Deck Stacked Against New York In New CBA

New York Islander Fan Central | 5/27/2013 02:13:00 AM |
The corporate teams simply have too many advantages for the New York Islanders to keep up, that's only going to get worse as payrolls head toward a hundred million dollars in a few years. 


The usual suspects will buyout their mistakes or sell them off with the massive front-loaded parts of the contracts paid, time for another front-loaded deal at thirty five percent.

About the only good news is those signings cannot be spread out above seven years.

It's not like Montreal or San Jose were misguided to take on Scott Gomez contract, or that Mike Richards, Jeff Carter were bad decisions by Los Angeles/Columbus.

It's simply that the biggest years of the contract were already paid which was a big advantage. 

Forget this franchise has the lowest attendance in the NHL, with no corporate revenue streams, and a fan base that will never pay what people will in Toronto/Philadelphia for regular season games demanding similar spending.

Now the corporate Red Wings will enter the division, with Brian Burke gone, and a new ownership in Toronto, expect the days of them not front-loading coming to an end. 

To say nothing of the 16-14 conference.

With the new rules they are outgunned financially even before 7/5 with potential UFA allowed to meet with other teams, with local media selling their team, and the New York Islanders having no such media.

Now portions of contracts can be traded also.

Trades? This is mostly a league devoid of major trades because all the top players available are headed for UFA, come with huge baggage, with the top hundred players all having some forum of NTC/NMC, this is not the NHL of Bill Torrey any longer where you can do a Lafontaine-Turgeon multi-player trade because most if not all of those players control where they can go.

Sure come the trade deadline winning/competitive teams can completely remake themselves with draft picks for pending UFA-see Pittsburgh, another huge advantage. 

Jermone Iginla turned down a trade to Boston, he approved a trade to Pittsburgh. 

History under Garth Snow seems to be a take it or leave it kind of mentality (perhaps on both sides) which does not bode well for this team moving forward with Mark Streit, a critical free agent who will be impossible to replace offensively.

The forty eight game whatever ended later so perhaps negotiations are behind somewhat with the NHL players.

Mitchell Theoret and Brenden Kichton are no longer Islander prospects if not signed by Friday.