Daily Faceoff Live: Should the NHL implement a luxury tax system?

Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen talked about the need for the NHL’s trade market to open up on the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live.

Tyler Yaremchuk: It is a little bit odd to be creeping towards the end of January and close to the deadline without a single move having been made yet on the trade front. It’s brought up the idea of the cap system really putting a strangle on trades and on transactions.

We’ve had quality players like Jakub Vrana and Alex Nedeljkovic pass through waivers. Vrana is a guy who can very easily score 30 goals and no one wanted to touch him for free, because of the salary cap problem. Is the hard cap really the best thing for the NHL, should they look at a soft cap situation to open up more transactions.

I know that can be a little bit complicated but it really is a shame Colby that we’re sitting here as guys that talk about this sport for a living, we’ve been doing it for five months into the season, and no big trades yet. The kind of stuff that keeps fans engaged, that brings you to the front of ESPN and the headlines when big moves get made.

And the NHL has just been sitting here, because every GM has their hands tied.

Colby Cohen: There’s a lot of big names that could be on the move. If the cap wasn’t such a problem that it is, if we weren’t living in this COVID cap crunch world that we are. I think we have to address this because I think there are a number of teams, I bet you more than half of the owners in the NHL would be willing to spend more. And I think if you create a luxury tax system, I think that would be a system where you can actually do more for the teams that don’t want to spend more because the luxury tax money can go into the revenue share.

The money can go to the teams that don’t want to spend. I don’t believe the parity thing, look at baseball I mean, the Yankees don’t win the World Series every year. The Mets, they’re going to have a $500 million payroll this year. Are they going to win this World Series? I’m not betting on it. I think there is enough parity in hockey, there’s enough good players. I think having some sort of a luxury tax where you can spend over, or I go back to something I said on this show last month. I think there’s got to be some sort of system where general managers are given cap relief for signing drafted players and let the smart people come up with the ins and outs of the rules.

You can watch the rest of the episode here…