We found out today that Scott Gomez of the Montreal Canadiens has been sent home from training camp, having been told that he won't play at all this season. Why? The team needs to reduce salary to get under next year's lower salary cap. Teams are allowed to buy out players after this season to get under the cap, and the high-earning/low-performing Gomez is an obvious guy to drop. But, you can't buy-out an injured player, so rather than take a chance on him getting an ill-timed injury, they've asked him not to play. Yes, I know, he's going to collect his multi-million dollar salary for literally doing nothing. But on the other hand, he's an athlete in his thirties trying to get his career back on track, and now he's not allowed to play at any level for a year.
I have to ask, how could this be allowed to happen? After wasting half-a-season, you'd expect the agreement not to screw over one of the players so badly. It's reminiscent of what happened to Wade Redden under the previous rules: With no other way to get his salary off the books, the Rangers had him play in the minors for two years. (Keep in mind that the contracts can't be renegotiated even with the player's blessing.) And sure enough, it turns out Redden is in the same boat as Gomez now: not allowed to play at all this season to ensure he can be bought out in the summer.
So the players went to the brink to ensure they got every last percentage of revenue, but didn't consider that they may have just put themselves in a situation where they'd ruin several union members' careers.
Today the league and union announced that they'd amended the rules so that teams can buy-out one contract right now, without waiting for the end of the season, so Redden, Gomez, and others will likely get to play this year.
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