Proposal: Playoff Loophole

[Gee Wally]

Because its about trying to maintain a level playing field financially.
Either live with a hard cap or not. No almost pregnant stuff.

I will say people here will lose whats left of their minds if the Cap becomes neutered.
Back to those deep, deep pocket teams spending like drunk sailors.

Hint - the Bruins are not and will not be one of them.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Because its about trying to maintain a level playing field financially.
Either live with a hard cap or not. No almost pregnant dtuff.

I will say people here will lose whats let of their minds if the Cap becomes neutered.
Back to those deep, deep pocket teams spending like drunk sailors.

Hint - the Bruins are not and will not be one of them.

The Bruins basically did the same thing with Savard's LTIR.

If a team can afford to take one someone's LTIR player in exchange for moving out an albatross contract, more power to them. It's something available to every team.

Also, back before the Cap, those drunken sailor teams with the deepest pockets didn't win Cups (Rangers and Leafs the prime offenders), it still came down to a good GM, good drafting and good coaching

 

[Gee Wally]

The Bruins basically did the same thing with Savard's LTIR.

If a team can afford to take one someone's LTIR player in exchange for moving out an albatross contract, more power to them. It's something available to every team.

Also, back before the Cap, those drunken sailor teams with the deepest pockets didn't win Cups (Rangers and Leafs the prime offenders), it still came down to a good GM, good drafting and good coaching

Rangers won one. Both were competitive. Habs won numerous and were competitive.
Harry wouldnt go past his self imposed limit.
Stars spent like sailers , remember Guerin, and won.
Red Wings did.
Look at the whole. Dont cherry pick.
Hell its the reason for the Cap. Certainty.
Like I said. All in . Or all out.
Then see what becomes of the league.

 

[Hookslide]

My opinion is the cap is the cap.

Rich teams ( Leafs, Rags, Habs) shouldnt be allowed to circumvent and buy a championship.

If youre going to do that then eliminate the Cap. Have significant retraction and bring on soccer. At least in the US.

Eliminate the Cap !!!!!!!!!!! Jeremy Jackobs just grabbed his chest ...................and you know the rest.

 

[sarge88]

Said it before, saying it again, will say it until the day I die ---- Every single salary cap in sports is significantly more complicated than it needs to be!

 

[rocketdan9]

Miller idea is good. But you could just leave it at 23 players vs 20

 

[Patdud]

That’s the simpler solution to the Kucherov cheat. But it doesn’t completely close the loophole. Vegas knowingly exceeded the cap with Eichel. Their solution wasn’t to cut all that money, but to trade for guys on LTIR so they could use the loophole. They tried to replace a healthy player making $5m with guys on LTIR making $5m so they could remain over the cap. It backfired because of a technicality with Dadonov but Stone could have been activated on the last day and played in the playoffs.

Therr needs to be a mechanism that doesn’t allow you to deliberately exceed the cap with LTIR guys, otherwise it’s a major advantage to the rich teams and defeats the purpose of the cap.

thats the 2nd part, a traded player must be activated and remain active until injured again. no more trading for LTIR players. Although the easiest to implement would be the cap compliant roster in the playoffs. as others have posted. or just banning LTIR players from being activated (which isnt 100% fair either as a player really could be injured and not be healthy enough till later rounds (stamkos recently)

 

[RustyBruins72]

Not to be that guy, but so what? There's nothing stopping every other team in the league from doing the same.

Hell, Toronto has taken on dead money and stashed it on LTIR multiple times the last 5 years, no one complained.

This probably didn't help things.

 

[RussellmaniaKW]

1: If you are on LTIR by game one of the playoffs you cannot be activated
2: A player on LTIR cannot be traded, they must remain on that team till they are healthy enough to ACTUALLY be activated

sucks if you're a player who has a legitimate injury in March and gets legitimately healthy by May. Why should they be punished and not allowed to play in the playoffs?

IMO there is no solution to this problem that includes disallowing players from being eligible for the playoffs if they are otherwise healthy & eligible.

 

[Number8]

Because its about trying to maintain a level playing field financially.
Either live with a hard cap or not. No almost pregnant stuff.

I will say people here will lose whats left of their minds if the Cap becomes neutered.
Back to those deep, deep pocket teams spending like drunk sailors.

Hint - the Bruins are not and will not be one of them.

I will not subject all of you to another of my rants on the Harry and Jerry show.

Suffice to say, Wally is 100% right here. The Cap is the Boston Bruins Fan friend -- no ifs ands or buts.

And, given the fact that is Wally's last sentence above, don't expect Boston to be the team leaping through acrobatic contortions to milk the Cap for whatever it is worth. Savard is an outlier and all should know that -- you don't schedule concussion recoveries.

As a Bruins fan we should want the Cap to be respected as much as possible. The Kucherov crap last year was like Man City playing Norwich City and acting like all was even.

 

[RussellmaniaKW]

I think the first thing that needs to be done is to no longer allow players on LTIR to be traded. That by itself doesn't solve the whole problem, but IMO it's one of the biggest mechanisms used to get around the cap and it makes zero sense for it to be allowed. There's no valid reason for a player on LTIR to be tradeable other than to pull off some cap shenanigans so simply don't allow it. The player should have to get healthy and be eligible to play before they can be moved. At the very least, if they must allow LTIR contracts to be traded then allow it but don't allow the team taking on the contract to apply the LTIR overage until they've activated the player. The main thing is to stop teams from taking on LTIR contracts just to use the extra space it can afford.

I think the "spirit" of the LTIR rule is to allow teams to spend to the cap in the event of a significant injury. If a star player making $8m gets hurt for a long time then that team shouldn't be further penalized by icing a roster $8m under the cap. LTIR allows you to essentially recoup that lost cap space. Allowing a team to take on that contract after the injury and reap the benefits seems completely antithetical to the spirit of the rule to me. In that case it's not "bad luck protection" for the team that owns that contract, it's just a way for them to create extra space that they never had allocated to the player in the first place.

I suppose the best way to address this from a "fairness" standpoint is to still enforce the cap in the playoffs such that if said $8m player gets healthy mid-playoffs you don't get to just activate them and play them with the guys who were acquired to replace them. In theory you might still be able to do that if you have enough expensive pieces that you can sit, but maybe a way around that is to still enforce roster limits and waivers during the playoffs along with enforcing the cap.