So one fine idea which will never see the light of day in the actual CBA was an idea in one of the offers by the players that rich teams which found themselves in need of hockey talent but with a shortage of cap space could undertake to buy unused cap space from another team for actual cash money. This I thought was an interesting idea. It would be a ready-made mechanism to transfer an unused asset from a poor team in exchange for the cash money that a rich team is making hand over fist.Of course I'd want to limit it. Say that at opening night, your cap hit had to be in line with the regulations for the season. Say that said cap space had to be purchased at the full year rate, even if it was only used for a third of the season. So if you needed to hire a guy who got $3 million a year, you'd pay at least $3 million to some other team to use their cap space for the rest of the year. And oh yes you still have to pay the trade and pay the guy. And then find some way to be legal before the next opening night.
Of course people won't go for it. It would let rich teams like Toronto buy their way out of their terrible management, and while I agree that's bad, something like this would be a market to permit teams with unused cap to get money from the richer teams. And the rich teams would be getting something for their money, unlike revenue sharing.
