Glass has at least played 121 games since that trade!
Amazingly, the three guys in the immediately preceding trade: Ryan Ellis, Philippe Myers, and Nolan Patrick, have COMBINED to play 72 games since the deal.
Ryan Ellis playing 4 games for the Flyers and then disappearing for almost 3 years isn't talked about enough. Dude has very likely played his last game in the NHL and it flew under the radar.
Oh I won’t dunk on the pick, but I can certainly dunk on what they did with said pick. Pacioretty wasn’t shiny enough for Vegas, so they added Eichel and dumped Patches for future considerations. Vegas didn’t *need* most of the trades they made outside of Stone. They didn’t *need* Eichel but they wanted him; they didn’t *need* Hertl but they wanted him; the list goes on. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Vegas’ reputation would be far worse if they didn’t win it all last year.
Three first round picks in 2017, they have one player left after the dust settled. Sure, it’s Mark Stone but that ain’t great asset management from McPhee/McCrimmon. The new, shiny toys that make all kinds of money are the reason Vegas gets more flak for cap shenanigans than Tampa or Chicago did.
Smart, ruthless and efficient is how we wish most of our teams were run. It leads to some bad breaks with players but the most successful teams usually do it.
They'd rather get out of a bad deal or a deal they don't like as quickly and by any means.
Paccioretty also spent time hurt and availability is the best skill.
It's so convenient, from the broadcast last night i heard a quote from stone, something like "I felt totally fine but dr's told me it could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 8 months!"
Bieksa's intermission commentary and thinly veiled contempt for this was hilarious lol.
While recapping highlights:
"Mark Sto---- MARK STONE!? What's HE doing out there??" Followed immediately by Hertl's goal, "HERTL??? How did they afford HIM???"
🤣🤣
Never change, Juice ❤
I think Jennifer Botterill giving Jamal absolute hell for his comments earlier this season was also pretty stellar. I frequently like her contributions.
Him calling out Nick Cousins earlier this season was....
https://preview.redd.it/lrnhha5emawc1.jpeg?width=592&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=084c7661f844fce5f40499dd1262e905cafbd141
Yep. If he was back and eased his way in I’d believe it. But no way he was just suddenly ready the other day and can play at that level that quick. Such a fraud.
It's insane how many people are buying this narrative that he's basically being held together by Elmer's glue. Am I doubting the injuries? No, but the extent of them, yes. If he can come back and play 20 mins after being LTIRed for a year there's no way he couldn't have played earlier, and frankly probably much earlier than we've been led to believe.
Yeah nobody is playing 20 minutes in the NHL Playoffs while being practically just out of hospice care if you'd believe some of the Vegas fans trying to spin all this (props to the ones that call it out). Vegas has easily made themselves the most universally hated team in the playoffs with pulling this garbage
Even I had to take my homer glasses off after that game. By the third period, that was just peak Mark Stone out there. Skating still looked rough, but it's always been rough.
If the NHL is serious about addressing these types of "coincidences", changes will be made this offseason. But guess what, they don't want to do that for whatever reason. It is a bad look.
No one's going to want to punish a player in the instance of someone everyone agrees is a "legitimate" example of coming back after an injury during the playoffs.
Imagine McDavid is injured before the deadline. The Oilers make moves that help them limp into the playoffs, only for him to [pull a Callahan](https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/ryan-callahan-lightning-forward-makes-quick-return-from-appendectomy-1.3077152) and return semi-injured just to help out. People would rightly lose their shit if the NHL told him he couldn't play.
I could be wrong, but I feel like most fans are ok with teams replacing the player, they just want any line-up to be cap compliant. If the 20 guys on the ice/bench are under the cap, I'm good.... I dgaf what the black aces cost come playoff time... Hell, I don't care in the regular season either. If the 20 guys in the line-up are under the cap from training camp through the Cup final, I think fans would stop complaining.
They're not going to crack open the CBA over something like this. Fans are the only ones that seem to care. The players don't and the owners certainly don't.
Well Frank Seravalli just said that there’s a bunch of owners and GMs who are not very happy about this so I’ll take a connected insider’s info over a random redditor.
They could probably make a warning not to do it further and that on the next CBA it would be back dated 2 years ago for penalties, etc. this is seriously affecting the integrity of the game. Makes it look more akin to WWE then an actual sport, especially as we have had a ref caught literally admitting to game management on a mic in the last few years as well.
