I've explained this several times. This is an injury guys almost always play through and then have surgery in the offseason. they play until they feel they can’t anymore, after they’ve already played on it. Like Kucherov, just played on it and probably wasn’t going to be easier this crammed season than a normal season after a normal offseason.
This was covered over the offseason, not just right before the start. He tried treatments
It was clear that that was Kucherov's plan as well. Based on what?
The timing of the whole thing--that the pain suddenly became unbearable a week before the start of the season after TB proved unable to move guys like Johnson?
They’d written about him working on it. You’re paranoid.
Yeah. That's super effing shady. Not a rule violation, but a clear tap dance around the intent of the rule.
The intent of the rule is to allow a team to utilize the same allowance everyone has to the best of their ability. The rule doesn’t change based on the quality of the team, just how pissy and paranoid the fans get about the league helping this team or that team.
TB isn't using the rule to replace an injured player--
yes they are, it’s what they’ve been going. Kucherov is injured and has missed this season, instead of trading away, then trading for players again they skipped the step. Benefits of being well run, and timing.
they are using the rule to have one more kick at the Cup before they will have to lose major pieces of their core
What team doesn’t make decisions trying to win a cup?
a core that is, when Kucherov comes off LTIR, significantly over the salary cap.
What happens when a player is injured and his team replaces him with salaried players? If he add his LTIR salary to their current salary, it’s quite often over the cap (otherwise they likely wouldn’t haven’t needed LTIR).. do you think the league never anticipated this? Or forgot about it when it’s happened multiple times over the years?
Yes, the fact that such shadiness was even possible due to the Covid etc etc involved some luck, but it is also 100% clear that, if TB could have moved Johnson, Kucherov would have been playing all season.
how is it shady they use the rule as intended? Did they create covid themselves in a lab, or is China funding the team?
Based on what is the latter part? Did you bug their phones? We knew he was injured, he spent his breaking dealing with it. As you yourself and everyone with basic knowledge of sports have understood—- players play on injuries until they can’t (which isn’t and shouldn’t be required anyway) then they get surgery to fix a problem they’ve had.
Again again, to whatever extent he was already injured, a crammed schedule after a longer season/postseason is going to suck more than a normal year, and increase risk of injury. Seguin played on his for years (looking like a shell of himself) and made his injury much worse. No faulting a player for not unnecessarily risking that when his team can survive without him
basing your belief that he had “unnecessary” surgery (which by definition it isn’t, if he’s injured) based on nothing other than “convenience” is paranoia.
That bullshit right there. That's one of your straw men. You and other TB fans
I’m not a bolts fan.
keep trying to turn this back into the idea that I'm saying Kucherov is lying about his injury or that what TB is doing is a literal violation of the rules as written.
I’ve asked, because I don’t see what you’re reaching for if the injury is real. My point is this is exactly the situation the LTIR is made for. They were not going to be able to use the full allowance given other teams to compete for the playoff position, unless they used LTIR.
That isn't, for one second, what I've been saying in this thread. The competition imbalance is going to happen in the playoffs, when Tampa Bay, a team already RIGHT up against the salary cap, gets to add a 9.5 million dollar, top 5 player in the league while subtracting a league minimum 4th line schlub.
This is partly assuming the Bolts don’t just lose another player (stamkos, and who knows if any other ) before during the playoffs; also kinda ignores he (and likely now stamkos) won’t be 100% after having not played and limited conditioning.
and again, that salary difference happens every year, when you play a team with injuries / play with injuries as happens to teams every years, sometimes good sometimes bad. When you accept the injury was real and the surgery needed, it’s essentially the same thing in terms of why there’s roster salary imbalance... luck. *and why the league likely doesn’t view this as the worst loophole
And again, while fortunate timing may have been involved, manipulating their plans specifically in order to exploit the "no salary cap during the playoffs" rule was quite clearly their plan from the get go.
Communications intelligence please, I’d like to see it.
teams change their plans due to circumstance literally every year, every time something happens. That’s the definition of “management”.
He was injured, and by nature of injury needed surgery which he was eligible for.
LTIR is intended to cover an injury to a player to allow that player to be replaced.
Yes. albeit here, thanks to good drafting/trades, and fortunate timing they simply kept depth they already had. What if it’s a normal length season and Kucherov tries to power through, as you’ve also noted players do (other times stressing they get it in the offseason, when it suits are argument to emphasis this or that), gets injured a couple or so months in, about 4-5 months from the start of the playoffs? Should they not be allowed to utilize LTIR for the same competitive allowance of salary every team gets?
