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Stop whining about compensation for fired NHL coaches, general managers

Stop whining about compensation for fired NHL coaches, general managers

TAMPA – Never give Gary Bettman a reason to say ‘I told you so.’

There’s been some controversy lately over the compensation rules redrawn in January, which give teams the right to ask for a second-round or third-round draft pick – depending on when the hire was made – if they lose a coach, general manager or president of hockey operations to another team while those people are still under contract.

It’s a scenario that’s played out multiple times this season, in the hiring of Peter Chiarelli and Todd McLellan by the Edmonton Oilers; Mike Babcock by the Toronto Maple Leafs (although that was a somewhat different circumstance); and Dan Bylsma by the Buffalo Sabres, whose confirmation of his hiring was delayed as compensation was worked out with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It was the Bylsma situation that sparked the most outrage, considering that he was outright fired by the team almost a year ago and the Penguins still asked for a draft pick in return for his services. The Hockey News called the rule “an unwieldy mess of a gong show.” Jim Matheson called the rule “blatantly ridiculous.”

To which Gary Bettman says, ‘I told you so.’

“Arising out of a series of disputes eight or nine years ago, I established a policy that there was no compensation. If you wanted someone that was under contract, you talk to the team that has their rights, and they either say yes or no. If it was yes, and they’re hired, they were free to go,” said the NHL commissioner on Wednesday.

“The managers, for years, cajoled, begged, pleaded and demanded that we make a change. They wanted something straight forward and simple, although I don’t know if there was anything more straightforward and simple than what we had.”

Bettman’s not a fan of the new rule, which he said will get a year-long run before it’s time to “clarify, modify or eliminate” the rule.

One assumes that the most controversial aspect of the rule – compensation for fired coaches and GMs under contract – will be the thing that’s modified or dropped.

Even through it’s perfectly reasonable, logical and good business.

Was Dan Bylsma under contract? Yes. Was he receiving compensation from the Penguins? Yes. Was he then an asset of theirs, and not some down-on-his-luck charity case for whom they should work diligently to find a new position in the NHL, with a rival team? Most certainly.

Whether he’s coaching or not, he’s still getting paid. He’s still under contract. He’s as much as asset as any player in the system, should his team choose to view him that way.

GM Ray Shero gave him a two-year extension through 2016 on his existing contract in 2013, after the Penguins were swept by the Bruins. It was a public vote of confidence in a maligned coach, and proper compensation for him. But like any contract, it comes with the understanding that he’s the Penguins’ property through 2016, whether he’s coaching or not.

“That’s what contracts do. They restrict people,” said NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly. “The reason I have exclusivity over my employee is that I’m paying them for a term of years. The fact that the employee can’t just unilaterally break his contract and go somewhere else, that’s the nature of the contract.”

Now, until January, teams had to grant permission to other teams that wanted to poach their employees under contract, and the only compensation required for that exchange in talent was the money coming off the books. We were conditioned to accept this is way it’s supposed to be.

That’s a primary argument for those who oppose the rule: That eliminating the financial obligation of ownership to pay an individual not to do his job is compensation enough – no draft picks necessary.

It’s said that allowing coaches and GMs to move on to new or better gigs if in the spirit of the game and for the betterment of hockey. And yet what other scenario in the NHL involves one asset moving to another without compensation?

The waiver wire, for one, when teams simply don’t want pay a player any longer and dump him on the scrap heap before demoting him. But nearly every other situation involving an asset they no longer desire to own involves some level of compensation: salary dump trades, the moving of rights to an unsigned player, etc.

Bylsma was anything but a waiver wire dump. He’s an elite coach. He’s an asset other teams would covet. I’m not sure how the Penguins asking for compensation for him violates the spirit of the game or is in any way abnormal. It’s asking for a return on an investment, and asking for compensation for shipping talent to a rival team.

I sympathize with the shackles this might place on some coaches and GMs that would otherwise be working elsewhere. I agree that a second-round pick might be a little steep when it comes to compensation. I acknowledge that keeping the best and brightest in compensation jail rather than improving another team in the NHL isn’t in its best interests.

And I understand that I’m essentially agreeing with the worldview of lawyers rather than, like, humanity. And that makes me feel icky.

But I also still can’t fathom what’s so hard to understand, or what’s so dastardly about, a team firing its coach or GM, continuing to pay him under the terms of their contract together, and then asking for a draft pick if another team wants to acquire that employee.

Especially when that employer has the flexibility to simply take the contract off the books if it desperately wants to shed that salary.

So keep the rule, I say. Alas, I don’t have a say. So it’ll probably go.

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