Tampa: Swap Stamkos and Kucherov on/off the LTIR?

Chips

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Looks like the Lightning just announced Stamkos' injury is not related to the core muscle injury from last March. Which is nice of them to be semi transparent, potentially laying the ground work for a first round return.

In terms of the LTIR baton hand off with Kucherov, I don't mind it even if it's 'creative' but big picture I think the NHL just needs some softer cap mechanisms so teams aren't necessarily being dismantled in the name of 'fairness.'
There’s no baton hand off. OP is extremely misleading not explicitly acknowledging in the title the difference between full practice vs just skating, not full intensity workouts, no full contact practice etc. it’s just pointlessly fueling the months long conspiracy theory.

Cooper said the day this thread was created, or the day before, that Kucherov is “not even close to light contact” practices. He’s on a normal pace to return sometime in the playoffs whether 100% or probably a little less
 
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T REX

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The problem is guaranteed salaries PLUS a hard cap.

I like the NFL version of IR. Once on it you stay on it. They are allowed one exception that can return during the year.

It is a loophole and should be closed. I am a TB fan. There I said it.
 
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CupsOverCash

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If Tampa was struggling with Kucherov out I doubt we would be hearing anything about it. I think people were expecting Tampa to be screwed over by the cap with the flat cap and having to get rid of cap either way. Instead Tampa misses Kucherov all year and I think most teams would say that is a fair trade but the fact that Tampa can be close to winning its division and possibly the president trophy without their top player is just insanity. It would annoy me if I wasn't a fan of them. Add the fact that they might get him back for the playoffs would be even more frustrating. It still could end up hurting Tampa as it's hard to just have a guy jump in and be a factor but maybe Kuch can.

My gut says that if tampa wins again we don't hear the end of this but if tampa has a first round exit this won't be an issue. Unless they get out of cap hell again next year with minimal loss again. Which again would annoy the hell out of non Tampa fans because year after year they are so certain Tampa will fall to the mighty cap.

People have to give them credit because they have been so good at making it work. That's not even talking about this past offseason. They've done a great job with it in the past too. They will lose guys next year but let's see how the performance and record changes.
 

Chips

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If Tampa was struggling with Kucherov out I doubt we would be hearing anything about it. I think people were expecting Tampa to be screwed over by the cap with the flat cap and having to get rid of cap either way. Instead Tampa misses Kucherov all year and I think most teams would say that is a fair trade but the fact that Tampa can be close to winning its division and possibly the president trophy without their top player is just insanity. It would annoy me if I wasn't a fan of them. Add the fact that they might get him back for the playoffs would be even more frustrating. It still could end up hurting Tampa as it's hard to just have a guy jump in and be a factor but maybe Kuch can.

My gut says that if tampa wins again we don't hear the end of this but if tampa has a first round exit this won't be an issue. Unless they get out of cap hell again next year with minimal loss again. Which again would annoy the hell out of non Tampa fans because year after year they are so certain Tampa will fall to the mighty cap.

People have to give them credit because they have been so good at making it work. That's not even talking about this past offseason. They've done a great job with it in the past too. They will lose guys next year but let's see how the performance and record changes.
The hawks won, and the conversation disappear pretty quick lol.
 

ER89

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I mean I get what you're saying - but teams simply shouldn't be that good. You'll almost never see this again.

Can you imagine if Edmonton tried to do this with McDavid or Drai? No - because without McDavid or Drai they're bottom feeders and no playoffs.
Even a team as solid as Toronto - you remove Marner or Matthews - probably even Tavares who plays that critical 2C role - and they probably miss the playoffs.

The most ridiculous part here is that Tampa is able to still win the President's Trophy (which they will) without the player who swept all the awards a year ago.
The leafs with vasi and without any one of the big three you mentioned make the playoffs easily.
 

Ted Hoffman

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The problem is guaranteed salaries PLUS a hard cap.
Neither of those is going away without a total shutdown of the league.

I like the NFL version of IR. Once on it you stay on it. They are allowed one exception that can return during the year.
The NFL has basically a 4-month regular season and is quite arguably more physical than the NHL. Guys blow out knees, guys break legs and arms. It doesn't take a lot for an injury to be season-ending. Not that the NHL couldn't have a "season-ending" IR, but given the cap it's not as simple as "put it in, make teams use it" because you generally won't see teams use it unless it's pretty clearly season-ending. Plus, we have to define what "season-ending" really means, you'll generally see teams out of the playoff picture use it more, and that has the potential to be abused as well given the right (wrong) shitty solution.
 

smoneil

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How is it shady? It’s literally what the rule is for? If you have a guy legitimately injured who will need surgery, yea, you might as well get it.

It’s convenient timing sure, sometimes things are just convenient. Like, when your opponent entering the first round happens to lose a star or two to injury after the deadline which often happens. Now you’re potentially icing tens of millions more dollars then they are.
There’s a huge degree of luck involved, good or bad, for every team every year involving injuries to themselves or the other team.

