Ilya Kovalchuck (Retired)

It's a good thing this came up for y'all tho.

While Dustin seems self-serving, no one and I mean NO ONE signs a deal expecting a 30yr old to maybe retire, haha.

His self-interest here is a great impetus to make a common sense change for the betterment of your guys' league.

Can easily correct what is wrong and set up a better system. In the leagues, we normally make changes for after the fact, but when something is so blatant, we go for the current + future changes.

DmanofGod1 wrote:

MistaDuMa wrote:Also just noticing this but the hoops and NHL retirement scale is different from the baseball one.

Son of a mother...

Baseball
29 and under - All years
Players 30-32 - 3 years
Players 33-35 - 2 years
Players 36-37 - 1 year
Players 38+ - 0 years


Good catch

Sorry, couldn't help myself

Here's another question of application since you've called into question the 'validity' of the rule for 'your' situation...

Why is it different than Tim Thomas?

The original answer was 'age', but that shouldn't matter according to your argument. The 'rule' is supposed to stop back-loading of contracts. Thomas' contract in FCC wasn't back-loaded, so by your interpretation - the rule should not apply. Further, Thomas did not 'retire', he walked away and the NY Islanders did not put him on voluntarily retired - they suspended him. FCC gave $0 in cap relief to the owner and counted it as a 'retirement'.

Again, I agree that it's unfortunate that Kovalchuk walked away in his prime, and maybe the rule needs an adjustment moving forward. Maybe your suggestion 'works', maybe it needs language that specifically says it only applies if the final year of a contract is greater than the initial year (i.e. back-loaded), maybe it shouldn't be part of the league at all since we have year-to-year maximum variation rules. Part of the 'fun', in my opinion, of a fantasy league is the randomness created by the rule set. But that rule set must be applied, evenly, as they are written, to each owner as situations come up. To offer 'special' exceptions every time someone 'disagrees' is ridiculous...

Well Just my thoughts but Thomas wasn't playing any pro hockey, its not like kovalchucks just done, or 'taking a year off' like Thomas he's still playing pro hockey just not in the nhl. Kovalchucks nhl contract was voided, Thomas' wasn't

Tim Thomas is 38

Ilya Kovalchuk is 30.

Retirement or not playing at 37 is a real possibility even if they are fantasy relevant.  Not usually for someone at 30 who is fantasy relevant. 

Backloading contracts isn't the point so much.  It's the idea of overbidding or giving multiyear contracts to people over 35 in order to win the bid but knowing or hoping that retirement will not hold them accountable to their bid.  Giving multiyear contracts to people over 35 should be almost a guaranteed thing to prevent this. 

It's what the NHL has gone too and what the Jason Kidd rule was meant for.  

But even up to 37, we allow a 1 year void.  That's pretty reasonable. 

I believe the rule change is necessary and I'm not into having random rules that don't meet their intent and calling it fun.  If the intent of a rule gets misapplied and unecessarily punishes an owner, then it is adapted.     

It probably won't apply to me and I'll have to take the 3.5 mil cap hit.  I'm not crazy about it but I'll take it.  But i'm gonna make sure this doesn't happen again.

DmanofGod1 wrote:Tim Thomas is 38

Ilya Kovalchuk is 30.

Retirement or not playing at 37 is a real possibility even if they are fantasy relevant.  Not usually for someone at 30 who is fantasy relevant. 

Backloading contracts isn't the point so much.  It's the idea of overbidding or giving multiyear contracts to people over 35 in order to win the bid but knowing or hoping that retirement will not hold them accountable to their bid.  Giving multiyear contracts to people over 35 should be almost a guaranteed thing to prevent this. 

It's what the NHL has gone too and what the Jason Kidd rule was meant for.  

But even up to 37, we allow a 1 year void.  That's pretty reasonable. 

I believe the rule change is necessary and I'm not into having random rules that don't meet their intent and calling it fun.  If the intent of a rule gets misapplied and unecessarily punishes an owner, then it is adapted.     

It probably won't apply to me and I'll have to take the 3.5 mil cap hit.  I'm not crazy about it but I'll take it.  But i'm gonna make sure this doesn't happen again.

