EHM The Blue Line

is there any way to let big earners take medium to large salary cuts.
like from a 5M deal to a 2.5 or less deal.
i got way to much high earners on my team and im trying to force some salary cuts without damaging my core team.

thanks for any help i get

Not likely. If they are worth that they will want that. Sometimes if they sit out half the year they will sign for less. But most likely not. You may have to move some guys to stay under the cap, just like in the real NHL. Or not.

I definitely find it hard to actually get those players to take salary cuts. Plus, I find it even harder for them to sign for cheaper deals when their current contracts start to run out as well.

It seems like sometimes their age can change their minds or even possibly their stats from that year, but overall, big time players will always want more money.

Heck, if they won't take what you give them, trade them away.

i got scott nierdermayer to take a paycut, as he was gettin older he was getitn worse, so that's probably why, but i got him down from £3.6 million to 3 million, i play in the pound sterling by the way

The age factor probably had something to do with you being able to get him to take that pay over what he had previously.

it's not too difficult to get some older players to take pay cuts after their original contract, but for ones signed in game, they are convinced of their value being near their contract

Like everyone else said, it usually only goes down with age. I got Lidstrom to sign for $3M once.

deknegt wrote:i got way to much high earners on my team and im trying to force some salary cuts without damaging my core team.

Besides various tactics to minimize costs, you might want to rise up your cap to $50.3M using game's editor. Just a suggestion, you know ... quick fixing.

You could do that, but is fun to keep the game original. Even though the actual NHL has raised the cap themselves this year.

I totally agree with JVanderpool about keeping the salary cap at $44M. It's more of a challenge to keep all your players under a relatively low cap than to raise it 6M... Plus, I personally prefer to leave the game untouched minus a few minor changes.

From my experience with the game, older players have a tendency to accept a lower salary if that means that they will play on a competitive team. However, sometimes I get the feeling that they want more money to come and play for such a team so I think it's just to try and go with the flow and try and keep your "utility" players salary's down. For instance, I usually have the fourth line players at about $450k-550k each and all my farm-bound players at the same (league minimum) with a two-way clause in their contracts.

As I like to build my team around a steady defensive line-up and use so called role players instead of bigger-name players I usually tend not to spend to much on the players on my third and fourth lines.

Heh. White Knight...you should check out the challenges. We will likely have a new one in a couple-few weeks...and with caps at $36 mill...it becomes even more interesting.

Great, I'm looking forward to it!

It is nice to not mess with the set cap for the NHL or the game itself right now. I feel that it does bring more of fun type factor to the whole thing, because you are trying to do your best in keeping your team at a low minimum or atleast below the cap and win games.

If your cap is above whatever is set right now, which would be the $44M, it just isn't that fun. You can easily fill up your lines with star talent without a problem in the world.

But that honestly isn't that fun in my opinion.

I agree with you 100%, white knight.

By the way, I heard that the challenges are tons of fun and I plan on trying to do the next one, because I know that I'll have the time in my day to do it right.

I also might try the next challenge. Oh, and I have a season with a $1B salary cap, and I like to see how many wins I can get .

Ouch, $1B! Hey, are we back in the crazy days of the Messier at $11M and Neil Smith's offersheet spree ...

No seriously, just kiddin'...

Heh. Oobla cracks me up. Other guys complain about the cap being too low to make super teams, and he raises his to [Dr Evil] 1 billion dollars[/Dr Evil}. Atta boy Oobla...and um may I ask...what is your salary floor?

batdad wrote:Heh. Oobla cracks me up. Other guys complain about the cap being too low to make super teams, and he raises his to [Dr Evil] 1 billion dollars[/Dr Evil}. Atta boy Oobla...and um may I ask...what is your salary floor?

Yeah, don't be complaining people, I lead the way with setting a $1B cap . My salary floor depends on the game I'm playing (yes, I do have multiple with $1B caps ). On some, I leave it at the default ($20M I think). On some, I set it to $1, to see if any teams can get sooooo terrible that they only win a dozen or so games . On others, I set it to around $75M and sign all the high salary guys (if my board will give me enough money ) so all of the other teams can't make it to the floor .

When you raise the salary cap (or decrease it), do players tend to want more (or less) money knowing the amount of flexibility you have?
I never changed the cap but in my gales players couldn't get more than $8.8M a year

that would be a fast paced game of hockey.
people like st. louis and gagne on the 4th line.

From my personal experience often it's even more expensive to re-sign upcoming free agents than to wait and make them an offer when free agency begins. For example I traded for Chris Philips, he wanted 3+ for a one year extension, I quite liked him but that was just too expensive, I let him go. About one week into free agency he was still available and demanded 3m...but for 2 years. So I ended up getting him for half the money he initially wanted. But I've actually never seen a player taking a pay cut when I tried to RE-sign him before he became a free agent.

You don't have to wait for a week, you can offer them a new contract right on the minute their previous contract has ended, and the message that they've left the team has popped in to you news box. They're basically just wanting to see if they can get offers from other teams and see their options before they want to resign and often they demand lower pay at this point.

This is especially evident in European leagues, my experience with managing an NHL team is slim...

vocquat wrote:When you raise the salary cap (or decrease it), do players tend to want more (or less) money knowing the amount of flexibility you have?
I never changed the cap but in my gales players couldn't get more than $8.8M a year

I've never tried decreasing it, but it does seem to want more money. When I started one of my teams, I had J.S Giguère as my goalie in his prime (30-31 years old), getting paid about $3.5M a year. After he got a new contract, he wanted about $6.5M.

deknegt wrote:that would be a fast paced game of hockey.
people like st. louis and gagne on the 4th line.

Yeah, my last line can be something like Gagné-Richards-Afinogenov (I like him ).

Tasku wrote:You don't have to wait for a week, you can offer them a new contract right on the minute their previous contract has ended, and the message that they've left the team has popped in to you news box. They're basically just wanting to see if they can get offers from other teams and see their options before they want to resign and often they demand lower pay at this point.

This is especially evident in European leagues, my experience with managing an NHL team is slim...

I know, this wasn't my point

Just saying you'll rather get a player to take a pay cut during free agency than when you try to re-sign him during the season

So it works in NHL too?

I mean, those guys are all millionares with bloated egos, you never know...

vocquat wrote:When you raise the salary cap (or decrease it), do players tend to want more (or less) money knowing the amount of flexibility you have?
I never changed the cap but in my gales players couldn't get more than $8.8M a year

Indeed they do, in fact some players get paid 9+ mill with a 52 million cap.
Raising the cap isnt a free ticket to a super team, since higher caps allow the computer to renew their ufa before they hit the market and hence it limits the july 1 madness. Ofc it makes it easier to keep all your high first round draft picks etc, but the game isnt that hard with a 44 million cap anyway and rememeber the computer has the exstra cap space as well!.