Tell me what the Lightning SHOULD have done

[Flair Hay]

Par for the course. I’m sure most Cup winners have some people out there that think they didn’t deserve it.

For example Boston 2011. I think the refs totally jobbed the Bolts in G7.

Hawks in 2015 did the same as the Bolts in 2021.

Someone somewhere can always play that game. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. All that matters is who won the Cup

Yet here is a thread explaining to all the critics why it should count just as as much as all the others...

 

[jgimp]

The players would never agree to your "simple" solutions. Ever!

Oh I know!

 

[ShaneinTpa]

They tried to see if it would heal on its own. It didn't, so they elected for surgery.

People don't have to be in tremendous pain to opt for surgery. If a medical expect suggests that surgery may help prevent something like long term deterioration, wouldn't you take it even if the pain was mild in the present?

I would agree with you if the season was a certainty. Obviously given the fact that it was reduced to 56 games and didn’t start till January suggested it was anything but

 

[ShaneinTpa]

It's not what the Lightning should've done. They did what any other team would've done.

It's what the league didn't do to avoid this possibility from occurring.

The NHL is always reactive. Never proactive.

People seem to forget that the league doesn’t just mandate what it wants. There is an NHL PA that would have a lot to say about this. And I’m telling you the players would opt to continue with no salary cap in the playoffs

 

[ShaneinTpa]

I understand why the Lightning (and any other team) would have done what they did. I also think it's a particularly egregious example of this loophole and the league should prevent it from happening in the future. And no doubt many Lightning fans would feel differently were their opponents the ones having added a world-class, 9.5M player to the lineup for free. We all advocate for whatever benefits our own team in the moment. But it'd be better if we never had to have this debate in the first place.

Nobody in here I believe doesn’t think this rule should not be revisited. However where is all the complaining about the 2015 Chicago Blackhawks who won the Stanley Cup doing the same or worse (against the Lightning no less)? That situation was six years ago and was probably worse given the fact that Chicago went out and signed free agents off other peoples rosters using the cap money that Kane Didn’t take up. At least Tampa Bay re-signed it’s on players

 

[snowkiddin]

The Lightning used a cap loophole to their advantage. Kudos to them. They did nothing wrong. Doesn't mean I like it but there are a lot of rules I don't like so whatever.

Hopefully that's a loophole that is closed for next season and beyond. It goes against the competitive spirit of the cap to be able to put a team on the ice in the playoffs that is over the cap. I can see scenarios (albeit unlikely) where wealthy teams like NYR and TOR sign guys to massive 1 year deals and then LTIR them for the season just to play them in the playoffs. It's not unfeasible (though very unlikely).

So to reiterate
1) Tampa did nothing wrong and exploited a loophole that will surely be closed in the offseason

and for the future
2) the loophole needs to be closed.
3) LTIR should be a season ender in every situation. Once you go on LTIR, you can't play for the rest of that season including post season.
4) the team fielded in the playoffs needs to be cap compliant

I pretty much agree with this. This is the most competitive hockey league in the world so I don’t blame the Lightning for doing everything possible to win.

I think you’d have to be pretty naive or a massive Lightning homer to not acknowledge this whole situation isn’t, at bare minimum, a touch fishy, but as of right now it’s not against the rules, so more power to them.

Hopefully the NHL addresses this in the next CBA, but I have my doubts.

 

[ShaneinTpa]

The Lightning didn't break any rules. Any team could have done what the Lightning did, if they would be willing to play the entire regular season without a player like Kucherov. Most teams don't have the overall depth or talent to finish in a decent playoff spot without their best player. However, for the teams that have that depth and talent, putting their best player on LTIR and bringing them back for the start of the playoffs is an option for them.

So now that we have established that the Lightning didn't break any rules, I want to say one other thing.

It is foolish for anyone to deny that this is what the Lightning did.

A player waits almost 3 months after the season to get hip surgery, skates for over a month leading up to the playoffs, doesn't play a regular season game, and is 100% good to go for the first game of the playoffs?

And not only is he good to go for the playoffs, he dominates the game and plays like someone who was probably good to go for weeks/months beforehand?

Let's use common sense here.

The Lightning knew they were good enough to make the playoffs even without Kucherov. His surgery provided them with an easy way for them to avoid having to trade other key pieces and/or 1st round picks to provide salary-cap relief.

I don't deny he had hip surgery.

What I do deny is any suggestion that he wasn't healthy enough to play regular season games but was healthy enough to play in the first game of the playoffs.

Some Lightning fans would be better off saying "Yes, this is what we did. But we didn't break any CBA rules" rather than try to convince people that he wasn't healthy enough to play regular season games.

I see your point and agree it has merit where the timelines for the surgery are concerned. But Tyler Seguin had the same off-season surgery and was only able to come back and play in Dallas‘s last three games. If it was that easy a team struggling to make the playoffs and didn’t would’ve brought him back sooner, say on the timelines you’re referencing.

 

[DFC]

I pretty much agree with this. This is the most competitive hockey league in the world so I don’t blame the Lightning for doing everything possible to win.

I think you’d have to be pretty naive or a massive Lightning homer to not acknowledge this whole situation isn’t, at bare minimum, a touch fishy, but as of right now it’s not against the rules, so more power to them.

Hopefully the NHL addresses this in the next CBA, but I have my doubts.

