2017 AUCTION RECAP
Mid-West Hockey League Commissioner’s Office – Report submitted by Bill Schindel – Director of Contracts & Salary Cap Compliance – Bathgate Rangers General Manager. October 14th, 2017
The preseason auction has just been completed and here are some interesting statistics. Among the reasons these are interesting are the facts that as we headed into year 2 of MWHL the following forces were at work:
- We had our first taste of Multi-Year Contracts (signing both in the spring and post-season)
- We shifted our draft process from an automated ESPN format, to locally handle. (The process had some good points and some growing pains – the process will undergo review to make it smoother – and faster.)
- We had Restricted Free Agents to draft. Generally, with the ESPN system last year, we saw some serious auto bidding drive up some numbers. This year we expected to see some Salary adjustments occur, and in fact, there were a LOT of players who entered Free Agency as a result and it appears that management came out the big winners this year. The Players however, were gracious enough to realize there was a bunch of overpaying during the first year and will live with the new, lower, structure – at least for now.
So, what are the recaps, let’s take a look.
- Total number of players drafted: 309
- Total salaries for the drafted players: $1805
- Average salaries for drafted players: $5.84
- Highest salary paid during this year’s draft: Sidney Crosby, $47
- Lowest salary paid during this year’s draft: $1 (125 players)
Restricted Free Agents – there were a total of 252 players eligible for the draft who were in a Restricted Free Agent status. Of those 252, 183 were signed to new contracts for 2017-18. All teams signed some free agents with Wausau and Hampton tied for the fewest signings at 4, while Brentwood managed to ink 17 RFAs – and only one of them was one of their own RFAs.
Thunder Bay led the league in resigning the most of their own RFAs at 4, while Bathgate saved the most in resigning two of their RFAs (they saved total of $43 for singing those two). Brentwood spent the most per resigning (granted they only resigned 1) at $47 – Sidney Crosby.
Speaking of salary increases, of the 183 RFAs who got new contracts the following numbers are fun to look at:
- Number of players who signed for less: 118 (for a total savings of $1,116)
- Player who had the biggest salary drop: Keith Duncan, last year he made $36, this year he’s playing for $2. Hope he didn’t have a big mortgage to deal with.
- 32 players signed new contracts for the same value as last year (most for $1, but there were a few other values in there).
- 33 players managed to get bigger contracts with Zdeno Chara (MIN) getting the biggest increase going from $15 to $27 ($12 increase). And two players were resigned by their own teams with Pay Increases. Marco Scandella of Gilbert got the mandatory $2 increase for a new salary of $3 and Ben Bishop was resigned by Thunder Bay for $39 – a $9 a year increa