As with our annual tradition, the CCHL Executive Committee
has reviewed our rules and the following changes will be made for the 2023-24
season.
1) Trading UFA
players – A proposal was put forth that we make a change to the game 41
rule for a few reasons:
a) Not all teams
play their 41st game at the same time so some teams can get 3 extra games out
of it because they trade with a team that played game 41 early.
b) Our finances are
done by season days now, not based on games played.
c) It's really
limiting in terms of locking players into rosters that don't fit
d) Players are
being traded ahead of the deadline anyways so we're not preventing
anything.....it's just not made official prior.
PROPOSAL: Teams
may trade any player you signed as a UFA the previous offseason, anytime prior
to game 41, but the team that signed the player and trades the player must pay
75% of the player's salary that season from cash reserves as a penalty (call it
premature relocation expenses).
The acquiring team
continues to pay the player's salary from the day acquired. In essence,
moving the player early right after signing, causes them to pay a bonus to the
player. This can be done for up to two (2) players per season as well, to
avoid a situation where 12 are signed and moved for assets at the cost of
cash. This prevents a massive overbid on a player and then moving him
right away as a guy overpaid at 10 million would cost 7.5 million
Benefits: It
prevents rosters from being super locked down but still has a significant
deterrent for doing it prior to game 41. The acquiring team cannot
transfer the funds back to the team trading the player and all trades between
those teams involving finances will be reviewed for the full season to ensure
this policy is not circumvented.
This change has
passed with some debate about harsher penalties (we will revisit if this is
becoming a minor stepping stone to acquiring prospects/picks; ie: teams do not
care about the extent of the monetary penalty) and will be reflected in the
rules under section N, rule 4 as the following:
NEW: Effective for the 2023-24 season, teams may
trade any player signed via free agency prior to game 41, however that team is
subjec to pay 75% of that season's salary from their cash reserves (call it
"relocation expenses") as a penalty for moving said player. The
team acquiring the player is not permitted to send any financial support to the
team trading the player in order to avoid circumventing the penalty for the
trading team. The team acquiring the player will assume the salary as of
the date of acquisition (it is not discounted because of the penalty).
All future trades between the two teams will be monitored as well for that
season in order to ensure that this circumvention does not take place at a
later date. Teams may trade up to two (2) players signed as UFAs each
season in order to avoid CCHL franchises using free agency as a basis to build
a team and recoup prospects and/or picks.
Example: In May of 2023, Springfield signs
Johnny Pucker to a 2 year, $1,000,000 contract. In October, Springfield
trades Johnny Pucker to Amos. Springfield will pay a $750,000 penalty for
the trasaction, while Amos assumes the contract the day that they acquire the
player - thus the player gets a "relocation bonus" for having to move
after signing in his chosen destination. Since players in the CCHL cannot
have "no-move" clauses in their contracts, this allows them to at
least benefit in some way for a premature trade. While $750,000 does not
seem like a harsh penalty, if this was a $10,000,000 player, a penalty of
$7,500,000 becomes quite significant and reduces the desire to make said trade
due to the financial deterrant in place.
Increase goalie
fatigue and changing goaltender usage
At present goalies
fatigue as follows:
1 for 34 shots
faced in a game, 2 for 38 shots faced in a game and 3 for 42 shots faced in a
game. The numbers are high and goalie fatigue is rarely an issue unless a
team is significantly unmonitored with relation to the CCHL schedule.
Proposal: 1
for 27 shots per game, 2 for 30 shots faced and 3 for 35+ shots faced per
game.
Benefits: It
allows/forces teams to play their backup goalie in back-to-back games to make
the league more realistic and require more strategy.
Set a maximum
goalie-played rule at 68 games per season. This means
the backup has to play at a minimum of 15 games per season. There would
no longer be a cap of games played based on the previous NHL season.
Why? The
original games played limit was to limit the impact of great seasons by goalies
who had a .935 save percentage but only played 13 games as it distorted
performance in APBA. Since we no longer use APBA this system, in my eyes,
is outdated since everything is done on ratings.
Benefits - Teams
have more flexibility in their rosters as long as they don't exceed 68 games
played and it reduces the huge task Chris has in assembling the goalie usage
report. As Paul says, keep it simple and it's very simple to monitor
goalie use this way - and we still have the same penalties for
overuse.
Exception: If a goaltender played more than 68 games the
previous NHL season, they may be used to their NHL games played that previous
season.
These changes
passed and the rules have been updated under section Q, rule 1 as follows:
NEW: Effective the 2023-24 season, the CCHL will
establish a maximum use of 68 games played unless they played over that total
in the previous NHL season. If they play over 68 games in the previous
NHL season, they are eligible for that NHL total in the CCHL. We are
eliminating the 150% rule as that was designed for the APBA simulator to
prevent a goaltender that played 8 NHL games with an abnormal save perecentage
from dominating the league. With Simon not utilizing the save percentage
feature and relying on ratings, this is no longer a relevant benchmark; thus
the impetus for change.
For example, if Robert Luongo played 12 games in the
2021-22 NHL season, he could play up to 68 in the 2022-23 CCHL season.
Had Luongo played 75 games in the 2021-22 NHL season, he is eligible for up to
75 games in the 2022-23 CCHL season.
1 b) Goaltender fatigue in the Simon T simulator will
consist of the following for the 2023-24 season. If a goaltender faces 27
shots, they will lose 1 day of fatigue conditioning. If a goaltender
faces 30 shots, they will lose 2 days of fatigue conditioning and if a
goaltender faces greater than 35 shots they will lose 3 days of fatigue.
Fatigue always starts at 100 so in theory after back-to-back games, it would
essentially force the goaltender to rest if there was a third game in four
nights; essentially bringing realism and strategy into goaltender
rotation.
4) Reducing
waiver time:
Proposal:
Reduce the amount of time a player is on waivers from 7 days to 3 days
Benefits:
Under 5% of players are claimed and I'll be honest, 7 days is a long time for
me to remember to clear it and add it to the transactions for Bobby to
process.
This rule change
passed and will be reflected in the rules section G, rule 1 as follows:
NEW: Effective the 2023-24 CCHL season, a player
will only go on waivers for a period of three (3) days. This is a result
of how many players do not get claimed when waived and to reduce the
administrative time/backtracking to process the waived player a week later.
Player
fatigue in Simon T:
Proposal: Increase
fatigue recovery from 1 to 1.14 days per simulation day.
The reason for this change is that the NHL season is played
over 184 days and our CCHL season is done over 161 days. 184/161 is 1.14
days.
The impetus for the
adjustment is that our durability ratings are based on the full NHL season, so we
want to adjust the recovery rate to at least meet the NHL standard days of the
season.
It's a small tweak
but allows players to potentially miss a few less games with injury since our
schedule is a bit more compressed with an extra game in it.
This change passed and
will be reflected under the newly written rule V that says exactly what is
stated above.