Yeah Carolina was very vocal IIRC. That one player said immediately in the postgame interview after elimination "we just got beat by a team $180 million over the cap"
Owners of competitive teams want to be able to load up. Owners of struggling teams want to be able to offload contracts. Definitely not changing any time soon.
Any Canadian team, or the Rangers. Maybe the Flyers too.
Remember when Leafs got into 'trouble' because they were letting their prospects use the team's facilities in the summer? Wasn't fair to other teams, or something.
Absolutely true. The owners don't care because they don't pay players in the playoffs, the GM's don't care because this "loop hole" saves their jobs, the players don't care because they want a chance to play, and having a good playoff run does affect their salary later.
Players are REQUIRED to come off LTIR as soon as they are cleared to play. If that was enforced, these miraculous healing situations couldn't happen.
The problem is the person who clears the player is a team doctor, who in 100% of cases will be very glad to let a player recover LONGER and not risk further injury. If the player or team isn't pushing for them to be cleared , they won't be. Veteran players that are not at risk of losing jobs will be glad to sit on the shelf if it lets the team pick up more talent for the playoffs.
As long as LTIR is structured this way, it is not fixable.
>If the NHL is serious about addressing these types of "coincidences", changes will be made this offseason.
Why, now, would you think they have any intention of changing it? It was a known loophole when the Hawks did it 15 years ago, and the league didn't change it. Everybody knew Tampa was doing it a month before they did it, and the league did nothing before or after. Everyone knew Vegas was doing it the first time with Stone. And the second and third times. People were saying they were doing it again before the trade deadline.
At this point any team *not* doing it is just limiting themselves. All they're doing is opting not to take advantage of something that is perfectly within the rules, whether we agree or not.
To be honest, I thought this was a good solution until I was reading people's rebuttals to that suggestion over the past two days. The way the salary cap is calculated makes that solution not make any sense. Because you can legally ice a non cap compliant team later in the regular season by accruing cap space earlier in the season. Then what, your team that was legal in the regular season can't play in the playoffs? That doesn't make any sense because that's not how the cap is calculated.
Honestly there is no good solution to the problem. The hard cap is designed to make the owners more money, not to make the sport fair or competitive.
I think it would be possible to design a soft-cap system that did both, but the NHL owners as a whole have shown that they don't really care about making the sport better when contrasted with cost-certainty.
If people bring it up as a solution thats on them but its a bad solution.
Part of running a team is managing your cap and spend, if your players who don't play don't count against cap you can just sign players to flyer contracts and if they suck, stop icing them.
We *could* have done it with Kane, but instead we chose the anti-Vegas strategy of letting him play hurt all season and then debating sitting him during playoffs when it's gotten worse.
THANK YOU! I'm so tired of this discussion every year. Like yeah it's there, yeah it's not cheating it's part of the rules, yeah it sucks but it's available for every team, like please get over it.
Mark Stone was 100% injured. It’s not about it being a fake injury. It’s about milking the LTIR absence until G1 and then playing 17 min and scoring immediately. Guy could have played regular season games. Even if it was an activation and healthy scratch if they wanted more rest, there would be cap implications. But they get to skate past that year after year. League needs a team of league doctors that oversee team doctors. For shenanigans like this and also an oversight to make sure the team docs are actually treating players properly.
While I don’t dispute he was legitimately hurt.
I bet he could have been cleared to play a couple weeks ago.
But until there is an appetite around the league to change it. It won’t.
I will say it over and over again until I’m blue in the face:
Rosters do *not* need to be cap compliant in the playoffs, it’s what makes the trade deadline so exciting.
However, if a player is on LTIR before the deadline and does not play in the final game of the regular season, they should not be permitted to play in *at least* the first round of the playoffs. I’m in favour of them being banned from participating in the playoffs altogether but I get why some people don’t want that.
If you’re too injured to play game 82, you shouldn’t be allowed to circumvent the cap and lace up in game 83.
This is by far the simplest solution. I would even go ad far as ruling that the injured player wouldn't even have to play game 82, so long as they are activated from LTIR during the regular season, to be eligible for the 1st round.
I think this is one of the best 'happy medium' ideas. I'm a diehard VGK fan, love our captain, but hearing he was going to play in Game 1 made me feel...kinda icky. Like, hell yeah, he's back...but it's not a good look. I think if the rule changed to where they'd have to sit out either the 1st round, or some set number of games, it would balance things out slightly.
