Sunday, February 5, 2023

CCHL Announces Rule Changes Effective for the 2023-24 Season

 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. 

 

 

 

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