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WHY KEITH PRIMEAU COUNTS AGAINST THE UPPER LIMIT IN 2007-08

To explain how this all came about, I'll give some background.

As those of you who frequently visited the old site remember,
whenever I put out a list of salary and cap information on the Flyers,
Keith Primeau's name was always on it ... and I always got questions
about why. Until recently, the best I could offer was, "Because the
NHL still lists him on its files" - but I never had a better
explanation than that. I didn't know why the NHL would continue to
list him even though he had retired, but if they did ... well, there
must be a reason - whatever it is.

That changed recently when on the Flyers team board at
HFBoards.com, a poster gave a quote from an article written by Rob
Parent of the Delaware County Times which talked about the signing of
Daniel Briere - in that article, Parent noted that to get Briere in
under the salary cap, the Flyers would defer money they owed Keith
Primeau. This didn't make any sense - were the Flyers really paying
Primeau even though he was retired? Could deferring money they were
going to pay him help their cap situation? Was he counting throughout
2006-07?

Shortly after that, I made a note on the Flyers cap page about the
possibility that Primeau still might count toward the cap, and James
Mirtle sent me a link to an NHL.com article about Primeau's retirement
in September, 2006. In that article, it mentioned that the team would
continue to pay Primeau, but the payments wouldn't count against the
salary cap. OK, fine ... so the team's going to pay him is '06-07 and
'07-08 salary ... but why wouldn't he count against the cap?

A few days before the 2006-07 season started, Steve Konowalchuk
retired from the Colorado Avalanche due to injury, but the Avalanche
elected to pay him his 2006-07 salary; Adrian Dater of the Denver Post
later revealed that because the Avs were paying Konowalchuk, he would
count against the Upper Limit for the Avalanche in 2006-07 but the
team could use the LTI exception for him. If Konowalchuk was counting
against the Upper Limit for the Avalanche because he was still being
paid, it didn't make sense that Primeau wouldn't count against the
Upper Limit for the Flyers.

So ... I contacted the NHL office in New York, and asked what the
actual story was on Primeau ... and got an answer.

1. Primeau did in fact count against the Upper Limit for the
Flyers in 2006-07. He counted $3,166,667 - his Averaged Salary under
the contract.

2. The Flyers did get permission to invoke the LTI exception on
Primeau in 2006-07 and have already filed to do so again in 2007-08;
they simply have to notify the NHL office when they wish to invoke the
LTI exception. The amount of Primeau's Averaged Salary they can
replace will depend on where the team stands with respect to the Upper
Limit. (I'll have an explanation about this on the CAP FAQ page in a
few days.)

3. Primeau will count $3,166,667 against the Upper Limit in
2007-08 (but again, the team can invoke 50.10(d) to replace his
Averaged Salary), and the timing of the payment of his 2007-08 salary
will not affect whether he counts against the Upper Limit in '07-08
(or how much) ... meaning he would not count against the Upper Limit
for the Flyers in 2008-09 or beyond.

So ... this leaves a few questions unanswered:
-- Where did Philadelphia end the 2006-07 season with respect to
the Upper Limit? They probably ended exactly at $44 million after
considering Primeau's LTI exception ... but I'll re-run numbers within
a week to nail this down. No matter what, I'm confident they didn't
end the season over.
-- Where do the Flyers stand currently? The only signings the
team has had since June 18 which would impact the offseason cap
calculations are Kimmo Timonen, Scott Hartnell, and Daniel Briere.
Timonen is officially recorded, and putting Primeau back into the
calculations and adding Hartnell's reported signing and Briere's
reported signing puts the Flyers over the offseason limit of $55.33
million by a little more than $2.2 million. That means either
a. One of Briere or Hartnell is not officially signed. Both
are listed on the NHLPA website for their '07-08 salary, and generally
the NHLPA doesn't list a player as signed unless the contract is filed
with Central Registry and accepted.
b. The LTI exception granted for Primeau applies in the
offseason as well. I can't find a basis to support that in the CBA -
it's possible, but I can't find anything on it. It would also raise
the question of whether or not Mike Rathje (who the Flyers also got a
LTI exception for) doesn't count at the moment - if he doesn't count,
then it would imply that the Flyers have an extra $3.5 million to work
with this offseason.
c. The Flyers are currently over the offseason Upper Limit,
and thus not in compliance with Article 50. If that were indeed the
case, I would imagine word would have leaked out by now.

However ... it's very clear that Keith Primeau should be listed on
the Flyers cap pages and counted in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 cap
calculations. As such, I'll have him listed on the applicable pages
and spreadsheets as needed, but will leave this page up for at least
the entire 2007-08 season so everyone can refer back to this as
needed.


Sheesh, this is just ridiculous

On Jul 6, 6:31 pm, Rick Y <n....RemoveThis@business.com> wrote:
> Thanks Lisa! It's ridiculous alright and it seems to severely punish
> those teams willing to take a chance on older or injury prone players.
> It baffles me that if a player retires that the team would be penalized
> one bit. The message to GMs seems to be ..avoid injury prone and older
> players if you want to be able to afford to put a team on the ice in the
> future.


I said it before, and I'll say it again. If you can't afford to put a
good team on the ice, that's your problem. Salary Caps are bullshit.