. there was some extremely good news for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
I’ll get to the good news in a minute, but first some background.
The NHL is working to enter what they are calling Phase Three of the Return to Play Initiative, and to do so, there must be agreement on things like health protocols and extending contacts, etc.
Additionally, there is talk of extending the current CBA and avoiding another labor dispute.
Toronto Maple Leafs get some Good News
TSN’s Bob McKenzie tweeted this:
It’s quite possible, if all continues to go well in their talks, the NHL and NHLPA will today finalize and announce they’ve reached a “tentative” deal on: Phase 3/4 Return To Play (RTP) protocols; CBA extension; transition rules; and critical dates calendar.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) July 2, 2020
This is all important information for hockey fans, and if you’re interested, I recommend you go straight to the source for more information.
But Bob also tweeted about a rumour that was going around, and that is where the Toronto Maple Leafs are directly effected.
Talk was, that the NHL would allow teams an amnesty buyout when the new deal was ratified.
That means that teams would be able to get out of one bad contract with no penalty, in order to help them navigate the fact that the salary cap is expected to stay where it currently is for the next three years.
Seeing all sorts of speculative chatter amongst fans discussing possibility of new CBA amnesty buyouts to help clubs manage flat cap. Amnesty buyouts are NOT part of agreement. They might make a GM’s life easier but wouldn’t help owners/players navigate their troubled economy.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) July 2, 2020
This is great news for the Leafs because they don’t have any contracts they’d even want to buy out, meanwhile 100% of their competition is stuck with at least one bad deal.
I listed all 30 other teams in this post, each with an example of a contract that would be the worst one on the Leafs.
Basically, ever team in the NHL is stuck with their worst deals, and the Leafs have been brilliant about managing their cap, so they’re going to really benefit here.
If the NHL had allowed buy outs, the Leafs could have used their financial power to buy out a player from a cheaper/poorer team and received some assets in exchange (much like how they briefly acquired Robin Lehner earlier this year in order to retain some of his salary and get a 5th round pick).
But this is way is a much larger advantage for them because all other teams are stuck with their bad contracts. The Leafs, meanwhile, do not have a single regrettable contract on their roster.
So every single team the Leafs are competing against just got bad news, while nothing changes for them.
Next. Leafs Forward Grades for Regular Season. dark
That is good news, and a significant competitive advantage.