Hockey Players Really Care About Their Salary
Like, they really, really care about how much they are paid in comparison to other hockey players. A player's AAV is a sign of how much the coach and team value them as much as it is about getting paid. Negotiating an AAV is staking a claim about who your performance is going to be comparable to.
Hockey is a hard cap sport, so there is a limited pool of money and owners can't even buy their way out of it with a luxury tax, like basketball. Yet top hockey players regularly demand 15-16% of the cap space even as it starves the bottom of their roster and turns it into an unstable rotation. This directly impacts their ability to be consistent in the playoffs and reach the Stanley Cup, but it's still prevalent, because this is not an individual preference, it is a cultural attitude within the sport.
It's why Celebrini wanted $18.8m AAV so that he would be paid more than Leo Carlsson's $18m AAV and only gave a 5 year term so that his salary can be raised along with the cap. If he had taken $13m AAV, he would have made more than $100 million dollars before he turned 30, so it's not a matter of needing the money. It's why Jason Robertson took a single bridge year (risky in a full contact, high injury sport) rather than a $100 million over 8 year contract, because he knows his performance is most comparable to players who have higher AAV contracts and he refuses to be measured as less than them. Montreal's Suzuki's contract looks great now, but it was a fair deal when it was negotiated.
There is no such thing as a hometown discount that applies to the city you are born in. The hometown discount refers to the city that drafted you, because that is the city your career was born in. This drives me legitimately crazy. Stop using a term that really exists to describe something completely different. Professional athletes aren't handing out discounts to play for their birthplace.
The only major stars giving substantial discounts are Crosby (for superstitious numerology reasons, although his first contract was a huge % of cap back in the day) and McDavid (who is becoming genuinely desperate to win a cup before his window closes). Neither of these applies to Shane. 3 time Stanley Cup winner, 1C captain Shane Hollander giving a huge discount to a new, very mid team in order to play on their second line is loser behavior. It's desperate. If his peer group didn't think he was cheating before, they absolutely do now. If he's willing to abandon all self-respect as evidenced by his salary, why wouldn't he abandon his self-respect and cheat?
There are absolutely ways to clear cap space. If in two years, McDavid decided to move to Montreal, Montreal would trade away whoever was necessary to make room, including leaning on players with No Move clauses to rescind them, like they did to Gallagher when they wanted to clear his cap space. For Ottawa to sign him to a discount means that the team's leadership is telling fans and the broader hockey community that they don't value Shane and they are signing him as a favor to their star player Rozanov, which is a wild way to end your "fluffy" romance novel.
Wait, what? DOES NO ONE REMEMBER JOHN TAVARES SIGNING WITH THE LEAFS?
Sorry to dip my toe in discourse but I saw this going around and had to say something: no, this is not true. It's not true at all. Star hockey players command less % of salary cap than star basketball players because of the relative role of individual contributions. talented players are regularly expected to take team-friendly contracts and take hometown discounts, which, btw, is a blanket term that applies to any city where you have strong ties (you see this a lot with "will toronto sign so-and-so" talk). remember when john tavares left money on the table to play for the leafs after being the islanders captain and star player? even though that was the tail end of his prime earning window? there is absolutely precedent for a signing like shane's.
the pressure to take team-friendly deals is probably why hockey players care so goddamn much about low income tax jx's. it's a way they can maximize their take-home without having the "selfish" narrative attached to them, but even then, they are heavily criticized.
also, the examples in the original post aren't illustrative. macklin celebrini is set to have the highest salary in the league rn and his gm said he would've paid him more if he'd asked. he left money on the table!!! jason robertson turned down $15m aav from the kraken so that he could take his chances on a $10m bridge deal to hopefully earn comparable money from dallas, because he wants to play for dallas. also, mitch marner was run out of toronto for asking for his market value!!!!!!
from shane's perspective, he gets a tangible benefit from playing in ottawa that doesn't detract from the team: he gets the value of playing with his husband (and WINNING A CUP with his husband). in contract negotiation terms, the value of winning a cup with his husband covers the delta between the salary he'll take with ottawa and his market salary. again, this is like john tavares taking a discount to play for his hometown team/near family and with toronto's then-promising young core, except the value for shane would probably be higher, because its the chance to win a championship WITH HIS HUSBAND, a consideration no team has ever been able to offer its players and that therefore has no market comparable. rachel's assumption that this benefit would have SOME value is entirely grounded.
idk where this "rachel reid doesn't know puck" rumor started, but it's bs. iirc lexi lafleur brown, a hockey romance novelist whose real life husband played in the nhl, once praised heated rivalry for its accuracy long before there was a tv show. i'm not a lifelong hockey fan but ive closely followed the sport for 10 years and there is nothing inaccurate about shane taking a haircut to play with ilya.
yes, his jersey will be burned in montreal. he'll be the new pajama boy. but that's not "unrealistic" & it would happen no matter where he signed. i'm assuming you can't name any other "major stars" giving "significant discounts" because you have decided anyone who's off your radar doesn't qualify as a "major star" or the discount isn't "significant" in your eyes. mackinnon's earning 12% of cap. kucherov is at 9% of cap. hockey is THE sport of team-friendly deals and players are praised by fans for taking those deals. shane taking a haircut to play in ottawa is a perfectly appropriate happy ending.
@lottswrites thank you! Y’all are making things up in an attempt to shit on Rachel Reid
