i understand everyone's logic disputing the interpretation,
but the seemingly applicable paragraph has no qualification of how the prior player may have separated from the re-acquiring team
50.5 50.5 Team Payroll Range System; Lower Limit and Upper Limit; Payroll Room; Lower Limit and Upper Limit Accounting.
(e) "Payroll Room."
(iii) Prohibition on Transfers of Payroll Room
(C) Under no circumstances may a Club:
(4) Reacquire as part of a Retained Salary Transaction the SPC of a Player who was on that Club's Reserve List within the past calendar year;
the example which follows, in CBA, confuses things, by citing an example where player was traded, but the 'rule' makes no such specification
I said this earlier, but this is the problem with the rule. You can interpret it in different ways.
Does the rule state you:
- Cannot acquire the SPC of "a player who was on the club's reserve list within the past calendar year", or
- Cannot acquire "the SPC of a player" who was on the club's reserve list within the past calendar year
If it's about the SPC, they wouldn't mention "reserve list" but they would state the SPC on the team's roster. Reserve list includes players not under contract whose NHL rights belong to the team (unsigned prospects, defected players etc). So to me, that implies it's about reacquiring the player, not reacquiring the SPC.
Also "Past calendar year" would suggest any time during 2023, since 2023 is the past calendar year, and not the last 12 months.
Either way, Tarasenko was on the Rangers' reserve list in the last 12 months so that's irrelevant in this case. It is however relevant in DeAngelo's case.
I've gone back and forth on this multiple times, but both Puckpedia and Capfriendly have confirmed this article prohibits a Rangers retained salary transaction for Tarasenko, confirming what a team official has said to me.
The only way we get 100% confirmation on this, is if Drury actually tries to acquire Tarasenko and the NHL publicly shuts it down.