Quote:
Originally Posted by of17
As soon as the playoffs start, the salary cap is raised by its 10% offseason escalator, allowing rosters that normally wouldn't be allowed in the regular season.
|
Lots of good suggestions in there, but the salary cap doesn't apply in the playoffs. The game is handling this more or less correctly. NHL players aren't paid their salaries during the playoffs. They are competing for bonus money that comes from the league. In 2016, there was a pool of $16,000,000 which was split among the 16 playoff teams depending on when the were eliminated.
For 2013, when teams were splitting 13 million, it went like this:
First round losers — $2 million ($250,000 each to eight teams)
Second round losers — $2 million ($500,000 each to four teams)
Third round losers — $2.5 million ($1.25-million each to two teams)
Stanley Cup finalist — $2.25 million
Stanley Cup champion — $3.75 million
Each team would generally split their portion 25 ways, so the first round losers got $10k per person, while the Cup winners got $150,000 each.
The actual playoff roster restriction is that the player had to be on your protected list on trade deadline day. It's not modeled in the game currently, but this is how real NHL teams can sign their drafted college players at the end of the NCAA season (which is after the deadline) and still have them in the playoffs. Chris Kreider is a recent example of this.