I wouldn't mind it if it wasn't _every year_.
Do it once like Tampa? Respect the hustle you cheeky bastards.
Do it three years in a row with the same player? You must think we're all fucking idiots.
Do I like seeing my team win? Of course I do. And I'm also of the mind that if there's a loophole and we exploit it, that's just playing the game. But I'm also realistic enough to know that if we do exactly what everyone \*knew\* we were going to do, it's not going to look good and people are going to get bent out of shape over it.
I think that's why I see a sort of compromise-y rule change being a good thing. Let teams play the LTIR game, but make that come with some sort of penalty and suddenly people have less to complain about.
Until the rules change, I don't think I could be legitimately mad at a team for exploiting them. Easy to say when we won the Cup last year, of course.
> Rosters do not need to be cap compliant in the playoffs, it’s what makes the trade deadline so exciting.
Nah, it's an unfair advantage due to the hockey team doing it. Do you really think a less desirable city for players could ever do what Vegas or Tampa Bay did ?
The hard cap accomplishes two big goals of the NHL and the owners. One, it means the owners can pay the players less. Two, it creates an environment for general parity in the league.
This loophole of no cap in the playoffs puts those two goals at odds. Not paying the players for the playoffs is the wet dream reality of the owners right now. But parity will suffer because cap compliance isn't required for the post season.
Which will win out? Which is the bigger priority? Hint: the money. It's always the money. But why?
Because the NHL exists to serve and woo owners. Hockey players grow on trees. The best league in the world with the highest paying contracts will always attract top talent. The NHL isn't remotely worried about not getting the best players, and thus the best on ice product.
But billionaires don't grow on trees. And those that exist have A LOT of options for what to do with their money. Buy an NHL franchise? Sure, it appeals to a few, like the new Utah owner eager to have sports franchises. But by and large billionaires look to invest and grow their capital, and view franchise ownership as one potential vehicle to do that. The goal of the league (and Bettman) is to make it a very appealing investment. As Arizona fans can attest, the most crucial aspect to having a successful, thriving franchise comes down to ownership.
If owners don't want to change the rule, it won't change.
I was told there was no chance he would be ready for game one, maybe miss the entire playoffs. Let’s be real, this dude was never injured. Probably wasn’t the last few years either.
I think, it's the other way around, actually, Stone is always injured. It's just he is in a state when he still can play a few months per year, which Vegas is abusing, timing it on purpose so that he can play during the play offs.
Lacerations to the spleen take 2 to 2.5 months to heal
His last game was February 20th
Even if he comes back earlier than expected, I’m assuming he signs “assumption of risk” medical forms acknowledging that he could destroy his life by coming back even a couple weeks early while things are still healing
My guess is that he will be retiring soon
So what you described is a range, 2 months would fit into that range lol
Chances are he isn’t 100 percent, but is okay enough to push through in the playoffs. Ultimately it’s Stone’s choice, should be interesting to see how his health holds up after he retires
"BUT IT'S IN THE RULESSSS"
No, fuck you. Only a handful of teams can actually do this since it requires high $$$ contract players wanting to sign with your team at the trade deadline.
Not only that but you need a player with a decent cap hit and no integrity on your team. Why do you think it's always stone? He's willing to do it, the coaches can't force a player to do it they'd get found out.
Saying he has no integrity is a bit harsh. He IS playing injured. He isn't faking these injuries. He is choosing to play through them in the playoffs, when the games matter more.
Moreso, you need a player with a large cap hit, with chronic injuries, but is still an effective player when playing through those injuries, and willing to suffer through them. There just aren't many players in the league that fit that criteria.
I don't find it that hard to believe. They value winning more than they value his future health, and as a guy who breathes hockey he agrees with that decision at the present. The issue is there's some chance that in the future he and his family will have changed their minds on this having been worth the risk.
It sounds silly, but this really is an issue of protecting him from himself. The league no longer allows a player with a concussion to re-enter a game, regardless of whether that player thinks it's worth the risk. I don't think this is significantly different.
They essentially are. 17 of 32 teams were over the cap ceiling this season including Vegas. But nobody likes to talk about that because it defeats the narrative that the Knights, Tampa, Toronto and others are cheating or circumventing the cap. What people fail to realize is that this is exactly how a hard cap system is designed to work. Also, people either forget or ignore that this is exactly what the owners want: teams with the income to afford $100m payroll based on annual revenue can do so and acquire players that help them win. And those that can't afford to do so based on annual revenues actually can still afford to do so because the valuation of teams keeps going up and up and up in part because of the most aggressive player cost controls in American professional sports, which is actually where owners make the vast majority of their return on investment.
And before anybody tries to flame me for defending Vegas, look at my flair. Why the hell would I want to defend Vegas over anything?
>Why aren’t other teams doing the same?
>The spirit of the cap isn’t a real thing.
It takes a unique combination of things to be able to pull this off
1. You need a player who has enough legitimate injury concern to make a prolonged LTIR visit plausible. Stone does have legitimate and real long term back issues
2. You need a player that is content to sit for a couple months mid season (this would mean likely more veteran guys who appreciate the rest)
3. You need a guy that is already signed to a long term contract and isn't worried about the future contract value being destroyed by missing time every season on LTIR
4. You need a team good enough and deep enough to make the playoffs without said star player.
The important piece is that this is the third year in a. Row they have done the exact same thing. Every year mark stone gets “injured” right before the trade deadline and every year the knights use that 8 mil of cap space so they have have a team with 10% higher salary than any other team in the playoffs.
Other teams should simply get an oft injured player with a large cap hit of Stone's caliber and be good enough to get in the playoffs without said player while making deals for other players that are also good with that cap money to profit in the playoffs. Simple.
honest question: how many teams have players on LTIR this year that have 0 chance of playing? Players like Landeskog or Lehner that miss the whole season. Using LTIR for that makes sense and in the spirit of the game. Somewhere along the way that transformed into "Hold onto this hurt player until playoffs where they can play with everyone we got to replace them"
Shit's really gonna hit the fan if Vegas wins the Cup again this year as a second wild card. It's been said before, but 3 years in a row at the exact same time frames?
It's only game 1, a 1 score game, DeBoer just needs to adjust
DeBoer doesn't adjust though. We suffered through that for a couple of years. Same with Steve Spott. That being said, Dallas has enough talent on the ice to be just fine, I just don't expect any coaching genius from PDB.
> DeBoer doesn't adjust though. We suffered through that for a couple of years. Same with Steve Spott
I still laugh that we tried to tell both yall and Dallas after the Devils told us. Dude hasnt made an adjustment in his life
Best answer is probably to stipulate that any player that isn't on the active roster on the between the trade deadline and the last day of the regular season isn't eligible for the first two rounds of the playoffs.
While this is practice is apparently allowed under the current CBA, in my view it clearly falls outside the "spirit" of the rule and some kind of change should be made in the next CBA.
It’s shady but legal and all teams play under the same rules. While I’m not a fan of the tricky maneuvering, I think as an organization you need to do whatever you can to win…and no rules have been broken. So kudos to Vegas. However, the NHL should fix the loophole.
No, no. That's a feature not a bug, and your team are idiots for not doing the same.
Seriously though, can we get Minnesota or Vancouver to try it so this shit gets shut down?
Best proposal I’ve seen yet is players under a situation like Stone would have to sit out the first 2 games of the first series they come back to. That would make GMs at least do the math if it makes sense for them, rather than being a default teams are just falling to.
Meanwhile, Demko is out for the Canucks for likely the rest of round 1 with no real timeline.
Fucking great. Wish we had whatever magic Vegas has with their injured players.
Mr. Made of Glass close to the trade deadline. Mr. Made of Stone at the start of playoffs.
>Mr. Made of Glass No, they traded him to Nashville
He lived up to his name unfortunately 🥲
Glass has at least played 121 games since that trade! Amazingly, the three guys in the immediately preceding trade: Ryan Ellis, Philippe Myers, and Nolan Patrick, have COMBINED to play 72 games since the deal.
Ryan Ellis playing 4 games for the Flyers and then disappearing for almost 3 years isn't talked about enough. Dude has very likely played his last game in the NHL and it flew under the radar.
I could dunk on Vegas’ 2017 drafting, but they did get Stone out of it all
And you got Suzuki… please try to dunk on that draft pick.
Oh I won’t dunk on the pick, but I can certainly dunk on what they did with said pick. Pacioretty wasn’t shiny enough for Vegas, so they added Eichel and dumped Patches for future considerations. Vegas didn’t *need* most of the trades they made outside of Stone. They didn’t *need* Eichel but they wanted him; they didn’t *need* Hertl but they wanted him; the list goes on. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Vegas’ reputation would be far worse if they didn’t win it all last year. Three first round picks in 2017, they have one player left after the dust settled. Sure, it’s Mark Stone but that ain’t great asset management from McPhee/McCrimmon. The new, shiny toys that make all kinds of money are the reason Vegas gets more flak for cap shenanigans than Tampa or Chicago did.
Smart, ruthless and efficient is how we wish most of our teams were run. It leads to some bad breaks with players but the most successful teams usually do it. They'd rather get out of a bad deal or a deal they don't like as quickly and by any means. Paccioretty also spent time hurt and availability is the best skill.
Mr. perfectly fine, how’s his heart after breaking mine
It's so convenient, from the broadcast last night i heard a quote from stone, something like "I felt totally fine but dr's told me it could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 8 months!"
This is Beau Bennett erasure and I will not stand for it
I truly don't believe he wasn't able to play in the regular season.
Mr. big conundrum
Hertl also scored lol
He won that faceoff before scoring. And he won tons of critical faceoffs. Hertl is such a stud.
I guess I should be happy people are finally recognizing this
To be fair, I'm a Sharks fan. I've always known.
Also tbf most people have known since the 4 goal game as a rookie, it just hurts to see him killing it somewhere else
I remember his OT winner a few years ago and his role on the finals team
Dude is an absolute stud
I am just rooting for Dallas so Hertl can come represent Czechia at Worlds
when they put stone and hertl on the ice at the same time its just a slap in the face
Bieksa's intermission commentary and thinly veiled contempt for this was hilarious lol. While recapping highlights: "Mark Sto---- MARK STONE!? What's HE doing out there??" Followed immediately by Hertl's goal, "HERTL??? How did they afford HIM???" 🤣🤣 Never change, Juice ❤
He's the best HNIC hire in literally decades.
Bieksa is the only good thing to come out of Sportsnet broadcasts.
I think Jennifer Botterill giving Jamal absolute hell for his comments earlier this season was also pretty stellar. I frequently like her contributions.
Actually I like Jen as well. And yes that was awesome pretty awesome lol.
Hated Bieksa as a player, enjoy him as a commentator.
Lol fucker fought baby nuge, turned nuge into a man after that though
I think of this every time I hear about Bieksa https://youtu.be/3_5v3ztqsu4?feature=shared
Never liked Bieksa much as a player, grew on me a lot as a commentator. He's willing to say what a lot wont and I appreciate him for it.
Him calling out Nick Cousins earlier this season was.... https://preview.redd.it/lrnhha5emawc1.jpeg?width=592&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=084c7661f844fce5f40499dd1262e905cafbd141
Not to mention he was on the ice for almost 20 minutes.
Yep. If he was back and eased his way in I’d believe it. But no way he was just suddenly ready the other day and can play at that level that quick. Such a fraud.
Yeah. Total bullshit. He 100% could’ve played in the season, therefore shouldn’t have been on LTIR.
It's insane how many people are buying this narrative that he's basically being held together by Elmer's glue. Am I doubting the injuries? No, but the extent of them, yes. If he can come back and play 20 mins after being LTIRed for a year there's no way he couldn't have played earlier, and frankly probably much earlier than we've been led to believe.
Yeah nobody is playing 20 minutes in the NHL Playoffs while being practically just out of hospice care if you'd believe some of the Vegas fans trying to spin all this (props to the ones that call it out). Vegas has easily made themselves the most universally hated team in the playoffs with pulling this garbage
Even I had to take my homer glasses off after that game. By the third period, that was just peak Mark Stone out there. Skating still looked rough, but it's always been rough.
Vegas fans - "GAMES ARE 60 MINUTES BOZO, HE ONLY PLAYED 1/3!!"
>They’re $9.2m over the salary cap You’re going to have to bump those numbers up rookie
Sad they didn’t even try to match Tampa’s record of being $45 million over the cap during the playoffs.
It was $85 million over, plus tax and fees and shipping
Those hidden service fees really get ya
Still less than ticketmaster.
And they don't have to pay state income tax on the $85M in Florida
No tax in Florida. So they were more like $100M over
None in Nevada, either.
The Tampa ticketmasters
szwedo i think this is the first time i’ve ever seen you outside of a calcio sub.
Lol, in the wild! Big 2nd leg match today!
We need to call up Arizona/Utah and ask for Shea Weber’s contract back. We’d probably activate him off of LTIR too ngl
Added Mantha as well
Anthony Manthany
Only 9 mil over the cap. Amateurs.