I've explained this several times. This is an injury guys almost always play through and then have surgery in the offseason. It was clear that that was Kucherov's plan as well. 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? Yeah. That's super effing shady. Not a rule violation, but a clear tap dance around the intent of the rule. TB isn't using the rule to replace an injured player--they are using the rule to have one more kick at the Cup before they will have to lose major pieces of their core--a core that is, when Kucherov comes off LTIR, significantly over the salary cap. 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.

Unless you do think they’re lying about the injury, then what do you think about those situations? Because from a competition roster-vs-roster situation it’s essentially identical, the timing cross section of Kucherov, RFAs and Covid (and the fact this happened to a team that just happened to be deep; this would be irrelevant on a worse managed team) just worked out compared to the timing of your matchup and this teams loss; good for you building better depth. The degree of luck here being so big is why you hardly ever see this, there’s no way this could have been even a medium term plan without some ability to force covid. They’ve gotten the chance to kick the can a year.

That bullshit right there. That's one of your straw men. You and other TB fans 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. 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. 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. LTIR is intended to cover an injury to a player to allow that player to be replaced. 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.

Also, I think my prior posts made noteworthy points you’re conveniently bypassing claiming “straw man” when they’ve directly responded to things you’ve said. You say this isn’t about legality, okay fine, so what is it?

you’ve anticipated and or argued that the league should or will change this;
I’ve countered with reasons the league wouldn’t want to, problems your solution would create,

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 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. Except that whole rebuttle is nonsense. First, because players get benched for playoff series every year anyway, and second, because you're ALREADY going to be sitting a player down in order to put Kucherov in the lineup. 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. 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.

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.

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. 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.
 

CupsOverCash

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The leafs with vasi and without any one of the big three you mentioned make the playoffs easily.

That wasn't the question though...

Vasi is a beast though. Won't argue that. Easily most underrated player on tb. You could probably say the same for Toronto if they had Hedman. Tb is a perennial contender because of Hedman and Vasi and not as much because of their forward depth.
 

T REX

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, 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.

So which is it...you make both claims in the same statement. They can't be fortunate and have planned it from the "get go".

Which is it?
 

smoneil

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So which is it...you make both claims in the same statement. They can't be fortunate and have planned it from the "get go".

Which is it?

Fortunate in terms that the entire season was shortened (to what is the usual recovery time for that sort of hip surgery). If this were a normal-length season, this move would not have been possible without the team/player lying about their recovery. I think it's pretty clear that TB saw that time-frame, and opted to push forward with the surgery at the beginning rather than the end, of the season, as a means of keeping the team together for another Cup run without actually addressing their salary cap concerns. Again--not illegal as per the written rules, but shady in that it enables them to have 10 million more cap dollars than other teams in the playoffs.
 

T REX

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Fortunate in terms that the entire season was shortened (to what is the usual recovery time for that sort of hip surgery). If this were a normal-length season, this move would not have been possible without the team/player lying about their recovery. I think it's pretty clear that TB saw that time-frame, and opted to push forward with the surgery at the beginning rather than the end, of the season, as a means of keeping the team together for another Cup run without actually addressing their salary cap concerns. Again--not illegal as per the written rules, but shady in that it enables them to have 10 million more cap dollars than other teams in the playoffs.

So they planned it then...just say it instead of talking out of both sides of your mouth.
 

T REX

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smoneil

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So they planned it then...just say it instead of talking out of both sides of your mouth.

I'm not. Nobody really had a sense for when the season was going to start or how long it was going to run until just before it started. Just went back to check, and it was actually closer than I'd thought. The league announced the 2021 start date and schedule on 12/20. Three days later, Kucherov was on IR. Tampa was playing a bit of a long game--they had no rush to pay other teams to take cap from them, and they were actively trying to become cap compliant (shopping and then waiving Johnson, among several other trade talks). So no, I don't think they went into that offseason saying "f*** the cap, we're going to twirl our mustaches and play dirty tricks with Kucherov, bwahaha!" I do think that when the schedule (and basically zero available time to make a move before they had to be cap compliant--only 10 days or so between the announcement of the schedule and the start of training camp, with Christmas and New Years in that 10 day span as well) was released, they realized that they had an opportunity to keep the crew together by manipulating the LTIR rules. So intentional or maybe "opportunistic" (probably a more accurate term than "planned"), but "fortunate" because the intention could only have happened in this wonky offseason. Let me put it another way--had they been able to deal Johnson, I have no doubt at all in my mind that Kucherov would have been playing all season and getting surgery in the summer.
 

Hockeyholic

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Don't blame the team for taking advantage. Blame the system.

But IF (Huge IF) TB is holding Kucherov out for cap purposes, that could backfire.

What if he's rusty in round 1 and TB gets ousted. That's definitely a possibility.

You can't expect him to play for the first time in 8 months and suddenly turn a switch.
 
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ER89

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That wasn't the question though...

