Rigamrole - A Foot In The Crease - Episode 2.18

www.afootinthecrease.com

There were a variety of reasons that sent the NHL into an 18 month abyss when the lockout began in September of 2004. Fixed player costs, revenue sharing, a salary cap. All were among the reasons for the darkest days the NHL had ever seen. Yes, the hot button issue was always the NHL’s demand for a salary cap, but the wonderful benefit lurking behind all this strife was a league filled with parity. The salary cap would not only fix player costs at a definitive level to protect free spending owners from themselves but it would also level the playing field. All of a sudden, whether you were the poorest team or the richest team, there were only so many dollars you could spend. The quality of a hockey team now depended on the effectiveness at which it was managed not the amount of dollars in its back pocket.

Now a season and a half into the new economic landscape, boy are we seeing parity in a way we have rarely seen parity in the NHL before. As the Eastern Conference standings sit on January 6th, a mere 8 points separate 5th place from 14th. Essentially this means a good week can put a team in good playoff position and a bad week can drop a team to the lower depths of the conference.

This log jam of teams not only represents parity but parity between a good cross section of teams with different financial situations. Small markets like Pittsburgh, Carolina and Ottawa are competing point for point with some of the league’s most wealthy teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers. For wealthy teams, the emphasis has been put back on pragmatic management instead of fixing problems with money.

The value of games in January is also very high. With so many games against opponents within 5 or 6 points of each other, wins are crucial. Had the Maple Leafs lost both games to Boston this past week, they would have been 7 points behind the Bruins instead of one point ahead. The salary cap is working and parody is the result, but hey, all that was just rigamarole.