The NHL has a BIG problem (Cap Circumvention via LTIR)

[dukeofjive]

The game management by refs is the biggest issue with nhl.

 

[SniperHF]

We prefer thread titles that actually say what the thread is about.

 

[Chips]

LTIR was always fundamentally flawed and destined to be abused like this. So a player gets injured, and the league gives you cap space so you can replace them. When they come back, you are just expected to get back under. After the trade deadline, you basically cannot. Before the deadline, you could make trades to get back under but it's not an easy thing, especially if you're a team like Tampa with a 9 million cap hit injured.

Outside fans have an attitude like "tough, suffer then, you did this to yourself", but the league doesn't want that. They want it to run smoothly.

How is it being abused? I still have yet to see anyone saying stuff like this provide any evidence the rule is being broken. Is he not injured or his surgery fake?

it’s being used for its exact purpose. There really is no perfect solution that both allows teams with injuries to stay competitive during the season, and stops teams from having a players return.

you either screw over teams/players (and their fans) with injuries, or you have the current rules and risk occasionally having players timing of their injury/timetable having them return for the playoffs. Thing is, that really doesn’t happen that often, at least not with significant players, but teams lose players every regular season racing for the playoffs.

but this really is convenience of timing, at least the Kucherov example (I didn’t know Nash was injured or who that was, if someone could fill me in).

No player wants to miss as much time as Kuch and generally have surgery that can sometimes actually affect a players career. No team, especially one already deep enough to win either way would want to force a player to sit on a bogus injury and entire season after making him have unnecessary surgery...


Kucherovs timetable is normal for that kind of surgery. We’ve seen multiple other players have it in recent years, some even longer. If anything he’s more likely to rush back before he’s 100% than to stay out too long, it takes time to heal+build back strength, flexibility and conditioning.

If this were a normal season and normal offseason, he’d return mid season and no benefit, but hey , it was a short season. Convenience isn’t malicious lol.

*also worth pointing out this season at the time of surgery was NOT a sure thing to finish and it was going to be a bunch of games in short time; so if you’re in his position did it make sense to get the surgery then, rather than miss a huge chunk of the following season?

or maybe this was a normal length season and he attempted to just get another shot and power through, and (very realistically) aggravated his injury worse like Seguin and missed a few months:.. maybe the timing would still work out that he comes back for playoffs lol.

shit happens.

 

[63 others]

I dont blame Toronto or TB.

But i do think this loophole needs to be closed

To be honest i dont really understand why this havent happenend before. I dont see a single reason why playoffs shouldnt have a cap

 

[MNNumbers]

Do you know who really gets hurt by this?

The non injured players.

Why?

Because payments on contracts under LTIR still count against the 50% rule. So, if Tampa or whoever replaced Kucherov's salary with someone else's, then Tampa is actually paying out more than 100% of their share of the players' share of HRR.

Therefore, escrow increases.

Now, of course, this year the escrow has a cap on it. But, still, the players are going to have to make that whole sometime in the future.

 

[Chips]

I dont blame Toronto or TB.

But i do think this loophole needs to be closed

To be honest i dont really understand why this havent happenend before. I dont see a single reason why playoffs shouldnt have a cap

How would they do it? They’d have to remove the trade deadline, which won’t happen, or screw teams that have injuries forcing them to either trade that injured player they want to keep or icing a bad roster all year and hope they make the playoffs


Either you have the rule and keep it’s fairly uncommon/rarely significant “loophole” or close it and create new problems nobody would like

 

[CupsOverCash]

I'm missing something is Kucherov not hurt or something?

 

[Rec T]

I'd just audit injuries; what Toronto and Tampa is doing that's iffy is extending the LTIR time of Andersen and Kucherov when they might be able to come back earlier.

Heck, allow other teams to request an audit as a way to deal with the misincentives

Or, if a player is on LTIR for 'x'% of the season (40%+?) then he's done for the entire season (including the playoffs). Give the player an appeals process, but otherwise, he's done for the year. Maybe a sliding scale where if he's hurt at the start of the season but is back & playing regularly during the 2nd half, the maximum % of missed games is reduced (keeping players from using the Long Term 'Injured' Resting up for the playoffs...)