Vasi is a beast though. Won't argue that. Easily most underrated player on tb. You could probably say the same for Toronto if they had Hedman. Tb is a perennial contender because of Hedman and Vasi and not as much because of their forward depth.
fair enough but was just pointing that out. Like if we switch goalies and then you lose kuch, I don't see lightening doing that well is all.
 

Oilslick941611

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Don't blame the team for taking advantage. Blame the system.

But IF (Huge IF) TB is holding Kucherov out for cap purposes, that could backfire.

What if he's rusty in round 1 and TB gets ousted. That's definitely a possibility.

You can't expect him to play for the first time in 8 months and suddenly turn a switch.
Chris Johnston just mentioned on HNIC intermission league is watching teams for LTIR trickery and Tampa was mentioned specifically. League can request medical records and they are watching and will have a tight focus on players activated for game 1 of playoffs. Tampa might be outsmarting themselves here.
 

Chips

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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
 

AndreRoy

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The hawks won, and the conversation disappear pretty quick lol.

The Hawks aren’t a Southern team. That’s what the constant whining about LTIR and taxes is really about. Northern hockey fans, and especially fans of Canadian teams, can’t get over the fact that a team in a non-traditional market has been the most successful in the league over the last several years, and they’ll stop at nothing to find some excuse for why their teams aren’t as good. That’s all it really comes down to: jealousy (well, that and perhaps some non-hockey issues that we can’t discuss here.)
 

Chips

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Chris Johnston just mentioned on HNIC intermission league is watching teams for LTIR trickery and Tampa was mentioned specifically. League can request medical records and they are watching and will have a tight focus on players activated for game 1 of playoffs. Tampa might be outsmarting themselves here.
Those protocols are old tho, I assume he’s bringing it up as it’s not necessarily common knowledge among fans. Sure there’s probably increased chatter about “if” around the league that it’s going to reassure.

there’s little chance they find Kucherov wasn’t injured and didn’t have legitimate surgery; and his time frame is pretty typical.

highly competitive league though, they wanna make sure to check it out lol.
 
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smoneil

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I'm not going point by point there (seriously, why do you reply that way? It makes it almost impossible to respond to individual comments).

This is the last I'm going to say on it, because I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.

Tampa was WELL over the salary cap. The rule was intended for a team that was in compliance with the salary cap to replace a player who was injured. Rarely (twice in the last 10 years or so) that led to a team effectively having a higher effective cap than the rest of the league in the playoffs (Chicago and Pittsburgh, as noted earlier). So say that TB had become compliant and then Point went down. The LTIR rule is intended for TB to go out and use that cap space. When Point comes back, the team has to be compliant again. Tampa Bay was 10 million OVER the cap. In removing Kucherov to the LTIR, they were right up against the cap with no players missing. They had no replacement players. The point of the rule is not to take a player off of a team's cap so that they can exceed the cap by 10 million dollars. The fact that you DO think that's the intention of that rule is ridiculous.

As for all the snide comments about wanting to see phone taps and such, this is about as clear a case as you can get without a confession. Consider:

1- His hip didn't seem to be aggravating him all that much during the season/playoffs. He regularly logged 20+ minutes and even played 45 minutes one game.
2- If his intention HAD been to get the hip taken care of before the season, why not get it done in October? He would have been back in February.
3- Let's pay careful attention to the events of and directly after December 20th:
December 20th: League announces schedule and start to season (essentially 20 days away)
December 21st: The story is released that Kucherov got an injection for his hip a day earlier.
December 22nd: TB announce the re-signing of RFA Erik Cernak.
December 23rd: Kucherov is announced to be out for the season.
December 24th: TB announce the re-signing of RFA Anthony Cirelli

You're telling me that after three months of stringing their RFAs along and trying to become cap-compliant, and Kucherov supposedly just ignoring this injury that the week the league announces the schedule all of these pieces just fall into place? I got a bridge to sell you, bud. This was not a technical violation of any league rule, but y'all have got to knock off the Eddie Haskell BS on this one, because it's obvious that TB took advantage of the rule for another kick at the can.

Finally, as to your doubling down on your inane point that my proposed rule change would be a disservice to players because "star players" shouldn't be sat down in the playoffs--Tampa Bay (or any team doing this in the future) shouldn't even have that extra 10 million dollar star player. That's the whole point. By having teams submit cap-compliant active rosters round by round, it preserves the rights of teams to fill injury gaps to their lineup while ALSO ensuring that no team has a competitive edge in the playoffs by working under a wholly different cap number. Frankly, I'm shocked that "fairness" is such a controversial concept around here.
 

Nothingbutglass

Registered User
Sep 28, 2017
3,955
3,087
Hey look, more LTIR tricks. I expect the same outrage from Leafs fans for consistency.

"The big question here is: Can they clear $3.7 million if Andersen, who has been travelling and skating on the recent road trip, gets healthy before the end of the regular season?
After some digging, the answer is pretty clear: not easily.
And not through conventional means. "

Mirtle: Are the Maple Leafs engaging in 'LTIR shenanigans' with Frederik Andersen?
 

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