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stereax · 8 months

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is there a reason why Carolina is losing all their affiliates???

Other than being assholes to Erik Haula?

Okay, but in all seriousness, there's a short answer and a long one.

The short answer is two words long: Pyotr Kochetkov.

The long answer? Meet me under the cut.

Alright, hi there. So to answer this question fully, we need to talk about the AHL in depth. The AHL, or American Hockey League, is the second-highest league of North American pro hockey, under the NHL. Most people tend to believe it's just "where prospects play before they hit the NHL". This is... only a part of the story.

There are 32 teams in the AHL to match 32 NHL teams. The idea there is that every NHL team would have an AHL affiliate - the most recent expansion, for example, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, is the AHL affiliate for the newest NHL team, the Seattle Kraken. Many of these teams are owned by the same group as owns the NHL team - Harris Blitzer, for example, owns both the New Jersey Devils and the Utica Comets. Others don't - the AHL's Charlotte Checkers, for instance, are owned by Michael Kahn, whereas their NHL affiliate, the Florida Panthers, is owned by Sunrise Sports (aka Vincent Viola).

Why is this important? Well, if you're an NHL team that owns your AHL team, you can let that AHL team leak money. You're turning a good profit on the NHL team, so you don't have to make your AHL team economically viable on its own - you just put it in as a massive tax write-off and go on with your day. Thus, you can put all of your AHL team's resources into developing your AHL players to get ready to play at the NHL level. Of course you sign some vets and such of your own, maybe get a few undrafted guys for the AHL team too, but generally, an NHL-owned AHL team's sole purpose is to develop NHL players. Winning the Calder Cup (the AHL equivalent to the Stanley Cup, not to be confused with the Calder Memorial Trophy given to the best NHL rookie) is just gravy on top.

Contrast this to independently-owned AHL teams, where this is not the case. For these teams, making money is paramount. How do you make money? When you win. Fun fact - the Chicago Wolves, incidentally, used to be televised on main channels partially as a fuck you to Bill Wirtz, who didn't let the Chicago Blackhawks' home games be televised, presumably to drive ticket sales. The Wolves saw that and pounced on the opportunity to make some cash. So if nothing else, love them for sticking it to the Hawks. You can still watch Wolves games on My50, it seems, if you've got that channel, as well as AHL streaming options.

But back to independently-owned AHL teams before I go on my daily anti-Hawks crusade. You want to make money. You do that when you win. When you make the postseason. When you win in the postseason. Independently-owned AHL teams want to win, not necessarily develop for the NHL. So when your NHL team keeps taking your best player away for weeks and then giving him back... you get annoyed.

Let's now talk about the ECHL and the Norfolk Admirals. Thankfully, this is going to be a lot simpler. The ECHL, unlike the AHL, has only 28 teams. This means 4 NHL teams don't have an ECHL team. In addition, very few, if any, ECHL teams are owned by their NHL affiliates. This further incentivizes them to play for profit (winning the Kelly Cup, the ECHL version of the Stanley Cup) instead of development. On top of this, relatively few ECHL players actually make it to the NHL. ECHL affiliates change fairly frequently, especially due to many of the teams folding because of financial issues (most recently the Brampton Beast, Manchester Monarchs, and Quad City Mallards). So if an ECHL team decides to drop its NHL affiliate, or vice versa, there are four other suitors, all of whom would probably want to pay the ECHL team decent money to be their associate. For the Admirals, it's easy - they see the Canes lose their AHL affiliate and decide they'd rather take the Jets' offer instead, whether it be for the money (Carolina's supposedly notoriously stingy) or for the security. It's just really fucking funny that it happens at the same time Carolina loses their AHL team. Get fucked lol.

Now let's play Chicago Wolves Simulator. You are Don Levin and Buddy Meyers, the Wolves' owners. Your goal is to win the Calder Cup or at least come pretty damn close so you can pay the bills. You have a good team - hell, you won the Calder last year! - but your best asset is this star goaltender named Pyotr Kochetkov. When Koochie's in net, you usually win because he bails out your team. When he isn't there to help you win, you kind of don't. Now, Carolina's going through its own issues in net, so they keep calling Koochie up and down. And, as previously mentioned, you kind of suck without Koochie. To be fair, you're not all that great with him, but you suck without him. And you have no control over when he goes up to Carolina, even just to sit on the bench.

You miss the playoffs by one point. One. And your three-year contract with the Canes is up. What do you do?