 

[Peat]

As said, LTIR is working pretty much as intended. If teams were routinely deliberately abusing LTIR in a way that gives them advantage then, yeah, maybe you see post-season caps/players having to be not on LTIR for part of the regular season, but it's not happening enough for most people to kick off.

 

[Bondurant]

Every team can do the same thing. Does not sound like much of a "loophole" to me. Why don't we also close the "loophole" of teams hiring competent GM's and coaches.

 

[violaswallet]

Or, if a player is on LTIR for 'x'% of the season (40%+?) then he's done for the entire season (including the playoffs). Give the player an appeals process, but otherwise, he's done for the year. Maybe a sliding scale where if he's hurt at the start of the season but is back & playing regularly during the 2nd half, the maximum % of missed games is reduced (keeping players from using the Long Term 'Injured' Resting up for the playoffs...)

I get that. but the player association wouldn't agree: players want to play.

The problem is gaming the system, not necessarily the system if everyone behaved in its spirit. Tampa got away with something I think and what the Leafs are doing is flagrant as well, but frankly, if it wasn't the Canadian division, the Leafs wouldn't be able to do it (They wouldn't want to give Andersen up)

 

[belair]

I'd be more upset if this loophole wasn't available when my team required it. It's a clear circumvention of the cap, but playing an entire season without Nikita Kucherov isn't something a team would generally prefer.

The result of this 'loophole' allows teams to spend more money and employ more players. Who's losing?

 

[Mr Positive]

Do you know who really gets hurt by this?

The non injured players.

Why?

Because payments on contracts under LTIR still count against the 50% rule. So, if Tampa or whoever replaced Kucherov's salary with someone else's, then Tampa is actually paying out more than 100% of their share of the players' share of HRR.

Therefore, escrow increases.

Now, of course, this year the escrow has a cap on it. But, still, the players are going to have to make that whole sometime in the future.

Well, not exactly. Contracts are often insured. In that case, the team isn't paying the contract, the insurance company is (for part at least).

That might also explain why the lower earning teams haven't made a stink about it.

The other factor is that players aren't paid at all in the playoffs. That could also be why there is no cap in the playoffs.

 

[ItWasJustified]

Dozens of players are quite literally being paid to not to be on the ice.

So if you ended up in a hospital for an extended amount of time you would say that you were quite literally being paid to not be at work?

 

[63 others]

How would they do it? They’d have to remove the trade deadline, which won’t happen, or screw teams that have injuries forcing them to either trade that injured player they want to keep or icing a bad roster all year and hope they make the playoffs


Either you have the rule and keep it’s fairly uncommon/rarely significant “loophole” or close it and create new problems nobody would like

Sorry i domt wanna be ironic or sth and i dont know all the details of the cba

But i saw the trade deadline until now just as the last day you can trade. Why should the salary cap not be relevant? Usually you know how long your players will be out, so if you have no cap, you have no cap

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Players like it, GMs like it, owners like it. It's not going anywhere.

 

[Chips]

Sorry i domt wanna be ironic or sth and i dont know all the details of the cba

But i saw the trade deadline until now just as the last day you can trade. Why should the salary cap not be relevant? Usually you know how long your players will be out, so if you have no cap, you have no cap

I saw a breakdown sometime back that had more examples both related to the LTIR issue and not I don’t remember every one, but for example

the deadline essentially can be used by competitive teams to add players for a run sure, but also gives for-sure non-playoff building teams an opportunity to sell of their assets for building blocks while the competitive teams are more likely buying;
If you remove the trade deadline, a somewhat competitive team who decided to go for it, and failed can now get that advantage over playoff teams too, as opposed to waiting til the summer when every team opens up again affecting the market

also, they want as many teams as possible trying as hard as possible as much of the season as possible. If you’re going to commit at the deadline, you won’t be selling pieces before the season ends, you’re going for it

 

[Super Hans]

If anything, keep the hard cap for the regular season with a soft playoff cap with exceedances having a luxury tax on them like the NBA uses. Make team ownership pay out of pocket to get the playoff boost. Besides that, I'm not too heartbroken over how it is.

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Tell me how Kucherov being on LTIR benefits Tampa. Every time this dumb ass thread is made, I hope for a new argument and every time I am disappointed.

