Welcome back into the world's most trusted weekly salary cap article, if you want to talk numbers then you've come to the right place. Or you ended up here by accident. In any case, we have some salary cap news along with salary cap adjacent news that could impact the salary cap floor and ceiling in the coming seasons.  

From University to the NHL – ELC deals signed this past week.

With the college hockey season ending for most teams, it's that time of year to where players that are drafted to the NHL, who currently play NCAA hockey, are coming out to play at the NHL level. I may be missing some pieces here, but the ones of note that I wanted to bring attention to that recently signed their entry level deals are Sam Rinzel (D – University of Minnesota), Ryan Leonard (RW – Boston College), Jimmy Snuggerud (RW – University of Minnesota), Gabe Perreault (LW- Boston College), and Trey Augustine (G – Michigan State).

First off, I've seen different takes of the length of Entry-Level Contracts and can say that the standard is three seasons. I once had a thought that the terms and length could eventually be different than where we are now, and that mostly had to do with bringing talent over internationally. A player drafted from the KHL could make more than an entry-level contract is worth here in North America, and as long as this doesn't begin to hurt prospects coming over, I think the entry-level process will stay the same.

I'm talking to my dynasty buddies specifically, but there's some names on this list of players that I mentioned who could make a positive impact to a lineup immediately and that's Sam Rinzel for the Blackhawks and Ryan Leonard for the Capitals. Not saying that the others won't be impactful, but to me these were the two that I wanted to highlight. Sam Rinzel is already in a small sample size, the Blackhawks best offensive defensemen. Not that it's saying a lot there, but the offensive upside is great, and he's going to be a player that could eventually be excellent quarterbacking a top power play. Leonard for the Capitals could be what we saw at Minnesota, a very good two-way player with good shooting capabilities. He is going to surprise people who may not be aware of his game in the aspect of his size as well. The NCAA hockey schedule is one to where players can lift throughout the week with games only on the weekend; you can put on size very quickly in that regiment as opposed to playing every other night. I don't worry about him stepping into a role with the Capitals and disrupting their current group.  

I mentioned Gabe Perreault and Trey Augustine as well, starting off with Perreault. I watch a decent amount of NCAA hockey and to me this was a player that if I'm him, I'm not sure I want to start the clock on my entry level deal, when I could go back to college and progress for another season. Only he knows if he's NHL ready, and of course this is all easy for me to say, but just eye test I wasn't sure if this was a player that would sign right now. For Augustine, he turned down his ELC offer from the Red Wings to go back to Michigan State next season. For the Wings, I can absolutely see them wanting to get a young goaltender in their system to work with as soon as they can, but there's no downside to going back and playing high level university hockey either. This isn't uncommon where players either commit to going back to university following the end of the college season, or outright declaring they are going to play at the NCAA instead of immediately turning pro.

Rogers and NHL announce extended media rights deal.

Sometimes things just lineup perfect, as I saw this news break today at work that Rogers and the NHL agreed upon a new media rights deal that will take them all the way to the 2037 – 2038 NHL season worth $7.7B US ($11 CAN). I wrote back in January, that I thought this was in going to be in the cards moving forward but upon seeing the term and numbers, I had questions that immediately came to mind. Regarding the salary cap, the two almost go together as the cap number and media rights deals are directly impacted by the health of the NHL.

For the National Hockey League, my question for them regarding this deal with Rogers is with their previous media deal about to expire, did they explore other options for streaming games? Amazon already has rights to 10 games, along with select Monday games, so were they approached at all concerning a new rights deal to broadcast games. Typically, in these sorts of transactions, there's client facing meetings that take place, which usually involve the two-sides meeting as frequently as requested upon, where there would be a notice if there is some sort of request for proposal. At that point select entities would go through the process of trying to win the NHL's broadcasting rights, which was not the case here. With the decline of regional cable networks in the states, I was curious if the NHL would turn to a larger broadcasting partner, but I am glad that they settled back with Sportsnet in the end.

For Sportsnet I have multiple thoughts, first and foremost being how did they come up with that $7.7B offer and how exactly do they think they will recoup that cost over the duration of the rights deal. I know people may say through advertising, and yes, while ad spend does make up a large percentage of total revenue, it can be product dependent. Just think, if there comes a season where there are no Canadian teams that make playoffs, that's ad revenue that is not generated for the network. Sportsnet's go-to-market is the NHL, and if that scenario ever happened, then their offerings for live sports would be the Blue Jays and my guess is the Raptors, far behind the NHL regarding profitable value. I'd imagine shortly, there will be an all-call with various investors and they'll tell them that there's ad revenue included in their forecasted financial plans, along with everyone's favorite, subscriber licensing price increases. There is no world where that number per subscriber or subscriber household, does not have some sort of upsurge. I'd hope that innovation is at the forefront of their offering, and that goes beyond a new camera angle or talent in front or behind the camera. I will say as well that this will still not solve blackouts for games as this will still exist, sorry friends.

*Salary Cap data from PuckPedia.com  

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