Dude, c'mon... It either applies or it doesn't. The rule was never intended to apply to a player like Thomas who 'took a year off', regardless of age. It could just as easily be pointed out that all Russian-born players have a chance to go back to the KHL...

I agree that it should be evaluated, moving forward.

Did I miss something, why would it cost you $3.5M instead of $7M?

Each person gets 1 Buyout per year at 50% of the remaining salary.

ericdm70 wrote:Each person gets 1 Buyout per year at 50% of the remaining salary.

Based on the FCC 'rules', 8 (e) of Buyouts, says a buyout cannot be used once a player retires. Kovalchuk can't be bought out, right?

Who owned Thomas last year?

Wow, didnt realize the buyout rule.

Colorado still owns Thomas.

Yea he's right Eric.  So i eat the full 7 mil which makes this even more ridiculous.  

Thomas is clearly different from Kovalchuck.  8 years different.  This topic is all about age and how it relates to players likelihood of not playing anymore.

Nonetheless I was in favor of something being done about Thomas too.  I posted as much.

DmanofGod1 wrote:Yea he's right Eric.  So i eat the full 7 mil which makes this even more ridiculous.  

Thomas is clearly different from Kovalchuck.  8 years different.  This topic is all about age and how it relates to players likelihood of not playing anymore.

Then you are shifting your argument. You had said it was about 'back-loaded' contracts which is why it didn't 'apply' to you yesterday.

If, today, it's about age and likelihood of not playing, then it's risk vs reward. You bet on a guy not retiring (like we all do) and he did, again, I'm sorry for the luck of it, but I don't see why the rule shouldn't 'apply' in this case just because Kovalchuk retired 'early' from the NHL.

As I said, maybe the rule needs modified or adjusted moving forward, but it handles this case with no problem that I can see and I can't understand why it wouldn't be applied.

We should have just addressed this last year when I had to buy out Filatov. The real issue here is not Kovy's "returement" but players bolting for the KHL, which is only going to continue happening more frequently in the future.

It is stupid to punish an owner in here for a player leaving for another league. We have no control over it and no way to predict it, unless we consider all Russians flight risks. I think we should vote on how to address this in the future.

danstiehr wrote:
It is stupid to punish an owner in here for a player leaving for another league. We have no control over it and no way to predict it, unless we consider all Russians flight risks. I think we should vote on how to address this in the future.

I'm going to point this out for the sake of clarity. It's hard sometimes to properly convey 'emotion' or even intent in postings and email.

I don't believe Akron is being punished. Punished has an emotional connotation to it. Take the emotion out and evaluate the situation:

Akron had a player retire. That player was 30 years old. The FCC rule says that up to 2 years of his existing contract can be voided. The player has 3 years remaining leaving Akron responsible for one remaining year.

It's certainly not a great situation for Akron, but replace Akron with any other team and it doesn't make the situation better or worse. That's exactly how a rule should be applied, unbiased and without emotion. It doesn't matter what team they played for, it doesn't matter why the player retired, it doesn't matter who the player is.

I understand that Akron is upset, I would be too. Being upset doesn't mean rules don't or shouldn't apply. If we want to judge whether or not it's a good or bad rule moving forward, that's great, too, but the rule 'works' as it is currently written...

I don't know why the semantics of what the word "punished" means needs to be brought in here. Do I really need to explicitly clarify the words I choose on a fantasy hockey message board so that no one gets the idea that I might be inferring that Akron is crying himself to sleep at night over this, or may need to seek psychological help? I think calling the true meaning of "punish" into question is unnecessary. 

I think the mistake here is in evaluating the situation through the lens of a retirement. This is not a retirement. This is the Devils and the NHL and Kovy all agreeing to pretend he is retiring so he can go home and play in the KHL. 

I am not even saying Akron should be let off the hook now, but I am saying we should look at voting on a rule going forward in which a player leaving the league to play in another has their contracted voided without a hit. In no point of my post do I say the rule shouldn't apply; I'm saying we should look at a solution to a problem that will affect more of us in the future.

danstiehr wrote:
I think the mistake here is in evaluating the situation through the lens of a retirement. This is not a retirement. This is the Devils and the NHL and Kovy all agreeing to pretend he is retiring so he can go home and play in the KHL. 