Tampa had a player opt for a surgery that almost always happens in the offseason in order to exploit LTIR so as to not lose RFA's they didn't want to lose. Legal? Yes, but a violation of the intent of that rule.
Sometimes you say it only happens in the offseason, sometimes players power through it apparently endlessly, until it’s convenient for you to argue that’s when they should have had the surgery.
As was covered over the course of the offseason, he was seeing doctors, got the shot you get to power through and tested it skating etc. dude wants to play. He also had the right to chill the f*** out and enjoy himself and relax after a cup trapped in a bubble.
There is not an can’t be rules dictating what players do with their bodies, and no team would welcome the league dictating that stuff anyway.
You've directly responded to things I've said by offering arguments about things I never mentioned at all (claiming that I think they are lying about the injury, that having cap-compliant active rosters in the playoffs would somehow mean that the trade deadline would go away--it was all a bunch of nonsense).
You Bitched generally about “unfair” and implied this is something the league would want to fix. I explained how this is an uncommon occurrence brought on by once in a lifetime circumstance, and why the teams likely arent crying over Tampa’s moves; and that the solution you offered earlier create more problems players and Teams would worry about more.
You even did it in this post. Quite literally the ONLY thing you've said regarding my proposed rule change about enforcing a cap compliant active roster for each playoff round is that it "wouldn't be fair to players who have battled all season" or some such.
Feel free to read that post again.
Except that whole rebuttle is nonsense. First, because players get benched for playoff series every year anyway,
They get benched for poor play, and are usually eh depth players, the kinds of guys LTIR was created to help teams avoid relying on in the first place.
Stars/quality/main-team players who actually helped their teams and put in more work don’t get benched in the playoffs for salary; if there wasn’t a chance they’d play the team would give them a chance elsewhere/ not add them in the first place.
and second, because you're ALREADY going to be sitting a player down in order to put Kucherov in the lineup.
Depth player who’s only in the lineup because of his injury in the first place. Yea, teams play favorites. I assume you weren’t talking about sitting guys worth league minimum since you’re talking about main guys having been out/replaced.
The only difference between the status quo (which you prefer) and my version is the kind of player who has to sit. In your version, your team gets to add a top 5 player in the game, go considerably over the salary cap, and only has to bench a 4th line scrub. IE: Your team gets a serious competitive advantage over every opponent.
this reads like you complaining about them being a good, well run team. It’s literally the team from last year minus a good depth guy; they didn’t keep all of the last team AND add someone.
I think the bolts are the deepest teams in the league; people are reeeeeeaaallyyyyt over-valuing this team. They look mortal as hell right now, they looked mortal after a historic regular season they followed by being swept. In all likelihood they entered last post season hot as is needed any year.
This team is not godly or leagues above everybody else, even if they stay healthy, when really they’ll have guys less than 100% and quite possibly lose someone else.
Their only competitive advantage from a game standpoint is the fact that their roster has had good management for years.
The advantage the org has is skipping a step to replacing a guy w an injury, and kicking a can down the road with the team they fairly built in the first place. Its convenient.
In my version, you have to sit someone who is still not nearly as good as Kucherov, but who will at least be noticed in their absence.
Third liners/regulars in general, whether they’re lifers, or guys who uprooted their family to move to a new room they quote possible know nobody in (a few good articles recently about the stresses of trade); who stepped up to help their team missing a key guy earned their spot in the playoffs.
you will not convince teams to potentially screw their own players from bad luck, let alone convince the PA. That won’t happen.
Your response, the "problems" my solution would create, was absurd. Having a rule to enforce a cap-compliant active roster for the playoffs would give you the SAME season you had this year and it would enable you to play Kucherov when the playoffs begin. It just wouldn't allow you to add Kucherov without removing a piece/pieces that bring your team into compliance with the same cap that constricts the rest of the league.
The league won’t screw players, and they would view your change as that, as was addressed years ago.
You either mess with the trade deadline, which won’t happen
You let your player commit himself and contribute, and thank him with benching for his contribution; or for having the misfortune of being injured
Or you trash LTIR, which won’t happen.
only other way to do it without fundamentally altering contracts/league finances which is extremely unlikely, as it would be a massive headache
As I said before--not one TB fan has been able to give a single valid reason why there shouldn't be a rule for each team to submit a cap-compliant active roster before each round.
I have (I can’t speak for bolts fans)
The "no cap for the playoffs" rule is more to allow teams to bring up some kids for the experience. It's not there to enable teams to go 10 million over the cap and have a clear unfair competitive advantage.
the rule is also there largely to allow teams both to play their player, and stay competitive without them
teams wouldn’t tolerate no LTIR, and players won’t tolerate being made to sit out