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This article was published 29/6/2017 (1185 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

If the idea behind a salary cap is to put every team on an equal competitive footing, then the NHL salary cap is — and always has been — a fraud.

And that’s worth remembering this weekend as NHL free agency opens and Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff goes looking for some much needed goaltending help in a free-agent market in which the deck is, in some very important ways, stacked against a team like Winnipeg.

Canadian hockey fans generally — and Jets fans in particular — were reminded earlier this week of just how unlevel the playing field really is with the news that the weird Marc Methot saga had culminated with the former Ottawa Senators defenceman landing in Dallas, following a brief layover in Las Vegas.

For his troubles — Methot was exposed by Ottawa in last weekend’s expansion draft and promptly scooped up by Vegas, who in turn traded him to Dallas, all in the span of a couple days — the defenceman will take home an extra $692,434 U.S. this coming season, according to the NHL salary tracker CapFriendly.

A new contract? Some kind of bonus? Nope, Methot has the exact same contract in Dallas this season that he had in Ottawa last season.

All that extra money will flow to Methot this coming season in the form of a massive tax cut he receives by moving from Ottawa — where taxes are among the highest of any NHL city (52.84 per cent) — to Dallas, which presently has among the NHL’s lowest tax rates (38.71 per cent).

And that, Canadian hockey fans, is the dirty little secret of the NHL’s salary cap: while every team is allowed to spend the same amount of money, what they can actually buy with that money varies widely depending upon what their local tax rates are.

Wonder why a Canadian-based NHL team hasn’t won a Stanley Cup in the salary cap era? The exchange rate obviously hasn’t helped, forcing Canadian owners to pay player salaries in American dollars while most of their revenue is in devalued loonies.

But what the Methot episode illustrates is that this country’s generally higher tax rates are also a significant competitive disadvantage.

When you look at the taxes he saved, it’s little wonder that Methot had every Canadian city other than his hometown of Ottawa on a modified "no-trade" list attached to his contract.

The revelation that Methot had essentially a "no-Canada" clause in his contract — Ottawa and its politicians have always operated in their own separate universe — caused some controversy, with some accusing Methot of being a self-hating Canadian.

So, a couple things.

First, a self-hating Canadian is the most Canadian thing of all. Nobody does self-loathing like Canada.

And second, the reason Methot wasn’t interested in a trade to Montreal, which he was offered and refused, or anywhere else north of the 49th parallel had nothing to with hating Canada and everything to do with hating taxes.

Just under seven hundred grand of extra take-home pay in a single season isn’t chump change, even to a guy due to make $4.9 million this coming season.

All of which brings us to Chevy and his dire need for goalie help in this weekend’s free-agent market.

Let’s play out that scenario for a moment:

The Free Press reported this week Chevy is kicking the tires hard on pending free-agent goalie Steve Mason.

Mason earned $4.1 million per season the last three seasons with Philadelphia, so let’s say Chevy offers him that same deal — $12.3 million over three years.

Now, Dallas doesn’t need any goaltending help since signing Ben Bishop, but let’s say the Florida Panthers — where taxes are also very low — decide to also offer Mason the exact same contract.

I plugged the respective salaries into CapFriendly’s after-tax calculator and it wasn’t even close: if Mason takes the Jets deal, where his estimated tax rate would be 49.83 per cent, he would earn an after-tax income of 2,057,005 per season; if he takes the Florida offer, where his estimated tax rate would be 38.53 per cent, he would earn an after-tax income of $2,520, 230.

That’s almost a half-million more per season — and almost $1.5 million more over the life of the contract — in take-home pay if Mason takes the Florida offer. And that’s U.S. dollars.

Which offer would you take? It’s a no-brainer.

Much has been made about Winnipeg’s climate and small market as being major factors in making it hard for the Jets to attract free agents and why Winnipeg is so frequently among the NHL cities on players no-trade lists. (A survey of player agents by ESPN in 2015 found Winnipeg was the second most common city on no-trade lists.)

But ask yourself this: If those tax rates I cited above were reversed, do you seriously think Mason would take a $1.5 million pay cut to play in Florida just because the weather is nicer and Miami is just up the road?

Hell no. The dude is going to buy one of those Canada Goose parkas and get on the first plane to Winnipeg. The long winter nights in these parts aren’t nearly so bad if you’re sleeping under a duvet stuffed with hundred dollar bills.

No one is saying taxes are the only reason this country’s Stanley Cup drought will begin being measured in quarter-centuries as of next year. There’s been lots of dysfunction along the way that was entirely made in Canada.

And while Canada generally has high taxes, a study by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in 2015 found the highest tax rates in the NHL were actually in California, with players for the Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks all paying at that time a league-high 52.9 per cent of their salaries to taxes.

The Ducks and Kings have combined to win three of the last 10 Stanley Cups, which would seem to suggest one of two things: smart management can overcome high taxes to build championship hockey teams; or, players don’t mind paying high taxes if it means they get to live in L.A.

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Given that the same CTF study found that 60 per cent of that year’s unrestricted free agents and players who waived their no-trade clauses chose destinations with lower taxes, it’s probably a bit of both.

It’s a challenge, in other words, but not an insurmountable one. And it begins in earnest again this weekend for Chevy and the rest of his fellow Canadian GMs.

O Canada? More like Owe Canada.

And for almost a quarter-century now, it’s been Woe Canada.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek