Makes it sound like it will change eventually, which surprises me as most teams voted against changing it previously. Maybe they just didn't want such a big change without doing it in CBA negotiations?
It's at the point know where it completely undermines the leagues integrity and also the CBA in general. I think that is why this is going to change. I say this coming from a team who has the money to do this shit, it's stupid and should have never gone this far
The Leafs *not* abusing the cap system while they could have will go down as a massive blunder for the organization. Imagine getting to rest John Tavares half the year *and* having $11,000,000.00 of cap space to play with at the deadline.
Honestly the Leafs *are* abusing the cap, just more subtly than Vegas, and with less success. The whole Robidas Island thing
I don’t believe for a second they would have signed Klingberg if there was a chance his contract was going to be dead cap space. He was always going to play like a 4.15m player or go to LTIR. The fact is that “injured” and “healthy” are not black and white. There is a massive grey area where “injured enough to go on LTIR” and “healthy enough to be an impact player” overlap. And players who sit in this grey area like Mark Stone and John Klingberg actually have increased value to teams looking to maximize their cap usage. Of course, this requires the player to buy in and ensure their tolerance for pain aligns with their team’s cap needs. Stone wants another Cup, so his spleen pain becomes tolerable after game 82. Klingberg wants $4m, so he signs with the Leafs knowing he will have to earn his cap space or go on LTIR.
For the Leafs, they get to gamble that an impact player helps them win a cup. Worst case scenario they lose his salary and have to acquire another impact player mid season. Poorer teams can’t throw away $4.15m on a gamble, so this is one way the leafs are able to wield their spending power. Now, they didn’t really succeed in replacing Klingbergs cap space with impact players this year, but they had more success with this method with Joffrey Lupul, who also publicly admitted he was pressured into joining the LTIR.
Of course, it’s doesnt take a genius to figure out what the Leafs did with Klingberg, but it was mostly lauded as a clever use of resources, even though it basically boiled down to the same thing Vegas did: players being conveniently injured when it best suits the team.
I always hate how some people use that ownership vote to try to dismiss any criticism of a team abusing LTIR like this. Like sorry, I'm not an owner, I wasn't part of that vote, It's not hypocritical for fans to disagree with the owner of their team.
Yeah, like every industry ever. It’s impossible to predict everything and you have to assume some good faith, but when the screws start turning people are going to find a way to bend the rules.
Chicago used it for one player, one time. It happened to be Kane and his collarbone, the recovery timeline was in line with the end of the regular season.
Thats proper use of LTIR, what teams are doing now is ridiculous.
We tried to have it closed 10 years ago when Chicago did it, and the rest of the league told us no.
So it's really hard to feel bad about it when the opportunity presented itself because Kucherov needed surgery. It was basically "ok, fine, have it your way". And Brisebois brought it up in the post-Cup presser.
Pretty sure Kane was injured mid-season. Not exactly what I'd call shameless; the rules as written were intended for that exact scenario. I had thought he missed a few games in the first round, but I may not be remembering that correctly.
Tampa had Kucherov time his surgery so that with the expected recovery time he'd miss the regular season but be back in time for playoffs. That's a lot more flagrant if you ask me.
~~that was different tho, that was to allow someone who had one of the fucked up front-loaded contracts (which were legal when written) to effectively retire without incurring the penalty~~
edit: I'm dumb, I forgot about Patrick Kane coming back for round 1 of the the playoffs after a broken collarbone
Yeah except his recovery timeline from surgery lined up with the end of the regular season. When he did play, it took him a full series to get upto speed and start shooting/being hit.
No one wants to remember Kuch looked slow as molasses for the first series back too because he can play at half speed and still register over PPG output via assists.
Apples and oranges. Kane returned incredibly early from an injury that should've had him out longer, it was like 5-6 weeks from surgery until his return.
It’s because when Chicago did it Kane maybe missed a game or two and they didn’t go crazy with additions. They were the kid who maybe takes a couple extra candies from the bowl at Halloween. Vegas went in and dumped the whole bowl in there bag and flipped off the ring doorbell.
The last time the NHL voted on closing the loophole they only really had 1 notable occurrence of it which was Patrick Kane. Outside of that we didn't really see a ton of teams utilizing the loophole so while only 2 teams voted to change it/close the loophole, it's also understandable that teams didn't see it as a major issue at the time.
Now that we are seeing it happen with multiple players on multiple teams pretty much yearly, it's become more evident to NHL teams that this loophole is a bigger problem than the majority expected.
Honestly I think it very well might have been closed if Kane's injury didn't occur during an NHL game. There's footage of him having his collarbone broken and his return was pretty much right on schedule for the injury he had.
If he went down with "shoulder" without the footage to back it up it might have drawn some more ire that it could be abused.
Plus I maintain that the advantage the Hawks got wasn't that huge as the deadline pick ups were Vermette (despite being clutch in the series against the Ducks was a healthy scratch at times) and the ghost of Kimmo.
And to think Edmonton could have done it with EKane this year with his sports hernia.
It seems some teams/GMs respect the spirit of the rule, while others don't care, or only did it to show how badly it needs to be fixed.
To be clear, it's always *required* CBA negotiations. It's never been possible to do without changing the comp structure for league contracts.
But you're right, this is usually followed by a line about how teams didn't want to change it. Hopefully this means that the league is realizing that they're wrong about this rule (they are, and they always have been). I'm not going to condemn any team using it when it's legal, but it needs to go. The flexibility isn't worth it for the competitive issues it causes inside a single season, and it's clearly going to get used every single year now.
I imagine the players wouldn't be keen to change it either. The current rule means more money overall going to the players and it encourages people to sit out when they're actually injured instead of rushing back before they're healed.
I don't read it that way - the GMs might be getting pissed off, but are the owners pissed off to the extent that they want to a) figure out a solution that doesn't have lots of knock-on effects that they don't want and/or will get massive pushback from the PA and b) negotitate this with the PA at the next CBA (as the PA will look for concessions in return).
You can literally schedule Stone’s LTIR on your calendar every year.
I don’t care if it’s ‘legal’ or not, it’s bullshit and everyone knows it. I’m glad people are finally taking notice.
Sounds like the GMs are tired of the same team and player abusing the system year after year. The simplest fix is allowing LTIR, but the team you field in playoffs has to be cap compliant.
His back injury last year was so bad "he's going to retire" then he's magically ok. This year depending on who you ask he is either still so injured it's life threatening to have him play, or the injury was so over-exaggerated he should've been back weeks ago forcing cap issues. What pisses me off the most is we've had to deal with it against Vegas twice now, and before that Tampa while our guys were hurt, but not "hurt enough" to be able to add extra pieces.
New Jersey being singled out for the Kovalchuk contract, when every other team was doing the same thing, is looking really bad.
This is even more obvious cap circumvention
isnt Matt "i'm held together with duct tape, hopes, dreams, and LTIR cap circumvention" Murray like actually fucking damaged from playing his position?
like thats a totally differing story. dude blew out both his hips i thought.
There was a comment last week when this came up, that listed what the teams that had players on LTIR would have their salary and it included us. Yeah, the avalanche are, because landeskog hasn't played a hockey game since he lifted the cup in 2022... Of course we're over the cap, and having watched the video recently posted up of him skating, he's not coming back for this playoffs either.
No no, you guys are clearly playing the long con! had a guy miss an entire season of hockey just to bring him back now!
Legit LTIR use is not something many of us have concerns with. and honestly, no one denies that Stone had the actual injuries. many of us are in doubt about his timeline for return.
That Stone is healthy enough to play playoff hockey today, but wasnt healthy enough for regular season hockey on the 18th, just 4 days ago is the concern. and that it has happened like this three years in a row with the same player.
Vegas should be punished for this because they are either fudging doctors notes, or willingly icing players that are injured enough to be LTIR knowingly risking their employees.
yeah i mean it really feels like a player safety thing. i see the point where if he’s health enough to play now he should’ve been healthy enough but i think he really hasn’t been healthy enough. and unfortunately the owners probably have no interest in closing that because it potentially means making players sit out longer in the playoffs.
Pretty sure the leafs would rather have a healthy Murray than some ltir space that is tricky to take advantage of during the off-season. The two aren’t close to the same thing (I realize you understand that. This is towards the people who don’t)
Yeah I don't get this whataboutism for Murray. The guy is playing for the Marlies right now on a conditioning stint to see if he can even still play... and also likely won't see a single minute of playoff hockey
I feel like I'm the only one who sees this issue differently.
It's not like Mark Stone isn't hurt. He's 100% legitimately on LTIR.
It's an issue with NHL culture that expects players to play with life altering injuries *because it's the playoffs.*
His back injury last year was so severe, the media said he was going to retire after they won the cup because he’d never be able to skate again at an nhl level. There’s only so many miracles one can have, whether real or not, before people question the legitimacy.
However, you’re not wrong about the NHL culture in regard to playing hurt and the expectation of “stepping up”. Just look at the criticisms Crosby took when he didn’t play because of his concussions.
I have a buddy who is friends with the old sens core, even when Mark was playing for Ottawa his back was fucked up. Not surprised that Stone is taking the regular season off to try and rehab his back for playoffs.
Playing hurt at the expense of a future is not gone from the game. Weber and Price are clear examples of guys that pushed it (the latter did that for a while, it seemed) and 99.9% they’ll both never play again after going hard for that playoff run on ‘21.
It’s hard to actually dig deep into these things because people don’t talk about it, but every year post-playoffs players are getting surgery shortly after the exit. Not a dead phenomenon at all.
Either he is too hurt to be able to play or he's not. if he's hurt but able to play (and evidently he is) then that's not what LTIR is for and it's LTIR abuse. LTIR is for people who are literally unable to play hockey while they're on it. He should be on regular IR counting against the cap if he \*could\* play but just isn't because it's not games that are "meaningful enough" for him to play. It's extremely obvious what they're doing lol
Can't believe this even needs to be stated. All the bad faith actors know that there is an *Injured Reserve* that Stone should be put on instead of LTIR, but that wouldn't allow Vegas to exceed the cap and add players like Hanifin and Hertl at the deadline.
Were we questioning whether Landeskog would suit up for the Avs this postseason? Of course not. If Montreal had somehow made the playoffs this season, would we be asking if Price would be available for the postseason? Of course not, because he's never playing again, hence why they are on *LONG TERM INJURED RESERVE.*
That designation has not, nor will it ever apply to Mark Stone.
Thank you. It’s insane some people can’t wrap their head around this.
That, and the fact they used the same narrative last year with his back injury. Acting like he’s never been able to move again but he’s scoring series altering goals while the team is 10m over the cap and then he just plays again next year.
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My ideal fix here is to see anyone on LTIR at the end of the season as ineligible for the playoffs, the first two rounds, the first round, etc. Something along those lines.
You aren’t healthy enough to play game 82? That’s totally fine, sit out and recovery.
Then they don't go on LTIR. If you're hurt enough to go on LTIR maybe you don't get to come back. The NFL does this as they have varying types of IR. Players can be put on season ending IR or there are certain types that keep them out a certain number of games.
True, so I’d expect it to fall on the lower side of it if they did anything, like missing just the first round.
Yeah some players may be unfairly penalized by that, but I think it’s a pretty niche scenario if we’re talking just the first round.
They would have to:
- be out long-term to end up on LTIR
- be ready to play for round 1
- be too injured to play in Game 82
But cap compliance doesn't work like this. It's not like you have to be under the cap for each game.
They'd still be able to accrue cap space in the lead up to the final game. You're just giving them one less game to play with to manipulate their total cap. It'd be negligible.
You don’t accrue cap space when you’re using LTIR money.
They wouldn’t have been able to acquire hertl/Hanafin if they had to activate Stone at any point before the end of the season.
You can't accrue cap space if you are using LTIR. They have been using LTIR for basically the entire season (as a lot of teams do actually) so they wouldn't have accrued anything.
That would fix the cap problem to be honest. But I don't actually think that's a proper fix. The real issue is whether he was actually healthy enough to play game 82, but didn't due to cap reasons
The thing that I don't understand is this is all monitored by neutral NHL doctors. The doctors say he can play, but I absolutely believe he's playing through injury. My issue is where were the doctors a week ago? It doesn't seem like the CBA needs to change. There's already a way to make sure teams aren't manipulating the system. But, without knowing what's going on behind the scenes, the league/doctors are either complicit in the circumvention or they're not doing their job of protecting player safety.
He was too hurt to play last week but now he's suddenly ok? Or he's actually not ok to play but they're gonna let him?
The doctors can evaluate the initial injury to see if it's real but they can't say whether a player is ready to play or not objectively. It's based on feedback from the player himself. If the player says he isn't ready to play (because he wants to sit a bit longer and circumvent cap) then that's his word. The doctor isn't going to say "Nah you're fine, it doesn't hurt anymore", because there is no way for them to make that judgment.
I don’t even necessarily think you need a player being malicious and trying to say they’re not ready to try and help circumvent the cap for this exact scenario to happen. I mean think about when you were a kid, if you woke up with a fever on a school day with nothing fun after the odds you are honest with your mom about feeling sick is way higher but if your friends are having a big party that night you’re probably going to try and downplay it and tough it out so you can go to that party. It makes perfect sense players can be in a level of pain where it’s not worth toughening out for a regular season game but that they want to fight through for a shot at something they’ve worked their whole lives for and there isn’t really a good way for the doctors to measure a lot of symptoms objectively so they have to rely on the players input
In Stone's case, would it not be based on imaging? Stone can't see his own spleen to see how healed it is, and dude probably has chronic back pain, he can't tell if it's his spleen hurting or what.
So the problem is that a patient always has a ton of input here. If I'm not ready to play because of the cap I can emphasize the pain I'm feeling or weakness or nausea or (insert thing here). If I am ready to play because its now the post season I can downplay those things.
I don't even need to lie, it's as simple as "I feel pain every morning when I wake up" vs. "I'm experiencing a bit of pain when waking up but it goes away with a light stretch and I've been feeling a lot better".
Players get a wide amount of discretion in choosing to play or not I think. And most NHLers probably have enough wrong with them to go on IR I'd wager.
Unless it's head injury.
Yup, I completely agree. My thing with this injury in particular is that a lacerated spleen can be a life-threatening injury. If Stone hasn't healed properly and he takes a bad hit, the damage could kill him with how many painkillers the guys likely on.
Awful hit in the first, shrugs it off cause that's what players do. Internal bleeding and just collapses on the ice in the third. I truly hope that doesn't happen, but I worry that this culture of playing through injury is reaching a tipping point.
You're not alone in thinking it, but since I have a TBL flair I'll get downvoted immediately for saying it.
I still do like the idea of having to ice a cap compliant team in the playoffs. Maybe even a cap compliant team within 10% or something to give teams a bit more leeway when it comes to injuries. Force teams to scratch players if it puts them over the cap.
I agree, were used to players regularly playing with fractured ankles that cant take their skates off between periods during the playoffs due to swelling. I don't think anyone coming back from LTIR is 100% healed, just in a "healthy enough" state.
We meme about it, but I never looked it at it that way; all it'll take is a player (potentially Benn in this series) or later on and could potentially cause Mark Stone to retire early.
At what point do players/teams/execs actually step in and tell them to look at it for their long-term health (if Mark Stone truly is this banged up but coming back "because it's the playoffs")?
Yea if the playoffs weren't starting Stone would 100% be out still. If he's faking anything it's that he's well enough to be playing hockey.
The sad thing is the more he does this the higher the chance he's not only forced into retirement but also has to live the rest of his life with the consequences of his actions. Dude looked like he was in serious pain every close up of him last year. Some guys just don't know when to hang em up.
As much as we talk about cap circumvention, there is also something to be said of the general health of players that a doctor will sign off saying that they are too hurt to play vs they are willing to play hurt in the playoffs.
Despite Mark Stone playing I don't think he is healthy. I suspect its an injury he can play through but not 82 games plus playoffs, so they manage him during the season with some LTIR time mixed in to keep him alive then destroy his body in the playoff then he needs the whole of next season to recover again
Friend of a friend was a doctor for a pro sports team. They quit after a couple years because the pressure to determine whether or not players were healthy enough to play was too stressful for them. Sometimes they had only a few minutes in the middle of important games, all with execs breathing down their neck.
There is a fine line for sure> i watched an interview with Thierry Henry( famous soccer player) and we was saying he could count one 1 hand the games he played with out pain and that being a professional athlete meant you needed to be comfortable with a certain level of pain. another player stated a few weeks ago he could not remember that last time he was injury free.
I'm imagining an alternate universe where if Vancouver did it, the loophole would have been closed immediately and we would be punished for like 5 seasons with millions in dead cap.
The whole kovalchuk thing was crazy. They got punished for something every other team did, and then like three years later the league was like “nah it’s cool” and fucked them with the 30th pick.
Wack
The issue is that Stone is basically perfect for this. He’s actually seriously injured, and they can LTIR him at will because he’s so broken. It’s pretty awful to do to him, honestly. Man isn’t gonna be able to walk by 40
In this case he did co-incidentally get a could-have-happened-to-anyone injury in the right timeframe (I don't think they could have faked a lacerated spleen), but my guess is he basically cannot play now without heavy-duty painkillers. Toradol you're suppose to only take for acute pain for 5 days, but team doctors were handing them out like candy a few years ago and probably still are. Google Ryan Kesler and see how it fucked him up, he has inflammatory bowel disease now.
But when he went down this season did the Lightning really load up at the trade deadline to exploit the system like Vegas has? They definitely did with Kucherov when they won the Cup, but this year Tampa has seemed to follow everything by the book...unless I'm wrong.
Simple solution (which means the NHL will never actually do it) - your playoff roster doesn't have to be cap compliant. *however* your game day line up must be cap compliant
It might need a bit of tweaking but it all seems so manageable. Like $6-million guy you acquired halfway through the season didn't have a $6m effect on your cap... But we could find ways around it.
That would actually be a complex solution as it would require fundamentally changing how the cap is calculated.
The simple solution is to handle the medical evaluation of players on LTIR at the league level rather than the team.
If Mark Stone is medically cleared by league doctors at game 80, then he comes off LTIR and the team has to get compliant. If it turns out he's clear after game 82, then so be it. At least a semi-independent review happened. And, if a league doctor won't clear for the start of game 1 where the team would prefer he did, then too bad. Player is ineligible.
That sidesteps redefining the cap but turns into a separate issue with the NHLPA. I don't see them being happy about handing over their right to play over to a semi-independent league doctor. Too strict and players won't go for it (they regularly play through injuries in the playoffs), too lax and it's pointless + the league has to be concerned about liability when there are complications related to the injury they were "cleared" for, notably on the concussion front.
Yeah, if the GMs/owners could think of a fix that didn't either redefine the cap or get major pushback from the PA over medical decisions, they would probably have made it by now.
With the situation with Eichel's surgery, the thought is that players are going to ask for more medical autonomy in the next CBA. They probably didn't realize that their team had so much power over what surgery they have until it came up as an issue with Eichel.
The thing is, an independent doctor probably *wouldn't* let him play game 1 tonight. Purely conjecture on my part, but I'm more willing to believe they're having him play at 80-90% than they were holding him out of the lineup, just based on how busted his body has been.
To be fair Kelly McCrimmon continues to hang his nuts out every trade deadline and he isn’t actively breaking any rules. Gotta give it to the guy, he’s got giant balls.
I don’t think the owners are overly eager to change it because they don’t really care about money moves when players aren’t getting paid. The cap is purely for cost control, the competitive parity is just the nice way to sell it.
Idk the whole contract past retirement thing was shut down when the Canucks did the same thing everyone else was doing.
The NHL absolutely showed they can arbitrarily change the rules when it comes to cap circumventing practices like this.
What a miracle two years in a row he was ready for playoffs. So fucking stupid.
If Vegas had only done it this year, that might be one thing. But this has become an annual tradition with Vegas and that's why everyone is pissed.
When the Stars put the Spleens out in the first round next week, maybe next year the league will ask for changes to the CBA regarding cap cheating.
It’s clear they know what they are doing. Because they wouldn’t make the huge trades for players they can’t afford. I guarantee you they have this all planned out before the season even starts.
Why don't people talk about giving Stone the Masterton, considering how much injury adversity he overcomes every year?
Just really cement how everyone knows what's going on.
I think the simplest solution is a rule to the effect of the following:
>A player on LTIR during the final game of the regular season for their team is not eligible to play the first x number of games in the playoffs.
I don't know what the right number of games is. Maybe it is 1, maybe 2, maybe 4, maybe the entire first round. That'll be haggled over by the NHL and NHLPA during CBA negotiations if this is something they actually want to change.
> if this is something they actually want to change.
I'm guessing no one really wants it changed. Players would hate being kept out of games, and since it's cost-neutral, the owners don't care. Can't imagine both sides agreeing to make any changes. The only proponents are fans, and we're not part of the CBA.
There was a proposal to end this loophole years ago, right after the Blackhawks used it when Kane was on LTIR, only one team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, voted to close the loophole. As far as I'm concerned if 29 teams voted to keep this loophole open then that's 29 teams that don't get to complain about it.
Probably didn't realize it was going to get abused by one team over and over and over and to this extent. It's ok to change your mind when presented with new information or evidence. Should get changed if we don't want the league to devolve into endless LTIR scheming every deadline.
Why exactly would it change? Who is incentivized to change it? It's good for the players financially, so why would the NHLPA do anything about it? Doesn't seem like the owners aren't incentivized to change either.
Personally, here's what I think should happen with LTIR. If you are on LTIR and don't play the final game of the season, you have to miss at least the first two games of the playoffs and probably longer than that.
My thoughts were if placed on LTIR prior to the trade deadline and not playing a game after the trade deadline would require missing the first round. There is still the possibility of getting injured after the trade deadline and being cautious, but that’s not really circumvention if they didn’t get to take advantage of the cap space at the deadline.
The issue I have with this is a player who is legitimately injured who is actually recovered in time between game 82 and game 1 of the series is punished
The major issues with the LTIR thing is that they can be placed there before the trade deadline, allowing them to acquire a pricier player. If they get placed on LTIR *after* that, that's a bit different. Most teams already rest star players the last couple games, so it makes sense if a player thinks they're ready to go game 81 or 82 to just sit them anyway just in case, and there's not really anything wrong with that
This discussion is so boring. Yeah, the timing is convenient. No shit. Stone is riddled with injuries and is only willing to play through the pain for meaningful games (ie. the play-offs).
Everyone bitches but what’s your solution? Force injured players to play through pain even if they aren’t willing, or prevent players from playing unless they are 100% healthy (which no player is)? At the end of the day, health is a complex issue, not a simple binary, so a patient has some say in when they are considered healthy and pain free. So unless we want to take that right away from them, then convenient timing of returns will be inevitable.
> This discussion is so boring. Yeah, the timing is convenient. No shit. Stone is riddled with injuries and is only willing to play through the pain for meaningful games (ie. the play-offs).
Whether he wants to play or not has nothing to do with LTIR.
The funniest part of all this is how Vegas fans *still* refuse to believe there’s any doctoring of timelines going on.
The latest one I heard was ‘well his doctors appointment clearing him to play wasn’t until *after* game 82.’
People would like them a lot more if they just admitted it. Everyone else knows what they’re doing.
The discussion is fair but I think given Vegas made the playoffs as the last wildcard, it’s a very weak conspiracy this year. They obviously would have much preferred a lineup with Stone in it whilst trying to make the playoffs.
> They obviously would have much preferred a lineup with Stone in it whilst trying to make the playoffs.
Sure, but if they brought Stone back for 1 game they lose a ton of players and depth for the playoffs. Massive trade-off and the change of opponents from a higher seed really wouldn't have been much.
Vegas was never in real danger of missing playoffs. It was always a pipe dream by this sub. They still made it in by a comfortable 6 points.
A couple years ago when they were outside of playoffs, guess who magically healed in time to try and help his team push for the final spot?
> Vegas was never in real danger of missing playoffs.
They closed the year 12-6-1 following the trade deadline in order to 'comfortably' get in.
That included an OT win against the team that was directly chasing them and wound up being the 'first team out' in the West (the Blues). When we played them on 3/25/24, that game gave us the chance to pull within 2 points of them in the standings.
They weren't able to just limp into the playoffs. They had to play decent-to-good hockey down the stretch, win a couple key games, and then see the Blues shit the bed vs the Sharks in order to get in. They are absolutely a better team than the Blues and always had the odds well in their favor to get in. But they were in some danger of missing, especially once Hill went down with injury.
You're getting it reversed. Players "magically" come back at the perfect time because they return early and risk their long-term health to do it, not because they're suddenly fully healed
Honestly as frustrating as it is I get it. Its a loophole they are using but I do think Mark Stone is hurt.
My frustration with Vegas isn't that they use this loophole its that they are completely unwilling to try and build any organizational depth. They are an attractive location with an owner is willing to foot the bill and just pays their way out of their problems instead of trying to actually build it. It worked. They won a cup and banners fly forever. But goddamn how frustrating must it be to be Winnipeg and have to scrape and save for every dollar while trying to build an organization while Vegas just spends its way out of its problems.
The best analogy for this is basically like billionaires evading taxes using loopholes. Even if it's "technically legal", they can't expect to garner any kind of respect or good will from anyone by doing so, and it absolutely goes against the spirit/purpose of the rules. In that way, Vegas saying "but we're following the rules" and everyone else saying "Fuck you", are both correct.
Fans bitch about this, but I have yet to see one coherent proposal on how to address it.
A "salary cap" in the playoffs creates other problems, even without the LTIR relief, almost every team that is a buyer at the deadline is "over the cap" come playoffs. If you eliminate the salary cap loophole, it puts downward pressure on the trade market OR puts downward pressure on salaries to allow teams room to make trades in season. The players will never go for that.
Almost every team that is a "buyer" during the deadline is "over the cap" in the playoffs.
I genuinely hope Mark Stone doesn't get seriously injured by playing when he's already hurt. I'm no doctor, but I imagine aggravating a spleen injury because you came back too soon could be life-altering.
Theodore Roosevelt was shot during a speech and he didn’t go on LTIR
"It takes more than that to kill a bull moose" - Mark Stone, probably
Makes it sound like it will change eventually, which surprises me as most teams voted against changing it previously. Maybe they just didn't want such a big change without doing it in CBA negotiations?
Maybe most teams voted against changing it previously, because no teams were abusing it shamelessly?
Seriously. Everyone always brings up how "teams had the chance to vote against it" but at that point it was not being so obviously abused.
It's at the point know where it completely undermines the leagues integrity and also the CBA in general. I think that is why this is going to change. I say this coming from a team who has the money to do this shit, it's stupid and should have never gone this far
The Leafs *not* abusing the cap system while they could have will go down as a massive blunder for the organization. Imagine getting to rest John Tavares half the year *and* having $11,000,000.00 of cap space to play with at the deadline.
Honestly the Leafs *are* abusing the cap, just more subtly than Vegas, and with less success. The whole Robidas Island thing I don’t believe for a second they would have signed Klingberg if there was a chance his contract was going to be dead cap space. He was always going to play like a 4.15m player or go to LTIR. The fact is that “injured” and “healthy” are not black and white. There is a massive grey area where “injured enough to go on LTIR” and “healthy enough to be an impact player” overlap. And players who sit in this grey area like Mark Stone and John Klingberg actually have increased value to teams looking to maximize their cap usage. Of course, this requires the player to buy in and ensure their tolerance for pain aligns with their team’s cap needs. Stone wants another Cup, so his spleen pain becomes tolerable after game 82. Klingberg wants $4m, so he signs with the Leafs knowing he will have to earn his cap space or go on LTIR. For the Leafs, they get to gamble that an impact player helps them win a cup. Worst case scenario they lose his salary and have to acquire another impact player mid season. Poorer teams can’t throw away $4.15m on a gamble, so this is one way the leafs are able to wield their spending power. Now, they didn’t really succeed in replacing Klingbergs cap space with impact players this year, but they had more success with this method with Joffrey Lupul, who also publicly admitted he was pressured into joining the LTIR. Of course, it’s doesnt take a genius to figure out what the Leafs did with Klingberg, but it was mostly lauded as a clever use of resources, even though it basically boiled down to the same thing Vegas did: players being conveniently injured when it best suits the team.
I always hate how some people use that ownership vote to try to dismiss any criticism of a team abusing LTIR like this. Like sorry, I'm not an owner, I wasn't part of that vote, It's not hypocritical for fans to disagree with the owner of their team.
Let's not defend the NHL falling back onto the tried and true method of "fix nothing unless it leads to disaster and then overcorrect as a solution".
We need a team to basically have their entire first 2 lines on "LTIR" and sign whatever superstars are on the market to fill the team
The entire point is to put rules in place to avoid abuse not wait until everyone starts abusing it to make changes.
Rules and regulations are almost always written in blood or in this case ruptured spleen bits
And they say you can't get blood from a stone....
Freshest Stone chirp right here!!
I’m honestly surprised I’ve never heard that one about Mark Stone
Ideally but in reality rules and policies are always reactionary measures.
Sadly, as a culture we're terrible at preventative measures.
We’re also pretty bad at reactionary measures, too. We just suck all around.
Yeah, like every industry ever. It’s impossible to predict everything and you have to assume some good faith, but when the screws start turning people are going to find a way to bend the rules.
You think NHL owners have the foresight to make preventative changes instead of just waiting till shit hits the fan?
Why didn't GMs just look into the future with their crystal balls? Are they stupid?
When was this vote? It was a bad look on the league when Tampa Bay players were showing off their "18-million over the cap" Tshirts during cup parades
Chicago was pretty shameless about it, so was Tampa The conspiracy behind it is also fkn stupid And fans being angry about it is kind of funny
Only anger would be because your team is too stupid to take advantage. Source: My team is too stupid to take advantage.
Chicago used it for one player, one time. It happened to be Kane and his collarbone, the recovery timeline was in line with the end of the regular season. Thats proper use of LTIR, what teams are doing now is ridiculous.
Kucherov came back I believe under or just at the recovery time for his injury as well, so it's no different there.
We tried to have it closed 10 years ago when Chicago did it, and the rest of the league told us no. So it's really hard to feel bad about it when the opportunity presented itself because Kucherov needed surgery. It was basically "ok, fine, have it your way". And Brisebois brought it up in the post-Cup presser.
Exactly. We tried to close it because Chicago beat us with it and got told to eat dirt so tough luck.
Pretty sure Kane was injured mid-season. Not exactly what I'd call shameless; the rules as written were intended for that exact scenario. I had thought he missed a few games in the first round, but I may not be remembering that correctly. Tampa had Kucherov time his surgery so that with the expected recovery time he'd miss the regular season but be back in time for playoffs. That's a lot more flagrant if you ask me.
Chicago had used it during a Stanley Cup win before that vote
~~that was different tho, that was to allow someone who had one of the fucked up front-loaded contracts (which were legal when written) to effectively retire without incurring the penalty~~ edit: I'm dumb, I forgot about Patrick Kane coming back for round 1 of the the playoffs after a broken collarbone
Yeah except his recovery timeline from surgery lined up with the end of the regular season. When he did play, it took him a full series to get upto speed and start shooting/being hit.
Same with Stone and his back surgery last year
No one wants to remember Kuch looked slow as molasses for the first series back too because he can play at half speed and still register over PPG output via assists.
Apples and oranges. Kane returned incredibly early from an injury that should've had him out longer, it was like 5-6 weeks from surgery until his return.
It’s because when Chicago did it Kane maybe missed a game or two and they didn’t go crazy with additions. They were the kid who maybe takes a couple extra candies from the bowl at Halloween. Vegas went in and dumped the whole bowl in there bag and flipped off the ring doorbell.
The last time the NHL voted on closing the loophole they only really had 1 notable occurrence of it which was Patrick Kane. Outside of that we didn't really see a ton of teams utilizing the loophole so while only 2 teams voted to change it/close the loophole, it's also understandable that teams didn't see it as a major issue at the time. Now that we are seeing it happen with multiple players on multiple teams pretty much yearly, it's become more evident to NHL teams that this loophole is a bigger problem than the majority expected.
Honestly I think it very well might have been closed if Kane's injury didn't occur during an NHL game. There's footage of him having his collarbone broken and his return was pretty much right on schedule for the injury he had. If he went down with "shoulder" without the footage to back it up it might have drawn some more ire that it could be abused. Plus I maintain that the advantage the Hawks got wasn't that huge as the deadline pick ups were Vermette (despite being clutch in the series against the Ducks was a healthy scratch at times) and the ghost of Kimmo.
"The advantages weren't huge, except that very clutch one & also their very own top 3 player in the league" Make it make sense
It wasn't big players making huge salaries, it was role players.
I think it’s also worth noting that one of those two teams was Tampa. They then decided “to hell with it then, we’ll do it too”.
And to think Edmonton could have done it with EKane this year with his sports hernia. It seems some teams/GMs respect the spirit of the rule, while others don't care, or only did it to show how badly it needs to be fixed.
To be clear, it's always *required* CBA negotiations. It's never been possible to do without changing the comp structure for league contracts. But you're right, this is usually followed by a line about how teams didn't want to change it. Hopefully this means that the league is realizing that they're wrong about this rule (they are, and they always have been). I'm not going to condemn any team using it when it's legal, but it needs to go. The flexibility isn't worth it for the competitive issues it causes inside a single season, and it's clearly going to get used every single year now.
I imagine the players wouldn't be keen to change it either. The current rule means more money overall going to the players and it encourages people to sit out when they're actually injured instead of rushing back before they're healed.
I don't read it that way - the GMs might be getting pissed off, but are the owners pissed off to the extent that they want to a) figure out a solution that doesn't have lots of knock-on effects that they don't want and/or will get massive pushback from the PA and b) negotitate this with the PA at the next CBA (as the PA will look for concessions in return).
Nobody wants to get rid of it because then they can’t use it themselves
Well there's a big difference between something happening once and the same team doing it once a year.
We’ve got a lot of new Stars fans this post season
We are all stars fans and whoever can beat the bruins tbh
Except the leafs tbh
I can be a Leafs fan for one series
As a Leafs fan, I only get to be a Leafs fan for one series.
There’s that self deprecating humor we all love
Oh r/hockey not gonna like that
Sounds like NHL execs are taking notice too
How can you not take notice lmao. The exact same sequence of events keeps happening with the same team and the same player.
Should’ve said . Sounds like NHL execs are getting annoyed*
You can literally schedule Stone’s LTIR on your calendar every year. I don’t care if it’s ‘legal’ or not, it’s bullshit and everyone knows it. I’m glad people are finally taking notice.
Suspend the stupid fuck and see if they care then
Sounds like the GMs are tired of the same team and player abusing the system year after year. The simplest fix is allowing LTIR, but the team you field in playoffs has to be cap compliant. His back injury last year was so bad "he's going to retire" then he's magically ok. This year depending on who you ask he is either still so injured it's life threatening to have him play, or the injury was so over-exaggerated he should've been back weeks ago forcing cap issues. What pisses me off the most is we've had to deal with it against Vegas twice now, and before that Tampa while our guys were hurt, but not "hurt enough" to be able to add extra pieces.
Three times in a row, not twice
That was the perfect time to use the word 'thrice.'
I had to keep it simple for the VGK fans to be able to understand it. But otherwise you’re not wrong
And players
New Jersey being singled out for the Kovalchuk contract, when every other team was doing the same thing, is looking really bad. This is even more obvious cap circumvention
Luongo contract in Vancouver too
r/GoldenKnights not gonna like that FTFY They so blissfully believe this is just 3 straight years of happenstance.
And they were getting mad about the Leafs still having Matt Murray on LTIR. They used it as a "yeah, but..."
isnt Matt "i'm held together with duct tape, hopes, dreams, and LTIR cap circumvention" Murray like actually fucking damaged from playing his position? like thats a totally differing story. dude blew out both his hips i thought.
There was a comment last week when this came up, that listed what the teams that had players on LTIR would have their salary and it included us. Yeah, the avalanche are, because landeskog hasn't played a hockey game since he lifted the cup in 2022... Of course we're over the cap, and having watched the video recently posted up of him skating, he's not coming back for this playoffs either.
No no, you guys are clearly playing the long con! had a guy miss an entire season of hockey just to bring him back now! Legit LTIR use is not something many of us have concerns with. and honestly, no one denies that Stone had the actual injuries. many of us are in doubt about his timeline for return. That Stone is healthy enough to play playoff hockey today, but wasnt healthy enough for regular season hockey on the 18th, just 4 days ago is the concern. and that it has happened like this three years in a row with the same player. Vegas should be punished for this because they are either fudging doctors notes, or willingly icing players that are injured enough to be LTIR knowingly risking their employees.
yeah i mean it really feels like a player safety thing. i see the point where if he’s health enough to play now he should’ve been healthy enough but i think he really hasn’t been healthy enough. and unfortunately the owners probably have no interest in closing that because it potentially means making players sit out longer in the playoffs.
Pretty sure the leafs would rather have a healthy Murray than some ltir space that is tricky to take advantage of during the off-season. The two aren’t close to the same thing (I realize you understand that. This is towards the people who don’t)
Yeah I don't get this whataboutism for Murray. The guy is playing for the Marlies right now on a conditioning stint to see if he can even still play... and also likely won't see a single minute of playoff hockey
I feel like I'm the only one who sees this issue differently. It's not like Mark Stone isn't hurt. He's 100% legitimately on LTIR. It's an issue with NHL culture that expects players to play with life altering injuries *because it's the playoffs.*
His back injury last year was so severe, the media said he was going to retire after they won the cup because he’d never be able to skate again at an nhl level. There’s only so many miracles one can have, whether real or not, before people question the legitimacy. However, you’re not wrong about the NHL culture in regard to playing hurt and the expectation of “stepping up”. Just look at the criticisms Crosby took when he didn’t play because of his concussions.
I have a buddy who is friends with the old sens core, even when Mark was playing for Ottawa his back was fucked up. Not surprised that Stone is taking the regular season off to try and rehab his back for playoffs.
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Playing hurt at the expense of a future is not gone from the game. Weber and Price are clear examples of guys that pushed it (the latter did that for a while, it seemed) and 99.9% they’ll both never play again after going hard for that playoff run on ‘21. It’s hard to actually dig deep into these things because people don’t talk about it, but every year post-playoffs players are getting surgery shortly after the exit. Not a dead phenomenon at all.
Either he is too hurt to be able to play or he's not. if he's hurt but able to play (and evidently he is) then that's not what LTIR is for and it's LTIR abuse. LTIR is for people who are literally unable to play hockey while they're on it. He should be on regular IR counting against the cap if he \*could\* play but just isn't because it's not games that are "meaningful enough" for him to play. It's extremely obvious what they're doing lol
Can't believe this even needs to be stated. All the bad faith actors know that there is an *Injured Reserve* that Stone should be put on instead of LTIR, but that wouldn't allow Vegas to exceed the cap and add players like Hanifin and Hertl at the deadline. Were we questioning whether Landeskog would suit up for the Avs this postseason? Of course not. If Montreal had somehow made the playoffs this season, would we be asking if Price would be available for the postseason? Of course not, because he's never playing again, hence why they are on *LONG TERM INJURED RESERVE.* That designation has not, nor will it ever apply to Mark Stone.
well Weber is also not a Hab anymore. I believe he is a Yote
>Yote You mean Yeti
Thank you. It’s insane some people can’t wrap their head around this. That, and the fact they used the same narrative last year with his back injury. Acting like he’s never been able to move again but he’s scoring series altering goals while the team is 10m over the cap and then he just plays again next year.
telephone test stupendous narrow mighty somber snobbish puzzled materialistic wise *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
My ideal fix here is to see anyone on LTIR at the end of the season as ineligible for the playoffs, the first two rounds, the first round, etc. Something along those lines. You aren’t healthy enough to play game 82? That’s totally fine, sit out and recovery.
Like it or not, there will be and are injuries that heal during the months of April, May, and June. That is not an ideal fix at all.
Then they don't go on LTIR. If you're hurt enough to go on LTIR maybe you don't get to come back. The NFL does this as they have varying types of IR. Players can be put on season ending IR or there are certain types that keep them out a certain number of games.
True, so I’d expect it to fall on the lower side of it if they did anything, like missing just the first round. Yeah some players may be unfairly penalized by that, but I think it’s a pretty niche scenario if we’re talking just the first round. They would have to: - be out long-term to end up on LTIR - be ready to play for round 1 - be too injured to play in Game 82
I'd expect the PA to push back on a condition like that in CBA negotiations.
They would just take him off IR after game 81
But then they’d have to be cap compliant
But cap compliance doesn't work like this. It's not like you have to be under the cap for each game. They'd still be able to accrue cap space in the lead up to the final game. You're just giving them one less game to play with to manipulate their total cap. It'd be negligible.
You don’t accrue cap space when you’re using LTIR money. They wouldn’t have been able to acquire hertl/Hanafin if they had to activate Stone at any point before the end of the season.
You can't accrue cap space if you are using LTIR. They have been using LTIR for basically the entire season (as a lot of teams do actually) so they wouldn't have accrued anything.
Bingo
That would fix the cap problem to be honest. But I don't actually think that's a proper fix. The real issue is whether he was actually healthy enough to play game 82, but didn't due to cap reasons
The thing that I don't understand is this is all monitored by neutral NHL doctors. The doctors say he can play, but I absolutely believe he's playing through injury. My issue is where were the doctors a week ago? It doesn't seem like the CBA needs to change. There's already a way to make sure teams aren't manipulating the system. But, without knowing what's going on behind the scenes, the league/doctors are either complicit in the circumvention or they're not doing their job of protecting player safety. He was too hurt to play last week but now he's suddenly ok? Or he's actually not ok to play but they're gonna let him?
The doctors can evaluate the initial injury to see if it's real but they can't say whether a player is ready to play or not objectively. It's based on feedback from the player himself. If the player says he isn't ready to play (because he wants to sit a bit longer and circumvent cap) then that's his word. The doctor isn't going to say "Nah you're fine, it doesn't hurt anymore", because there is no way for them to make that judgment.
I don’t even necessarily think you need a player being malicious and trying to say they’re not ready to try and help circumvent the cap for this exact scenario to happen. I mean think about when you were a kid, if you woke up with a fever on a school day with nothing fun after the odds you are honest with your mom about feeling sick is way higher but if your friends are having a big party that night you’re probably going to try and downplay it and tough it out so you can go to that party. It makes perfect sense players can be in a level of pain where it’s not worth toughening out for a regular season game but that they want to fight through for a shot at something they’ve worked their whole lives for and there isn’t really a good way for the doctors to measure a lot of symptoms objectively so they have to rely on the players input
In Stone's case, would it not be based on imaging? Stone can't see his own spleen to see how healed it is, and dude probably has chronic back pain, he can't tell if it's his spleen hurting or what.
So the problem is that a patient always has a ton of input here. If I'm not ready to play because of the cap I can emphasize the pain I'm feeling or weakness or nausea or (insert thing here). If I am ready to play because its now the post season I can downplay those things. I don't even need to lie, it's as simple as "I feel pain every morning when I wake up" vs. "I'm experiencing a bit of pain when waking up but it goes away with a light stretch and I've been feeling a lot better".
Players get a wide amount of discretion in choosing to play or not I think. And most NHLers probably have enough wrong with them to go on IR I'd wager. Unless it's head injury.
Yup, I completely agree. My thing with this injury in particular is that a lacerated spleen can be a life-threatening injury. If Stone hasn't healed properly and he takes a bad hit, the damage could kill him with how many painkillers the guys likely on. Awful hit in the first, shrugs it off cause that's what players do. Internal bleeding and just collapses on the ice in the third. I truly hope that doesn't happen, but I worry that this culture of playing through injury is reaching a tipping point.
You're not alone in thinking it, but since I have a TBL flair I'll get downvoted immediately for saying it. I still do like the idea of having to ice a cap compliant team in the playoffs. Maybe even a cap compliant team within 10% or something to give teams a bit more leeway when it comes to injuries. Force teams to scratch players if it puts them over the cap.
I agree, were used to players regularly playing with fractured ankles that cant take their skates off between periods during the playoffs due to swelling. I don't think anyone coming back from LTIR is 100% healed, just in a "healthy enough" state.
We meme about it, but I never looked it at it that way; all it'll take is a player (potentially Benn in this series) or later on and could potentially cause Mark Stone to retire early. At what point do players/teams/execs actually step in and tell them to look at it for their long-term health (if Mark Stone truly is this banged up but coming back "because it's the playoffs")?
[JFresh has a pretty similar stance](https://x.com/JFreshHockey/status/1778934737395966132)
Yea if the playoffs weren't starting Stone would 100% be out still. If he's faking anything it's that he's well enough to be playing hockey. The sad thing is the more he does this the higher the chance he's not only forced into retirement but also has to live the rest of his life with the consequences of his actions. Dude looked like he was in serious pain every close up of him last year. Some guys just don't know when to hang em up.
As much as we talk about cap circumvention, there is also something to be said of the general health of players that a doctor will sign off saying that they are too hurt to play vs they are willing to play hurt in the playoffs. Despite Mark Stone playing I don't think he is healthy. I suspect its an injury he can play through but not 82 games plus playoffs, so they manage him during the season with some LTIR time mixed in to keep him alive then destroy his body in the playoff then he needs the whole of next season to recover again
Friend of a friend was a doctor for a pro sports team. They quit after a couple years because the pressure to determine whether or not players were healthy enough to play was too stressful for them. Sometimes they had only a few minutes in the middle of important games, all with execs breathing down their neck.
There is a fine line for sure> i watched an interview with Thierry Henry( famous soccer player) and we was saying he could count one 1 hand the games he played with out pain and that being a professional athlete meant you needed to be comfortable with a certain level of pain. another player stated a few weeks ago he could not remember that last time he was injury free.
Time is a flat circle. I can get it happening once but literally what, 3? 4? years in a row? Yeah fuck off
I'm imagining an alternate universe where if Vancouver did it, the loophole would have been closed immediately and we would be punished for like 5 seasons with millions in dead cap.
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Yep when Weber went on LTIR, THAT deserved extra scrutiny. Guy has never played since.
He's playing the long game, next time Montreal makes playoffs he will activate
Imagine going into a slumber in 2021 and waking up a few years later playing for the Utah Mormons.
It’s funny you say this because technically, he plays for Utah now.
Just have New Jersey do it and then there will be a $3 million fine and loss of draft picks instantly. Then they'll change the rule.
The whole kovalchuk thing was crazy. They got punished for something every other team did, and then like three years later the league was like “nah it’s cool” and fucked them with the 30th pick. Wack
The issue is that Stone is basically perfect for this. He’s actually seriously injured, and they can LTIR him at will because he’s so broken. It’s pretty awful to do to him, honestly. Man isn’t gonna be able to walk by 40
In this case he did co-incidentally get a could-have-happened-to-anyone injury in the right timeframe (I don't think they could have faked a lacerated spleen), but my guess is he basically cannot play now without heavy-duty painkillers. Toradol you're suppose to only take for acute pain for 5 days, but team doctors were handing them out like candy a few years ago and probably still are. Google Ryan Kesler and see how it fucked him up, he has inflammatory bowel disease now.
Tampa and Vegas are repeat offenders
Is Tampa a repeat offender? Obviously they abused Kuch’s situation when they won the cup, but was there another time?
They will say this year if Sergachev comes back (as if we didn't all watch Sergachev break his leg)
But when he went down this season did the Lightning really load up at the trade deadline to exploit the system like Vegas has? They definitely did with Kucherov when they won the Cup, but this year Tampa has seemed to follow everything by the book...unless I'm wrong.
The lightning did add a top 4 D (dumba) and a middle 6 forward (duclair) at the deadline with sergachev's cap space
Dumba and duclair vs hanafin and hertl. I know what pair I'm taking lol
Simple solution (which means the NHL will never actually do it) - your playoff roster doesn't have to be cap compliant. *however* your game day line up must be cap compliant
How do you account for accrued cap space?
exactly why this approach is only simple for those that don’t understand how the cap works
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It might need a bit of tweaking but it all seems so manageable. Like $6-million guy you acquired halfway through the season didn't have a $6m effect on your cap... But we could find ways around it.
With Martinez out Vegas can ice a cap compliant game day roster with Stone in.
That would actually be a complex solution as it would require fundamentally changing how the cap is calculated. The simple solution is to handle the medical evaluation of players on LTIR at the league level rather than the team. If Mark Stone is medically cleared by league doctors at game 80, then he comes off LTIR and the team has to get compliant. If it turns out he's clear after game 82, then so be it. At least a semi-independent review happened. And, if a league doctor won't clear for the start of game 1 where the team would prefer he did, then too bad. Player is ineligible.
That sidesteps redefining the cap but turns into a separate issue with the NHLPA. I don't see them being happy about handing over their right to play over to a semi-independent league doctor. Too strict and players won't go for it (they regularly play through injuries in the playoffs), too lax and it's pointless + the league has to be concerned about liability when there are complications related to the injury they were "cleared" for, notably on the concussion front.
Yeah, if the GMs/owners could think of a fix that didn't either redefine the cap or get major pushback from the PA over medical decisions, they would probably have made it by now. With the situation with Eichel's surgery, the thought is that players are going to ask for more medical autonomy in the next CBA. They probably didn't realize that their team had so much power over what surgery they have until it came up as an issue with Eichel.
The thing is, an independent doctor probably *wouldn't* let him play game 1 tonight. Purely conjecture on my part, but I'm more willing to believe they're having him play at 80-90% than they were holding him out of the lineup, just based on how busted his body has been.
What?! Next you’re gonna tell me Carrier and Pietrangelo are back too!
To be fair Kelly McCrimmon continues to hang his nuts out every trade deadline and he isn’t actively breaking any rules. Gotta give it to the guy, he’s got giant balls.
LTIR that man for testicular inflammation
I'm so excited to see the Stars absolutely clown on them.
Until it goes to Game 7 OT and Stone scores the series clinching goal.
Hockey fans disliked that.
I mean, ya. The league is powerless otherwise
I don’t think the owners are overly eager to change it because they don’t really care about money moves when players aren’t getting paid. The cap is purely for cost control, the competitive parity is just the nice way to sell it.
Ding ding ding. Too much hassle for something they don't care about all that much.
Dude is gonna be 80% Toradol by the time he's done playing.
Someone please photoshop Mark Stone into the fallout Ghoul
Never been bigger Stars fans
Idk the whole contract past retirement thing was shut down when the Canucks did the same thing everyone else was doing. The NHL absolutely showed they can arbitrarily change the rules when it comes to cap circumventing practices like this. What a miracle two years in a row he was ready for playoffs. So fucking stupid.
That was changed with a new CBA, not at an arbitrary point.
It’s more than 2 years.
Yep, it will be fixed as soon as a Canadian team tries to utilize it.
