It’s a rare happening when Lightning owner William Davidson is in the building to watch the Lightning play… Davidson likes to stay up in Michigan as much as possible - home of his Palace Sport Empire — and coming down south to Tampa is a rare spectacle entirely.
Davidson wasn’t going to let a measly 35 minutes keep him away from the Bolts while they played at the Joe last night… He and his right hand man, Tom Wilson, attended the game and were pleased with what they saw… Of course, how can’t you be pleased when your team wins?
But either writers in attendance, questioning Davidson and Wilson, decided to make business a discussion item or Wilson thought it pertinent to make mention of certain financial factors with the Lightning.
“You feel like you have a chance to make a dollar and be competitive,” Wilson said. “Now under this system, if you can manage it right, you can be competitive every year. You can keep your players, control your ticket prices and you can start to grow your business.”
Under the old system, Wilson doesn’t know if the Lighting could have stayed competitive. The contracts of most of the team’s top players expired in the summer or will expire next summer.
“If we would’ve kept our guys, our payroll would have gone up 60 percent,” Wilson said. “We would not have been able to keep everybody together under the old system.”
That’s the type of logic that was missing from bitterness expressed during Team Canada’s training camp after the Lecavalier signing. Brad Richards was certain everyone could have been
inked under the old system… Not with the economics of the Lightning as it stands.
Wilson went on to speculate that the Lightning will need to go into the 3rd round of the playoffs to break even this year - while team president Ron Campbell believes the 2nd is the break-even point.
Words like “Sale” and “relocation” were also floated around in the article - maybe out of force of habit when talking to a Lightning owner, maybe out of relevance for the discussion?
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7 Comments until now
Under the old system, the lighning grew their business, made money, kept enough players to win the Stanley Cup
Under the new system they have already losty Nikolai Khabibulin and will probably continue to lose players in the future as they are too good to keep their talent under a low salary cap. Likely Brad Richards is next to go.
Looks like Wilson would have been closer to correct if he said the opposite of what he actually said
I’m sorry but I don’t speak “absurd”… Do you mind translating that Greg into soemthing factual?
Didn’t you even read the rest of the post? The Lightning need to make it to the 3rd round of the playoffs just to break even with the cap in place… With no cap they have more costs in salaries and the exact same income. The playoffs would have to be expanded to 6 or 7 rounds under the old economic system - the market can’t sustain a mega payroll with no league wide aide to franchises (revenue sharing).
You actually believe absurd statements that even with “cost certainty” the Lightning have to go three rounds in the playoffs to not lose money? There is one born every minute…
Not sure what you guys are arguing over, the Lightning weren’t keeping all of their players either way. I’m not sure if the team looks any different now as it would have if there was no cap. If they would have kept Khabibulin they might not have signed St Louis. There was no way everyone was staying. They were too young, and it’s hard to compare them to other Cup teams when the nucleus of the team (outside of Khabibulin) seems to all have their best years ahead of them.
As I said, either way, no way everyone was staying. It’s too expensive for the Bolts for either system.
Its possible that eventually the Lightning would have been broken up under the old system. Under the new system it was a given. The low salary cap was designed to break up good young teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning. I am calling the lie that this new system can keep the team together and also the lies that the old system did not allow the Lightning to make money or grwo their business.
This new system has caused salaries of stars approaching their primes to increase significantly because reduced free agency ages give them more leverage as they may soon be able to leave the team as a UFA. That is what drove up LeCavallier’s salary. I believe LeCavallier would be paid less this season under the old system then he is under the new one.
I think Lecavalier is an exception to the rule. Tampa is very high on him, there’s a reason they signed him and gave him more money before dealing with last season’s MVP. They’re paying for potential, and I think other organizations would too.
They would nolt have to pay LeCavallier nearly as much money if they knew he couldn”t leave as a UFA until age 31. They would not have to pay for his potential. They cold pay him after he produces (if he does).