 
I apologize for offending you. My point wasn't to analyze the word punished, but it's come up a few times that applying this rule is, in effect, punishing Akron for Kovy retiring early. I disagree. It's simply applying the rules to a specific situation.

I also don't see the 'mistake' you point out. Did Ilya Kovalchuk retire from the NHL? Yes. Is he now on the NHL's voluntarily retired list? Yes. That means he retired and is in retirement, free to do what he wants outside of the NHL (and the FCC). We play in an NHL-based fantasy league. Once a player leaves the NHL, our rules quit caring about them.

Drawing in more information to make it look like a special case is beyond the scope of our rules, in my opinion, and it creates a slippery slope for future rules interpretations. You can make almost any application of the rules into a special case...

I'm not getting into all this man.

The intent of the rule was prevent owners from signing aging veterans to bigger contracts in order to win the bid knowing that the player would retire soon and they would be let off the hook.

Yes, some people backloaded it and that was what I was talking about.  But others just offered longer multiyear contracts in order to win the bid.  The intent of the rule was to apply to this.  To aging veterans.

Not to 30 year old stars in their prime. 

But i'm really tired of prolonging this.  You aren't gonna agree with me.  I'm not going to agree with you.  I'm certainly not going to waste my time on a long semantics post of one word.  Let's agree to disagree.  

I've already tried to move on by providing a suggestion to change so if you really believe that the rule maybe should be modified or adjusted moving forward then move on please and help with suggestions.  I think you've made your point loud and clear...over and over.

A few key points I'm thinking about

- Just letting guys off for going to another league is a slippery slope.  It's hard to determine.  This will be happening more often though.

But what about this?  What about players that don't hack it in the NHL and so they go to a lesser league?  Do they get let off the hook? 

Cuz if I'm a hockey player that sucks and can't make the NHL, i'm gonna try to play in any league i can to keep make a living.  Especially if I was born overseas.  The player isn't so much leaving for another league but just finding employment elsewhere. 

And what leagues are acceptable?  KHL, Finnish, Swedish...a lot of small league overseas.  Plenty of guys that get cut in the NHL playing in little leagues around the world.

DmanofGod1 wrote:I'm not getting into all this man.

The intent of the rule was prevent owners from signing aging veterans to bigger contracts in order to win the bid knowing that the player would retire soon and they would be let off the hook.

Yes, some people backloaded it and that was what I was talking about.  But others just offered longer multiyear contracts in order to win the bid.  The intent of the rule was to apply to this.  To aging veterans.

Not to 30 year old stars in their prime. 

But i'm really tired of prolonging this.  You aren't gonna agree with me.  I'm not going to agree with you.  I'm certainly not going to waste my time on a long semantics post of one word.  Let's agree to disagree.  

I've already tried to move on by providing a suggestion to change so if you really believe that the rule maybe should be modified or adjusted moving forward then move on please and help with suggestions.  I think you've made your point loud and clear...over and over.

I'm not going to apologize for not rolling over and I don't expect you to either. I understand the points you've raised and I can respectfully disagree. I've simply participated in too many leagues though the years which morph to placate a few owners because they are the loudest. Rules should be living documents, no doubt, but only when there is no answer in them should they be adapted on the fly. I believe in this case, the FCC rules handle the Kovalchuk retirement without issue.

I am a fan of identifying a problem or loophole that needs to be fixed and writing or re-writing a rule to fix it. If the belief is that this rule is not intended to handle this case, then let's look at what it should fix.

If the intention is to stop back-loaded, veteran contracts, I would say we should go with something like the NHL's 35+ contract fix. Make it so a 35+ contract cannot be bought out or voided, period. Give teams a 1-year window to buy out a player if they are signed across their 35th birthday. The buyout is based on whichever is greater between the average salary and the remaining salary (i.e. if you sign a 30yr old to a 6 yr, 8-7-6-5-4-3 and choose to buyout - you pay based on 5.5 avg, not the 7 still owed for the final two years. if the contract was 3-4-5-6-7-8 - you pay based on the 15 still owed in the final two years, not the 5.5 avg.) If no buyout is used, the deal becomes an un-voidable 35+ deal.