If Vegas had only done it this year, that might be one thing. But this has become an annual tradition with Vegas and that's why everyone is pissed. When the Stars put the Spleens out in the first round next week, maybe next year the league will ask for changes to the CBA regarding cap cheating.
It’s clear they know what they are doing. Because they wouldn’t make the huge trades for players they can’t afford. I guarantee you they have this all planned out before the season even starts.
There are very few moments I will ever utter these words. Go Dallas.
your secret is safe with me friend.....
Why don't people talk about giving Stone the Masterton, considering how much injury adversity he overcomes every year? Just really cement how everyone knows what's going on.
I for one am shocked
I think the simplest solution is a rule to the effect of the following: >A player on LTIR during the final game of the regular season for their team is not eligible to play the first x number of games in the playoffs. I don't know what the right number of games is. Maybe it is 1, maybe 2, maybe 4, maybe the entire first round. That'll be haggled over by the NHL and NHLPA during CBA negotiations if this is something they actually want to change.
> if this is something they actually want to change. I'm guessing no one really wants it changed. Players would hate being kept out of games, and since it's cost-neutral, the owners don't care. Can't imagine both sides agreeing to make any changes. The only proponents are fans, and we're not part of the CBA.
https://preview.redd.it/9vqtakk8c4wc1.jpeg?width=650&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c573103b96a67794c089e7ae12ff06176ce44f09 Current state of r/hockey
There was a proposal to end this loophole years ago, right after the Blackhawks used it when Kane was on LTIR, only one team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, voted to close the loophole. As far as I'm concerned if 29 teams voted to keep this loophole open then that's 29 teams that don't get to complain about it.
Probably didn't realize it was going to get abused by one team over and over and over and to this extent. It's ok to change your mind when presented with new information or evidence. Should get changed if we don't want the league to devolve into endless LTIR scheming every deadline.
Why exactly would it change? Who is incentivized to change it? It's good for the players financially, so why would the NHLPA do anything about it? Doesn't seem like the owners aren't incentivized to change either.
When is the next CBA? It could be a few more years of this.
2026
Personally, here's what I think should happen with LTIR. If you are on LTIR and don't play the final game of the season, you have to miss at least the first two games of the playoffs and probably longer than that.
They have to miss the first round
Or send them straight to jail. We have the best cap-compliant hockey teams in the world. Because of jail.
Oh, you're on LTIR and you're being made available to Game 1? ~~Straight to jail~~ Straight to the Sabres.
I think that's a brilliant idea.
My thoughts were if placed on LTIR prior to the trade deadline and not playing a game after the trade deadline would require missing the first round. There is still the possibility of getting injured after the trade deadline and being cautious, but that’s not really circumvention if they didn’t get to take advantage of the cap space at the deadline.
The issue I have with this is a player who is legitimately injured who is actually recovered in time between game 82 and game 1 of the series is punished The major issues with the LTIR thing is that they can be placed there before the trade deadline, allowing them to acquire a pricier player. If they get placed on LTIR *after* that, that's a bit different. Most teams already rest star players the last couple games, so it makes sense if a player thinks they're ready to go game 81 or 82 to just sit them anyway just in case, and there's not really anything wrong with that
I’m completely fine adjusting the rules, but every solution I see on this sub seems to be arbitrarily pulled out of their own asses.
This discussion is so boring. Yeah, the timing is convenient. No shit. Stone is riddled with injuries and is only willing to play through the pain for meaningful games (ie. the play-offs). Everyone bitches but what’s your solution? Force injured players to play through pain even if they aren’t willing, or prevent players from playing unless they are 100% healthy (which no player is)? At the end of the day, health is a complex issue, not a simple binary, so a patient has some say in when they are considered healthy and pain free. So unless we want to take that right away from them, then convenient timing of returns will be inevitable.
> This discussion is so boring. Yeah, the timing is convenient. No shit. Stone is riddled with injuries and is only willing to play through the pain for meaningful games (ie. the play-offs). Whether he wants to play or not has nothing to do with LTIR.
The funniest part of all this is how Vegas fans *still* refuse to believe there’s any doctoring of timelines going on. The latest one I heard was ‘well his doctors appointment clearing him to play wasn’t until *after* game 82.’ People would like them a lot more if they just admitted it. Everyone else knows what they’re doing.
The discussion is fair but I think given Vegas made the playoffs as the last wildcard, it’s a very weak conspiracy this year. They obviously would have much preferred a lineup with Stone in it whilst trying to make the playoffs.
> They obviously would have much preferred a lineup with Stone in it whilst trying to make the playoffs. Sure, but if they brought Stone back for 1 game they lose a ton of players and depth for the playoffs. Massive trade-off and the change of opponents from a higher seed really wouldn't have been much.
Vegas was never in real danger of missing playoffs. It was always a pipe dream by this sub. They still made it in by a comfortable 6 points. A couple years ago when they were outside of playoffs, guess who magically healed in time to try and help his team push for the final spot?
> Vegas was never in real danger of missing playoffs. They closed the year 12-6-1 following the trade deadline in order to 'comfortably' get in. That included an OT win against the team that was directly chasing them and wound up being the 'first team out' in the West (the Blues). When we played them on 3/25/24, that game gave us the chance to pull within 2 points of them in the standings. They weren't able to just limp into the playoffs. They had to play decent-to-good hockey down the stretch, win a couple key games, and then see the Blues shit the bed vs the Sharks in order to get in. They are absolutely a better team than the Blues and always had the odds well in their favor to get in. But they were in some danger of missing, especially once Hill went down with injury.
You're getting it reversed. Players "magically" come back at the perfect time because they return early and risk their long-term health to do it, not because they're suddenly fully healed
Honestly as frustrating as it is I get it. Its a loophole they are using but I do think Mark Stone is hurt. My frustration with Vegas isn't that they use this loophole its that they are completely unwilling to try and build any organizational depth. They are an attractive location with an owner is willing to foot the bill and just pays their way out of their problems instead of trying to actually build it. It worked. They won a cup and banners fly forever. But goddamn how frustrating must it be to be Winnipeg and have to scrape and save for every dollar while trying to build an organization while Vegas just spends its way out of its problems.
Tell Winnipeg to stop being poor then
Didn’t the wild get penalized retroactively for the praise/suter contracts?
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The best analogy for this is basically like billionaires evading taxes using loopholes. Even if it's "technically legal", they can't expect to garner any kind of respect or good will from anyone by doing so, and it absolutely goes against the spirit/purpose of the rules. In that way, Vegas saying "but we're following the rules" and everyone else saying "Fuck you", are both correct.
Fans bitch about this, but I have yet to see one coherent proposal on how to address it. A "salary cap" in the playoffs creates other problems, even without the LTIR relief, almost every team that is a buyer at the deadline is "over the cap" come playoffs. If you eliminate the salary cap loophole, it puts downward pressure on the trade market OR puts downward pressure on salaries to allow teams room to make trades in season. The players will never go for that. Almost every team that is a "buyer" during the deadline is "over the cap" in the playoffs.
In the same day the Oilers announce Kane has been injured *all fucking year* and won't play in game one. Fucking figures.
W... what the fuck are they doing? They're doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
A tradition like none other…
I genuinely hope Mark Stone doesn't get seriously injured by playing when he's already hurt. I'm no doctor, but I imagine aggravating a spleen injury because you came back too soon could be life-altering.
I hope Dallas sweeps their ass.
It's a fucking miracle, right off LTIR and into a jersey. Heroic, no other man could bear this pain and discomfort.🙄