The misnamed salary cap -- it actually is a limit on the size of a payroll -- in the KHL owes a debt of gratitude to the NBA and Larry Bird.
Back when Larry Bird was a youngster with the Boston Celtics and approaching free agency, the team appeared concerned that they would be losing the star because he would be the only one on the court if the Celtics were to meet the limit on payroll size. In the league office, the slide rules, calculators and finger counters helped devise a way for teams (I say plural but others say the Celtics) were able to keep their stars.
Teams could with seemingly no restrictions to keep their players, payroll limit be damned, while outside bidders had to mind their cap space.
The KHL does set payroll boundaries, but there is some wiggle room for teams to have top players. Here's the word from the KHL:
As a result of a ballot among the clubs’ owners, the salary cap for clubs competing in the Kontinental Hockey League season 2013-14 has been set at 1,290,300,000 rubles, based on the current average exchange rate of 33 RUB = 1 USD. The lower limit of the salary cap remains at 250m rubles. In order that the KHL may keep its world-class players, and to create the conditions to attract more star players to the Championship, the League has introduced a measure which permits clubs by way of exception to exclude from the salary cap the earnings of the following players: Anton Babchuk (Salavat Yulaev), Alexander Burmistrov (Ak Bars), Ilya Kovalchuk (SKA), Leonid Komarov (Dynamo Moscow), Sergei Kostitsyn (Avangard), Alexander Radulov (CSKA) and Ruslan Fedotenko (Donbass).
The journalist Dmitry Chesnokov tried to flesh this out more on Twitter:
Babchuk, Burmistrov, Komarov, S. Kostitsyn, Radulov, Fedotenko & Kocalchuk removed from KHL cap space consideration; will make combined $30m
He went on to add:
The 7 players, whose contracts do not count towards the #KHL salary cap, will make as much as the entire SKA team.
Upon being questioned by a reader, he added:
One player on each team may be designated to be outside the cap. The measure was put in place to lure Kovalchuk-caliber players.
The journalist Slava Malamud seemed to alert us about a Larry Bird rule on Twitter back in May 2012:
And here goes KHL, doing its thing again. The league announces that all returning Russian NHLers will not count against the salary cap.
The KHL release includes a link to a PDF, which lists the teams payrolls in alphabetical order. So, with some patience, here is the list from greatest to least, with the payrolls listed in U.S. dollars based on the Oanda currency exchange rate for the day:
1. SKA St. Petersburg -- $38,225,000
2. Ak Bars Kazan -- $32,631,900
3. Metallurg Magnitogorsk -- $31,092,500
4. Salavat Yulaev Ufa -- $30,409,300
5. CSKA Moscow -- $29,030,200
6. Traktor Chelyabinsk -- $26,422,400
7. Dynamo Moscow -- $26,027,600
8. Avangard Omsk Region -- $25,921,200
9. Lev Prague -- $22,300,300
10. Lokomotiv Yaroslavl -- $21,541,800
11. Donbass Donetsk -- $21,523,300
12. Atlant Moscow Region -- $18,436,300
13. Barys Astana -- $16,911,600
14. Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk -- $13,826,700
15. Severstal Cherepovets -- $13,399,000
16. Sibir Novosibirsk Region -- $12,227,500
17. Vityaz Chekhov -- $11,790,500
18. Amur Khabarovsk -- $11,075,700
19. Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg -- $10,579,900
20. Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod -- $10,577,800
21. Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk -- $10,459,100
22. Spartak Moscow -- $9,756,010
23. Dinamo Minsk -- $8,808,920
24. Admiral Vladivostok -- $8,648,960
25. Dinamo Riga -- $8,043,020
26. Metallurg Novokuznetsk -- $5,837,180
27. Slovan Bratislava -- $5,593,570
28. Medvescak Zagreb -- $5,436,540
As you can see, with a payroll ceiling at $38,799,700 and a floor at $7,517,580, it appears three teams need to start spending to reach the floor. Another way to use this chart is to guess which team will get the most bang for the buck (rise from the ruble?) in the standings at season end. Those salaries that are not officially on the cap can be factored in as well. It will be fun to watch.
And with all that out of the way, here are the scores for Monday:
Avangard Omsk Region 4, Severstal Cherepovets 3 SO
SKA St. Petersburg 5, Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk 1
Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 3, Atlant Moscow Region 2 SO
Barys Astana 5, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 3
Ak Bars Kazan 3, Traktor Chelyabinsk 2 OT
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 5, Metallurg Magnitogorsk 0
Vityaz Chekhov 1, Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 0
Dynamo Moscow 4, Salavat Yulaev Ufa 1
Dinamo Riga 3, Spartak Moscow 1
Donbass Donetsk 4, CSKA Moscow 1
Dinamo Minsk 2, Slovan Bratislava 0
Lev Prague 3, Medvescak Zagreb 1
The roundup, with highlights, is here. The standings are here.
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