Thoughts on teams taking advantage of the salary cap rules?

[kovalchuk17]

I believe it was in The Athletic that i read Kucherov mentioned he pulled his groin early in the playoffs in the bubble and played through it. Got worse as it affected his core and thought with time it would heal. I'm unsure if it was aggravated at the gym as mentioned above but they definitely waited to avoid surgery which is reasonable. Hip surgery at a young age was career-ending as recently as 15-20 years ago. These days it is less invasive so the 4-6 month recovery time has been achieved by many players including brayden point.

we should keep in mind that Stamkos was put on LTIR with a month left in the season. Kucherov couldve fit into his salary slot had he been ready to play. Maybe it wouldve affected their ability to acquire David Savard (im not sure if LTIR was part of the cap space used to fit him in). There was nearly a week between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs for TB (May 10 vs May 16) and Kucherov came back maybe a couple weeks early so the timeline does fit.

Tyler Seguin, arguably Dallas' best player, who just made the Final last season was away practically all year and they DID NOT make the playoffs. it aint that easy to win so TB still being able to contend for the presidents for most of the season was impressive and theyll need to start on the road for most/all their rounds in the playoffs.

[rataylor22]

LOL- you have a history on this board. I'm being a hypocrite? Now that is laughable.

when you absolutely don't know what the word means.

[rataylor22]

Anyways. You can think what the Blackhawks did is wrong and many other teams since then and also the Lightning now and disagree with all of it and want the rule changed. As it stands now, it's not against the rules and if you don't like it's probably just because your favorite team cant/hasn't/wont do it.

Or you can think it's all ok because it's all part of the rules and that's fine too. That is my personal opinion.

However if you want to pick and choose when it is ok and when it isn't, well that of course is obviously something. Especially if picking and choosing is seemingly based on if you personally believe the injury exists with no medical knowledge.

Kucherov had hip surgery. He recovered in 5 months. Standard recovery time for hip surgery for professional athletes is about 5 months. Looks pretty standard to me.

TBH, the players, who despise escrow, should be the ones who hate this the most. Stuff like this increases how much is spent on player salaries, which then increases how much escrow needs to be paid back to the owners to keep it 50/50. But stuff like this is well within the CBA rules, just like the rules that state it's fine if a player is willing to player through an equipment allergy for $5M but not willing to do so for $1M. Should it be in the rules? Who is to say! But it definitely is within the rules.