If there weren't surgery involved, I would think it's fishy. If the argument is they held Kucherov out even when he was healthy, that's pure BS, because he was clearly not 100% vs. the Panthers. If the argument is they delayed the surgery to manipulate the timeline, I can buy it, but we would need a lot more evidence than anyone has put forward.

 

[ShaneinTpa]

Nah I wouldn't want to take advantage like that. I don't want an asterisk by our win if we ever get one.

They should’ve given the lady Bing trophy to you

 

[snowkiddin]

If there weren't surgery involved, I would think it's fishy. If the argument is they held Kucherov out even when he was healthy, that's pure BS, because he was clearly not 100% vs. the Panthers. If the argument is they delayed the surgery to manipulate the timeline, I can buy it, but we would need a lot more evidence than anyone has put forward.

I think both arguments have merit, but I’d lean towards the latter being true moreso than the former. Alas, it doesn’t much matter, the Lighting didn’t do anything wrong.

The NHL looks stupid but they always look stupid.

 

[ShaneinTpa]

The Savard trade was a work of art. To get him at 25% by having 2 teams retain 75% of his contract.

Also the league and THE PA are standing by their agreed upon terms by the CBA they both signed. The only ones butthurt are internet arm chair gms who's team isn't good enough to sit a top 5 player on the planet and make the playoffs.

Bang on! Beautiful!

 

[DFC]

I think both arguments have merit, but I’d lean towards the latter being true moreso than the former. Alas, it doesn’t much matter, the Lighting didn’t do anything wrong.

The NHL looks stupid but they always look stupid.

Anybody who's watched Kucherov semi-regularly will tell you he wasn't healthy in the Panthers series, and probably still isn't now. He's missing his top gear. He just doesn't need it as much as other players.

 

[ShaneinTpa]

I personally think that a system should be in place that rewards high level scouting. Tampa is far and away the most successful franchise at identifying and developing talent. Why should they be penalized for being great at their jobs?

Look at Tampa, most of their players are homegrown (and yes, I'm counting those like Sergachev who were acquired via trade and developed by TB) and both the team and players seem happy there.

I'd love to see a system where homegrown guys have only a portion of their AAV count against the cap to encourage higher quality scouting and development. It sucks to see a guy you develop have to leave or get traded because you've developed too many good players.

Four Rings I have said the same thing many times in here and it falls on deaf ears.

On top of that Tampa is not only the poster child of the salary caps intent to draft better, it was also the most hurt by the cap’s institution when it couldn’t defend its 2004 Cup by losing a lot of its stars to free agency

 

[Conbon]

There shouldn't be incentive to milk/fake an injury. Same reason I was against the idea of suspensions matching the time missed caused by the dirty play.

 

[HuGo Sham]

Gotta hand it to brisebois...he was the habs cap guru until he left to apprentice under yzerman. he's using the all of loopholes afforded to him.
that's it

 

[Ducati Boy]

This thread is a good opportunity for me to post my selection of Hall-Of-Fame level over-the-top egregious memes about Tampa and the cap.

#1: That Tampa is, oh, '50 million' or so over the cap. I mean the quoted number seems to increase every day, so why not? (Real number of note = 9.5 million, Kucherov's salary)
#2: That 'if my club applied the same loophole we'd be able to pick up McDavid and Marchand' (Umm, those players are on other teams' rosters. Kucherov is and always was on Tampa's.)
#3: That Tampa is succeeding only because they can get these high salaried stars (Actually this is ass-backwards. The Bolts success is due to shrewd drafting and development of almost all their players. Their success results in the players upping their value, warranting the increase and leading to a cap crunch, especially after they win a cup.)
#4: If my team had that extra cash we'd win the cup too. (Ummm, no you wouldn't. The most analogous situation to Tampa's would be to add $500,000 to each of your current top 20 players' payrolls = 10 million. Would that suddenly spur them on to a sure Stanley?)
#5: Tampa used that LTIR money to sign a bunch of stars. (Nope. It's 95% the same team as last year's cup winners. Only Savard is new from outside the organization. 4 actually gone from last season)
#6: Tampa somehow owes it to the league, as a model of 'fairness', to allow a player of Mikhail Sergachev's stature to go for nothing. (But as they managed to keep him... cheating!)
#7. HF Boarders who are apparent insiders with the Bolts' medical staff who just happen to know with great certainty that the Kucherov injury was either faked or that he was actually game fit several weeks before the playoffs.

 

[Viqsi]

No one has any idea what the game plan was. Not even our own GM did. He waived Johnson for absolutely free. It was clear he had no idea what the hell to do beyond sign Sergachev to a similar cap hit Johnson carried. He waited to see what would happen next and Kucherov reported his injury before it got there. Athletes with hip injuries are often asymptomatic for long periods of time. He lucked out on the timeline and has said so many times.

On the other hand if this was story of Blake Coleman no one would have given a shit. But somehow because it was Kucherov we were cheating. We lost Bogosian and Shattenkirk all the same and no one cared about that either.


Everyone's just butthurt because they expected a bloodletting and didn't get it

I admittedly have very little desire to see the Bolts win again, but I can absolutely empathize on this point.

I've learned over the years that the very existence of certain teams constitutes a huge frustration and annoyance to some folks, and it's so much worse when those teams are doing well - those folks will eagerly anticipate that team's imminent destruction and disassembly. Moreso than the usual "envy of the successful". Because those teams don't deserve it, by some arbitrary prejudicial metric.