Waddell Young, GM of the Wolves, says their philosophy and the Canes' fundamentally differed. The Wolves develop and win. Winning develops, to them. The Canes wanted the Wolves to focus solely on development. Not winning. So, when their deal with the Canes was up, the Wolves said "no thanks, we're not going to continue this, we're going independent". This decision makes them the first non-NHL affiliated team in almost 30 years. Now, this isn't to say all independently-owned AHL teams are doomed to fail in partnerships because of divergent philosophies. Look at the Hershey Bears and the Washington Capitals for a prime example of that - the Bears are one of the best teams in the AHL and have won four Calder Cups with the Caps as their affiliates since their affiliation began in 2005. But the Wolves were quite unhappy with the Canes, and so the two split. Also notable is that the Canes have also poisoned the waters with who should be their local AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers, to the point where the Checkers affiliated with the Panthers instead. So... there's that.

So what can the Canes now do with non-roster players? They can affiliate with another AHL team (co-affiliation); one instance of this was when the Seattle Kraken affiliated with the Charlotte Checkers in 21-22 because the Coachella Valley Firebirds weren't yet ready. Supposedly the plan is to get an affiliate for 24-25. But what do they do this year? Especially if they can't find an affiliate to share, which seems more and more likely as the summer drags on? Well, you can't sign players to two-way deals with the Wolves anymore, so you can't really keep veterans around in the AHL to call up if needed. So you... sign nine defensemen to NHL contracts and carry them on the roster at all times. Yep. Don Waddell, Canes GM, has basically stated outright that his roster is probably going to have to carry 22 or 23 players at all times to be sure to have replacements in case of injury. And your prospects? They either go to Europe, where they're basically inaccessible for the whole year, or you loan them to other AHL clubs. Waddell has said plans are in place with several teams to send 2 or 3 players each to several different AHL clubs. For your youngest, they go back to major junior in the CHL and related leagues. Same for your veterans - if you want to keep them, you'll have to sign them one-way (I believe) and then loan them down to scattered AHL teams across the league. Prospects who you could have signed to play in the AHL and develop? You're probably going to have to let them go to free agency (see: Kevin Wall, leading player for Penn State and Carolina draft pick, who just inked a deal with the Milwaukee Admirals, AHL affiliate of the Nashville Predators). And then you can send your worse prospects to your ECHL tea- wait. Oops. They just lost that too. Can't do that either. Well, shit.

And remember, one of the Canes' biggest assets is their system of play (with strong defense) that they execute well. The Wolves needed to teach their players the Canes' system and prepare them so the jump from AHL to NHL wouldn't be that tough. The Canes put their coaches on the Wolves for that purpose (the Wolves have since cleaned house and instated their own). Loaning your players to another AHL team? Why would that team be incentivized to teach your player(s) the system? So now even when you're calling up someone to play for the Canes, you have no idea how well they know the system and no idea how well they can play in it.

This now begs the other question - how will the Wolves fill their roster? Well, they've got options. Generally, an AHL team takes the prospects of its NHL affiliate and then fills the rest of the roster with AHL veteran free agents that the AHL team signs to AHL-only deals. But without an NHL team, it's a smidge more complicated, or perhaps easier. Firstly, other NHL teams can loan their prospects to the Wolves instead of their own AHL teams if they consider the Wolves better at developing them, for instance. The Wolves can now also sign whatever free agent players they find roaming around that could be a good fit for their team - undrafted college players, good ECHL players that can't seem to get called up enough, AHL veterans, players on European teams (especially Russians who might want the chance to get the fuck out of Russia) and so on. These free agent players could see the Wolves as a stable AHL team that can pay solid money (the AHL doesn't have a cap) with a strong chance at contending for the Calder as well as a possible stepping stone to an NHL contract. The Wolves also don't have to worry about these free agents taking ice time away from the Canes' prospects, who would need to be prioritized under an affiliation, which would also be a strong incentive for AHL free agent veterans to sign with them - they'd be able to get a truly fair chance, unlike under an affiliate system where prospects are the priority and free agents are generally playing fewer (and worse) minutes.

And remember - Chicago just drafted Bedard. The city's getting back into hockey and Hawks tickets are expensive. Want to watch some quality hockey on the cheap? Why not come to Wolves games! They're only 18 miles away from the Hawks, too!

TL;DR stan the Wolves for rejecting the system. Canes Suck.

#stereanswers #stereanalysis #stereducation #carolina hurricanes #chicago wolves #norfolk admirals #ahl #echl

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