Thoughts on teams taking advantage of the salary cap rules?

[2014olympicgold]

So that's another potential issue when dealing with penalizing teams for putting players on LTIR.

Yeah it's hard to know with like 0 insight on the contracts and insurance companies payouts.

[Daydream Nation]

I like the idea of having a designated roster, either on a weekly/round/series and league determines the max amount CAP space or AAV a team can't exceed.

for instance, if NHL agrees that in playoffs, the AAV of a 24 roster team is 80 million, then the team has to submit a list of eligible players within that max cap space. They bench or healthy scratch whoever they want as long as they respect the cap space during that specific game/series.

that way:
- Teams do whatever they want. they are responsible to be within the CAP space for that game. If you have to bench Kucherov or make him healthy scratch because you exceed the cap, then thats on you.
- both teams on the ice have a fair playing field with the same amount of Cap space, regardless of what it was yesterday, or tomorrow.

This is reasonable. Teams should not be able to field a roster which would have exceeded the salary cap during the regular season. Maybe you give a small bump in the playoffs to account for returning injured players but nothing like Tampa did. Hopefully, this causes a rules change in the next CBA.

[Invictus]

I think its fine.
He had a legitimate injury, sure maybe he could of played the last 10 games, but by then the Lightning were already in the playoffs. No reason to bring him back early and risk re-injure. Make sure he's up to speed.
Owner's are not into sitting the star player all year, that brings in the fans/$$$, while paying them.
The player also isn't going to want to sit out a whole season. That's one less season to build his career, hone his skills, build his HOF resume.

Nothing is really full proof. Circumventing in some way will exist. Same rules apply to everyone.

[kovalchuk17]

insurance payouts is why these contracts have value to cap floor teams. you get 100% of the cap hit at 20% of actual cash being paid out (possibly less if its the latter years of a backloaded contract), they dont actually have to be on LTIR. retroactive LTIR makes provides alot of flexibility also. id argue for this type of circumvention theres at least a conversation to be made for avoidance of paying players which defeats the spirit of the cap floor.


in addition, a playoff salary cap will kill trade deadline activity as mentioned earlier in the thread. for example, if there was 1/4 of the season left and boston had 2m of cap space left. they can afford to fit taylor hall at 8m if he only plays for 1/4 of the season for them. you really want him to count as the full 8m in the playoffs?


as i mentioned earlier in the thread, too many unintended consequences if you put something arbitrary to prevent what you deem is skirting the rules. youre much better off as suggested in my previous post to allow more ways to circumvent the cap so at least this way the owners are paying the players more money overall

[Daydream Nation]

I think its fine.
He had a legitimate injury, sure maybe he could of played the last 10 games, but by then the Lightning were already in the playoffs. No reason to bring him back early and risk re-injure. Make sure he's up to speed.
Owner's are not into sitting the star player all year, that brings in the fans/$$$, while paying them.
The player also isn't going to want to sit out a whole season. That's one less season to build his career, hone his skills, build his HOF resume.

Nothing is really full proof. Circumventing in some way will exist. Same rules apply to everyone.

Even if all the details around the injury, surgery, and recovery were honest, why allow Tampa to blow past the salary by roughly 12% in the playoffs? Is that fair to other teams? Why even allow this?

[newfcollins]

Even if all the details around the injury, surgery, and recovery were honest, why allow Tampa to blow past the salary by roughly 12% in the playoffs? Is that fair to other teams? Why even allow this?

Because it doesn't happen often enough for everyone to get upset about. The last time something suspecious like this happened, as mentioned, was Patrick Kane six years ago. I don't think it happened before that either. Why make major changes to a system because of something that rarely occurs?

[ericdaoust]

I don't think anything changes until 2026 when the current CBA ends

[snowball]

Because it doesn't happen often enough for everyone to get upset about. The last time something suspecious like this happened, as mentioned, was Patrick Kane six years ago. I don't think it happened before that either. Why make major changes to a system because of something that rarely occurs?

because there is a loophole in system and if you want to prevent a catastrophy, or prevent future situations and also or league parity, you always try to solve issues. Will you wait until TBL wins the cup this year using this tactic, and then the next cup winner to do it to then finally realize ''oh, ok, lets fix it now that 2 teams used it and won the cup''.

