If a scenario existed where Stone in the last three years was healthy with 4 games to go. In any of those years. Sitting a healthy Mark Stone would be considered cap circumvention because they couldn't activate him and be cap compliant.
How would you consider the best way for the league to address that?
Spitballing, presuming we can unilaterally make CBA changes:
1. Require that a player on LTIR who was deemed healthy enough to play must come off LTIR, even if that means assigning a player to the minors is needed to make room on the Active Roster. [Said players would not be subject to waivers, but
would still count against the cap.]
2. Allow LTIR to be invoked if needed inside of 10 games in instances that it might be needed for ordinary roster moves / to facilitate someone coming off LTIR and an injured player would otherwise qualify for LTIR. Games toward the 10-game limit not missed in the regular season have to be missed in the playoffs or in the next season the player is on an NHL roster.
3. Enforce any resulting overage (where LTIR can't be used as described in 2) as a penalty on the next season's cap. [Which can get messy on a couple fronts, but I'm ignoring that for this purpose.]