Hockey Know-It-All

So pretty much a face off only occurs in a specific end because of a stoppage of play from say a penalty, or the goalie covering the puck. Something like a goal or the start of the period, the puck is always dropped at the center ice face off dot. That means that when a face off occurs in either end, it happens after something that has some sort of direction to it.

What I mean is, if the puck is covered by a goalie, the goalie will face the shot from the right or the left, and so the face off occurs on that side. Same with a penalty. If a puck goes over the glass or a fight starts or what have you, the side of the ice that happens is where thef face off will be. Same with icings.

No problem! I love answering these questions.

Corsi measures shot attempt differential for each player and/or team. A shot attempt is basically any time a player takes a shot with the intention of scoring a goal, regardless if it is blocked, if it misses the net, hits a post, or it is saved by the goalie. Therefore a shot attempt differential, or corsi, is the amount of shot attempts made by a team, minus the shot attempts made against the team. The formula can be written as follows

Corsi For (CF) = Shot attempts for: Shots+blocks+misses

Corsi Against (CA) = Shot attempts against: Shots+blocks+misses

Corsi = CF-CA

Well first, a one year deal is a contract that only lasts for one season. So in this case a one year deal would be only for the 2019-2020 season and after that the player would need to sign another one.

They’re essentially the same. Cap Hit is the exact number against the cap while the AAV stands for average annual value. since the cap hit is the average of the total contract, the AAV operates as the same thing.

The only time there really is a difference is in ELCs where a player can earn bonuses. The AAV for those in their ELC calculate for performance bonuses so an AAV would appear larger than the cap hit. For example, this is Auston Matthews cap break down during his ELC:

You can see that his AAV equals his cap hit plus his bonuses. Now bonuses end up going against the cap the next year but do not count as part of the original cap hit of the contract. We can compare this to Auston’s upcoming contract which looks like this, and no long counts as an ELC:

A lockout happens every now and then and, especially under Gary Bettman, is expected to keep happening.

Essentially, a lockout is when the two governing bodies of the NHL cannot agree on the CBA. The CBA is a document that basically governs the NHL, it stands for Collective Bargaining Agreement, and lays out how profits from the league are dispersed between both sides, what benefits players get, what their rights are, how contracts are structured, Roster size, cap space, waivers, essentially everything that goes into running the NHL. For example before the last lock out in 2013, all players had a roommate on road trips and now only players on their ELC will have a roommate on road trips. 

Now the two governing bodies of the NHL are the Owners, represented by Gary Bettman, and the Players, represented by the Players Association (NHLPA). Obviously Bettman is interested in getting the best deal for his clients, the Owners, while the PA is interested in getting the best deal for the players. This is the part where I think people get confused with the commissioners role. Bettman is a lawyer and he is hired by the Owners of NHL teams, who are essentially the owners of the NHL. If you consider the NHL like any other business, it has 31 separate pieces that need to be bought to be owned. But you cannot have 31 people trying to make a decision, when half of them don’t even like each other. So Bettman’s job is that he is essentially the Teams Owners lawyer and he represents what they believe and want. Very rarely does he have the ability himself to make any decision based on personal beliefs, he’s mostly just a talking head for the owners. 

Now the NHL has a history, especially under Bettman, of being very... stubborn and so lockout have happened quite a bit under him. There was the total lockout in 2005, and the partial lockout in 2013. and so the reason another one may happen is in September of 2020, there is a opt out in this current CBA, and if either side takes it and another CBA is not introduced before the season starts, then a lockout happens. There is no “this will definitely happen” or “this will definitely not happen,” because we just don’t know. Everyone in a decision making position has said they don’t expect a lockout but a lockout isn’t something you go in with the mindset of getting, so there’s no way to know if that promise means anything. 

I think the biggest problem with the current CBA is that the players agreed to it in a rush, meaning that for whatever reason they feel that the CBA is not equal going forward. Essentially the players, because they didn’t want a total work stoppage, agreed to what they had but mdae the league put in the opt out for 2020. This to me says, that the league knows they got away with something and that the players are going to insist on getting more this upcoming CBA. and like I said, the NHL is very stubborn so how likely they are to get that is sort of up in the air. 

Buyouts happen in two different scenarios. I’ll cover the most simple one first. and unfortunately involve a lot of Math which is not my strong suit I will be honest. 

Essentially there are two types of buyouts. A Compliance buyout is very rare because a team has to be given them by the league during certain situations. For instance each team got two compliance buyouts following the 2013 lockout for contracts signed before the lockout. Compliance buyouts cost the teams a percentage of the contracts value that they had to pay directly to the player but did not count against the cap. 

A more general buyout can happen each season between June 15th (or the SCF, whicever is later) and june 30th. These contracts you still need to pay a part of the remaining contract value but in this case it does go against the cap. To determine the cap hit you need to do math and it changes each year. But the general idea is that you end up taking on a significantly smaller cap hit but for twice the remaining length of the contract. So a team doing this will still have problems in the future but the idea is that it’ll be easier for them to sign new contracts if they only have 2 miliong against the cap than 6 million. but then you also are wasting 2 million of cap space on a place you do not have anymore. So, in my opinion, they’re a last resort. 

Okay so LTIR is one of the more confusing things in regards to cap space and I’m getting a lot of my information from Here. It is kind of confusing so i’ll try my best to simplify it a bit.

Essentially LTIR is only used when needed. So if a team is under the salary cap a player’s contract who is on LTIR will count towards the cap, but once that team goes above the cap the LTIR comes off the books. Instead of it being like you have 5 million extra dollars it’s more like getting a zone of relief of the Cap. if that makes sense. it operates basically the same way as getting an extra 5 million but is applied differently. This means you’ll see teams with 10 million in cap space and no LTIR used even though they have a player on LTIR, that’s because they have 10 million total in cap space already and don’t need that LTIR relief just yet. 

An RFA is a restricted free agent. This means that their rights are owned by a team and even if they do not have a contract with that team that’s the only team that they can play for. This means an RFA could also be traded if they don’t have a contract because their rights can be traded between teams. RFA status is not one that a player chooses but instead has until they reach certain markers in their career. A player must be in the NHL for 7 years until they are no longer an RFA or be 27 years or older. So if you play your first NHL season at 18 then you’ll lose RFA status when you’re 25 but if you play your first season in the NHL at like 25, you’ll only have two years of RFA status.

Each NHL team only has a certain amount of money that they can spend on players. This is to keep really rich teams from throwing money at every super star while poor teams can’t get anybody. This amount of money is called the Salary Cap. Cap Space is the amount of money you have available to you to spend.

Goal differential is a team stat that is basically how many goals the team scored as a whole minus how many goals the team let in as a whole. This can be a season stat or a game stat.

For instance if the Bruins are playing the leafs, and the leafs score 3 goals and the Bruins score 4 then the Bruins goal differential is 1 for that game while the leafs goal differential is -1 for that game.

Now if the Bruins scored 150 goals in the season and let in 140. than their goal differential for the season is a 10.