Leagues always try to improve, and its not because it didnt occur yet that you can't prevent it

[Daydream Nation]

Because it doesn't happen often enough for everyone to get upset about. The last time something suspecious like this happened, as mentioned, was Patrick Kane six years ago. I don't think it happened before that either. Why make major changes to a system because of something that rarely occurs?

I would say twice in 6 years with Cup contenders is significant. And is it a major change to say playoff rosters for any game must meet the regular season salary cap limit? Maybe you give a little cushion for returning players but not 10 million like Tampa currently is.

[chuckcouples]

I'm not sure if people know this but 11 of the 16 playoff teams had total salaries on their final roster that exceeded the salary cap.

Without looking it up, who can guess the five teams that did not exceed a salary of $81,500,000?

[Invictus]

The obvious is Carolina. Habs are slightly over.

[hockeymanG23]

Geez, its NOT a loophole OR cap circumvention. LTIR is INTENDED as a way to exceed the cap and bring in replacement players. Tampa and every other team tapping into it are using it as intended.

The NHL front office looks into every situation like this to judge its legitimacy. The timing and duration of Kucherov stay on LTIR was certainly convenient from a cap compliance perspective but the legitimacy of it was found to be faultless.

Considering that the NHL sacrificed a full season to put a cap into place and another 1/2 season to tweak it to the advantage of every team there is no way in hell the NHL head honchos are going to stand by and get duped by a "scheme" like this. This is a very key point.

Tampa and Kucherov went through very standard timing and procedures for his rehab with non-invasive methods first and settling on surgery as a final option and he is actually back SOONER than expected, not later. His recovery was right in line with historical precedent. No team, player, surgeon, insurance company, etc, etc, are going to sign off on a procedure like this without exhausting all other options.

As for the playoffs, not only is there no cap but theres also no roster limits. If a team has the desire too, and can afford it, they could call up all 50 of their signed players to travel with the team and be available for games. Most are going to only bring a handful of Black Aces into the playoffs but every single team is still likely to be well over the regular season cap by doing so. Not a problem, the system is meant to allow this and if one of those players happens to be a superstar returning from injury so be it.

If this happened with almost any other team there wouldn't even be a discussion about it, but because it happened to one of the best players on one of the best teams who happened to be in a pickle prior to the decision for surgery the system is all of a sudden flawed and needs to be changed? Nope. No way. The rules are the same across the board, the circumstances are ALWAYS different but the rules are applied equally and this is not a "ploy" that will catch on at all around the league.

Making an issue of it all comes across as sour grapes and an overreaction.

[newfcollins]

Will you wait until TBL wins the cup this year using this tactic, and then the next cup winner to do it to then finally realize ''oh, ok, lets fix it now that 2 teams used it and won the cup''.

The NHL is a copycat league, but I think people are still missing the point that no team is intentionally going to keep their elite superstar player on the LTIR for a full season in hopes of going over the cap for the postseason.

[Invictus]

Teams do it every year. Just this time it's with an elite player on the heavy favoured defending champions.

[2014olympicgold]

Teams do it every year. Just this time it's with an elite player on the heavy favoured defending champions.

And it was for a full season.

I think people praised Chicago for the Patrick Kane decision. Kane sat out 21 games and his last regular season game was Feb 24th, 2015. NHL trade deadline was March 2nd, 2015. He only played like 2min the last game, so it's not like he had a nagging injury they decided would be best if he didn't play going forward, he was actually hurt. But it was praised as "look at how smart they are". This happens all the time with loopholes. Teams are originally praised who find it out, but yrs later we want to make a rule to cover it up. Last yr it was smart Leafs became a 3rd team in a deal to just get a pick to hold cap space. This yr you saw it a couple of times. Next yr I'm sure it's more. LTIR manipulation happened a little, then it's more often, now it's natural and ppl want it fixed.

I would like to have a system where this type of stuff can't happen, but I don't know a way that would make it easy. I think a "playoff roster" like the MLB is the start, but add in a form of cap. But it's def a convoluted system that has no easy fix.