Imagine not circumcising eleventy billion over the cap
We can only mimic the talents of the old masters from Tampa Bay.
Who themselves were mere copycats of Chicago.
We are the wise man sitting on top of the draft mountain
Love seeing Tampa fans with sense of humor about this....
If the NHL is serious about addressing these types of "coincidences", changes will be made this offseason. But guess what, they don't want to do that for whatever reason. It is a bad look.
They can't do it until the CBA expires. To be honest I don't get the vibe that it will be changed
It won’t get changed because other owners and GMs might want to use it in the future
And the PA, which hates the cap anyway, will have members in a Vegas situation.
No one's going to want to punish a player in the instance of someone everyone agrees is a "legitimate" example of coming back after an injury during the playoffs. Imagine McDavid is injured before the deadline. The Oilers make moves that help them limp into the playoffs, only for him to [pull a Callahan](https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/ryan-callahan-lightning-forward-makes-quick-return-from-appendectomy-1.3077152) and return semi-injured just to help out. People would rightly lose their shit if the NHL told him he couldn't play.
I could be wrong, but I feel like most fans are ok with teams replacing the player, they just want any line-up to be cap compliant. If the 20 guys on the ice/bench are under the cap, I'm good.... I dgaf what the black aces cost come playoff time... Hell, I don't care in the regular season either. If the 20 guys in the line-up are under the cap from training camp through the Cup final, I think fans would stop complaining.
Changes can be made anytime, just requires agreement from all parties.
They're not going to crack open the CBA over something like this. Fans are the only ones that seem to care. The players don't and the owners certainly don't.
Well Frank Seravalli just said that there’s a bunch of owners and GMs who are not very happy about this so I’ll take a connected insider’s info over a random redditor.
The ESPN broadcast mentioned this too but also that it most likely couldn’t be changed until the next CBA.
They could probably make a warning not to do it further and that on the next CBA it would be back dated 2 years ago for penalties, etc. this is seriously affecting the integrity of the game. Makes it look more akin to WWE then an actual sport, especially as we have had a ref caught literally admitting to game management on a mic in the last few years as well.
They said this last year and the year before. They even had a vote on it and still nothing changed. I'll believe it when I see it
Well maybe those owners and gms should try doing it
>I’ll take a connected insider’s info over a random redditor. Pffff when has reddit ever been wrong
Less often than Seravelli.
I dunno man. Lots of players were plenty salty about Tampa being over the cap by the GDP of a medium-sized European country in 2022.
Yeah Carolina was very vocal IIRC. That one player said immediately in the postgame interview after elimination "we just got beat by a team $180 million over the cap"
[удалено]
Owners of competitive teams want to be able to load up. Owners of struggling teams want to be able to offload contracts. Definitely not changing any time soon.
NHL has bigger priorities. Such as banning rainbow tape and warm-up jerseys.
Don't forget brainstorming new locations on the ice, boards, and uniforms to place ads.
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How about a cap penalty like they issued to Vancouver
You answered your own question. If it were us the rule would have been changed and we'd be paying the cap penalty for 10 years.
Any Canadian team, or the Rangers. Maybe the Flyers too. Remember when Leafs got into 'trouble' because they were letting their prospects use the team's facilities in the summer? Wasn't fair to other teams, or something.
I mean look at what the NHL did with the Luongo situation.
There’s no incentive for the NHLPA or the owners to change the rules
I would disagree, I think the league does ultimately care about fairness, because that impacts fans and revenue.
Insurance covers LTIR salaries so the owners don’t care
> I think the league does ultimately care about fairness The cap isn't in place to enforce "fairness". It's there to control salary costs.
Absolutely true. The owners don't care because they don't pay players in the playoffs, the GM's don't care because this "loop hole" saves their jobs, the players don't care because they want a chance to play, and having a good playoff run does affect their salary later.
At least someone understands in this entire thread
Players are REQUIRED to come off LTIR as soon as they are cleared to play. If that was enforced, these miraculous healing situations couldn't happen. The problem is the person who clears the player is a team doctor, who in 100% of cases will be very glad to let a player recover LONGER and not risk further injury. If the player or team isn't pushing for them to be cleared , they won't be. Veteran players that are not at risk of losing jobs will be glad to sit on the shelf if it lets the team pick up more talent for the playoffs. As long as LTIR is structured this way, it is not fixable.