 

[63 others]

I saw a breakdown sometime back that had more examples both related to the LTIR issue and not I don’t remember every one, but for example

the deadline essentially can be used by competitive teams to add players for a run sure, but also gives for-sure non-playoff building teams an opportunity to sell of their assets for building blocks while the competitive teams are more likely buying;
If you remove the trade deadline, a somewhat competitive team who decided to go for it, and failed can now get that advantage over playoff teams too, as opposed to waiting til the summer when every team opens up again affecting the market

also, they want as many teams as possible trying as hard as possible as much of the season as possible. If you’re going to commit at the deadline, you won’t be selling pieces before the season ends, you’re going for it

Thank you.
But im still sceptic. What comes next? Player x has a depression until round 1 of the playoffs ( not that i wanna downplay psychological issues).

I still think there should be a hardcap. When players are not ready to play the last games of the regular season, they wont play in the playoffs

At the trade deadline, the competive teams still can look at their injury and cap situation. Maybe move the trade deadline until 2 weeks before the playoffs

 

[tvilling]

Simply put, Cap Circumvention via LTIR

Teams like Tampa Bay and Toronto are using LTIR to bolster their rosters for the playoffs.

Kucherov being out the entire season, giving the Lightning $10.5M in extra cap relief throughout the season. But as soon as the playoffs come around, he can be activated off LTIR without a hiccup and Tampa will be playing in the playoffs with a roster that could have a cap hit north of $95M.

Toronto acquired Riley Nash from Columbus and it won’t count for a cent on their cap since he’s on LTIR and won’t be activated until the playoffs where there is no salary cap.

The Salary cap was created to give smaller market teams a fighting chance against the larger spending, big markets of the NHL. But with this LTIR loophole, it allows teams like Toronto and Tampa Bay extra cap space since in the playoffs, there is no salary cap.


There is a simple solution to this problem, have a salary cap in the playoffs. it would completely negate this loophole.

The NHL has a BIG problem, and that is it's a pain to watch on TV after ballsy took over...... you having a scrolling ticker filled with BS during the games = i am not watching anymore

 

[Mickey Marner]

Not nearly as egregious as the NBA's buyout window. The players want guaranteed contracts so they're not going to make a fuss and some owners get to save real money if other teams take on their LTIR contracts.

 

[Machinehead]

I mean, it was more about cost certainty than anything, not just to line owner's pockets. There's a reason pretty much all of the league's relocations happened before the hard cap came in, and the one that happened after had nothing to do with not being able to keep up pay-wise and more to do with ownership wanting nothing more but to kill that team off.

The cap makes it easier for teams in small markets to have a better chance at things when they don't have to constantly deal with major market teams just poaching all their players because they happen to be in larger markets and can shell out more money.

Plus it just saves owners from themselves, because another huge problem was team owners spending money without really any rhyme or reason, like the Rangers spent years doing after '94.

There's plenty of middle ground between what the NHL currently has and spending money for no reason. The NHL cap has no flexibility and just kills off most interesting teams.

It led directly to a near-decade where basically three teams won the Cup and it outright punishes developing star players. For all we hear about smaller markets getting a chance, the same teams have been good and bad for most of the last 15 years. Of the 15 Cups awarded since the implementation of the cap, the top 11 richest teams (the Penguins are 11th) have won 11 out of 15 Cups.

Perhaps the biggest issue I have with the cap is that it doesn't bring any of its supposed on-ice benefits.

 

[MNNumbers]

Well, not exactly. Contracts are often insured. In that case, the team isn't paying the contract, the insurance company is (for part at least).

That might also explain why the lower earning teams haven't made a stink about it.

The other factor is that players aren't paid at all in the playoffs. That could also be why there is no cap in the playoffs.

Your reply has nothing to do with my argument. Let me go through this again....

Some things like LTIR are excepted from counting against the salary cap. This is why a situation like the OP presents can happen in the first place.

However, in a normal year (when the PA and the BOG are not trying to mitigate the issues of an entire year with no fans), the CBA dictates that 50% of HRR goes to the players in salaries. LTIR counts in this calculation.

The effect of this is that, if TB exceeds the usual salary cap via use of LTIR, then the amount of HRR which is being paid to the players goes up (again, this is a separate calculation that the salary cap entirely), and therefore, escrow increases.

The players should hate this. The fact that they don't shows that PA leadership is dysfunctional.

 

[ClydeLee]

The only element I find a real loophole cheeky play is trading for guys on LTIR to gain capspace to use.