Below 35, I think your point about inferior leagues is going to become an increasing issue. Top talent will take their payday early, go home, and know they can come back (like Jagr and, likely, Kovalchuk). Borderline talent will try to get a payday and just go home leaving the door open to a return one day (Radulov and Burmistrov)... I would say if a player (under 35) puts their name on the voluntarily retired list (Kovalchuk), the contract is voided 100%, just like the NHL, but if they 'fade' into another, inferior league, the FCC owner with their rights is stuck with them (Filatov, Kostitsyn, etc.). I don't think it's worthwhile to try and mimic the cap recapture penalty structure in the CBA. The situation will rarely come up and we already have strict term and year-to-year limits.

Just a couple of initial thoughts.

Official retirement papers should always be the standard in all leagues..

 I believe in this case, the FCC rules handle the Kovalchuk retirement without issue.

I am a fan of identifying a problem or loophole that needs to be fixed and writing or re-writing a rule to fix it. If the belief is that this rule is not intended to handle this case, then let's look at what it should fix.

If the intention is to stop back-loaded, veteran contracts, I would say we should go with something like the NHL's 35+ contract fix. Make it so a 35+ contract cannot be bought out or voided, period. Give teams a 1-year window to buy out a player if they are signed across their 35th birthday. The buyout is based on whichever is greater between the average salary and the remaining salary (i.e. if you sign a 30yr old to a 6 yr, 8-7-6-5-4-3 and choose to buyout - you pay based on 5.5 avg, not the 7 still owed for the final two years. if the contract was 3-4-5-6-7-8 - you pay based on the 15 still owed in the final two years, not the 5.5 avg.) If no buyout is used, the deal becomes an un-voidable 35+ deal.

Below 35, I think your point about inferior leagues is going to become an increasing issue. Top talent will take their payday early, go home, and know they can come back (like Jagr and, likely, Kovalchuk). Borderline talent will try to get a payday and just go home leaving the door open to a return one day (Radulov and Burmistrov)... I would say if a player (under 35) puts their name on the voluntarily retired list (Kovalchuk), the contract is voided 100%, just like the NHL, but if they 'fade' into another, inferior league, the FCC owner with their rights is stuck with them (Filatov, Kostitsyn, etc.). I don't think it's worthwhile to try and mimic the cap recapture penalty structure in the CBA. The situation will rarely come up and we already have strict term and year-to-year limits.

Just a couple of initial thoughts.

I like the points/idea above. I know this will make people angry, but I think that this is 1 time where changing the rule on the fly should affect the situation that is causing the change. 

Kovalchuk's contract was a great contact in the FCC. He was a fantasy stud and he was young. The Devils aren't going to be tormented by this contract this year, I don't see a reason that Akron should face the salary hit.

Would it differ if the player died or retired due to severe injury?  It's the same kind of bad luck we all face in Fantasy sports.  Russian factor should definitely be a thing to consider.

I understand how the rule was meant to handle backloading of aging contracts. 

I'd vote in favour of some kind of relief, it's kind of a double whammy to take.  Losing a top player and suffering the cap hit.

Lets figure this out. Fredbear seemed to be the only one n favor of the rule. Can we brainstorm?

DmanofGod1 wrote:And to redo the rule, I would suggest this since even the NHL has the 35 year old rule.

Retiring 

29 and under - All years
Players 30 - 5 years
Players 31 - 4 years
Players 32 - 3 years
Players 33-34 - 2 years
Players 35-37 - 1 year
Players 38+ - 0 years

In my mind, no one is circumventing the cap if they sign a 30 year old to 5 years.  They aren't hoping he retires.  Same thing with a 31 old to a 4 year contract and so on. 

This makes sure this doesn't happen to someone again but still catches people that are signing 34 year old aging vets to 4 or 5 year backloaded contracts in order to circumvent the cap and win a FA bid.  Because once they hit 35, you only get 1 year back.

 Okay, let's work from this.

What do people think of this retirement scale?  Pros, cons?  Does anyone have a problem with changing it to this?  I tried to make the scale around the 35 year rule like the NHL.

that works for me, and if it passes we can apply it to Kovi,  Either way  i think you should get RFA if he ever comes back but it will count against your two matches that offseason.

I am fine with it.

Alright, if you two have nothing to add or take away from it, then vote it up.