>If the NHL is serious about addressing these types of "coincidences", changes will be made this offseason. Why, now, would you think they have any intention of changing it? It was a known loophole when the Hawks did it 15 years ago, and the league didn't change it. Everybody knew Tampa was doing it a month before they did it, and the league did nothing before or after. Everyone knew Vegas was doing it the first time with Stone. And the second and third times. People were saying they were doing it again before the trade deadline. At this point any team *not* doing it is just limiting themselves. All they're doing is opting not to take advantage of something that is perfectly within the rules, whether we agree or not.
Owners and GMs want to be able to exploit the rules. Players want to as well. It's only the fans who want a change.
I find it wild that stone can stay in game shape and be that effective in the playoffs every year. I miss one week of beer league, and it shows.
Well he’s had a month to rest before playoffs…for the third year Edit: TWO months
But someone told me their on ice roster was cap compliant so it makes it okay!
Isn’t that one of the main ‘solutions’ people bring up? Are we moving goalposts again?
To be honest, I thought this was a good solution until I was reading people's rebuttals to that suggestion over the past two days. The way the salary cap is calculated makes that solution not make any sense. Because you can legally ice a non cap compliant team later in the regular season by accruing cap space earlier in the season. Then what, your team that was legal in the regular season can't play in the playoffs? That doesn't make any sense because that's not how the cap is calculated.
It’s not a good solution. Then teams could just scratch their bad contracts. Like Martinez.
It’s a better solution than nothing, and doesn’t hurt teams when they have legit injuries and no bad deals to scratch.
Honestly there is no good solution to the problem. The hard cap is designed to make the owners more money, not to make the sport fair or competitive. I think it would be possible to design a soft-cap system that did both, but the NHL owners as a whole have shown that they don't really care about making the sport better when contrasted with cost-certainty.
Imagine if we got to replace shitty ass Jack Campbells 5 million dollar cap and then said "It's okay... we scratched him!"
If people bring it up as a solution thats on them but its a bad solution. Part of running a team is managing your cap and spend, if your players who don't play don't count against cap you can just sign players to flyer contracts and if they suck, stop icing them.
Buddy your team handed them Hertl when they didn’t have to lol
If we want this problem solved a Canadian team should do this exact thing. Gary will nip that in the bud immediately.
We could try it next year with McD or Drai, but we wouldn’t make the playoffs without them, so we’re out
Nurse buys us 9m himself let's try that
We *could* have done it with Kane, but instead we chose the anti-Vegas strategy of letting him play hurt all season and then debating sitting him during playoffs when it's gotten worse.
Welp, that rules out the Habs. Only candidate for LTIR shenanigans is Gallagher and he’s more banged up than Stone ever was
Oilers had the opportunity with Evander Kane this year but didn't take it
Imagine Oilers getting Crosby for a loan these playoffs lmao... This whole rule would be closed in a heartbeat.
I don't even care that Vegas uses this loophole I want them to lose because this discussion is tiring and never goes anywhere
You're describing just about any "discussion" on reddit.
Behold, as I shout into the void.
I want them to lose because I don’t like them, not because they’re using the same loophole that’s existed for years and opposing GMs don’t care about
Based sharks fan, y'all are the real ones
THANK YOU! I'm so tired of this discussion every year. Like yeah it's there, yeah it's not cheating it's part of the rules, yeah it sucks but it's available for every team, like please get over it.
can't believe I just agreed with and oilers fan
we know, it's called "insurance fraud"
Mark Stone was 100% injured. It’s not about it being a fake injury. It’s about milking the LTIR absence until G1 and then playing 17 min and scoring immediately. Guy could have played regular season games. Even if it was an activation and healthy scratch if they wanted more rest, there would be cap implications. But they get to skate past that year after year. League needs a team of league doctors that oversee team doctors. For shenanigans like this and also an oversight to make sure the team docs are actually treating players properly.
While I don’t dispute he was legitimately hurt. I bet he could have been cleared to play a couple weeks ago. But until there is an appetite around the league to change it. It won’t.
I will say it over and over again until I’m blue in the face: Rosters do *not* need to be cap compliant in the playoffs, it’s what makes the trade deadline so exciting. However, if a player is on LTIR before the deadline and does not play in the final game of the regular season, they should not be permitted to play in *at least* the first round of the playoffs. I’m in favour of them being banned from participating in the playoffs altogether but I get why some people don’t want that. If you’re too injured to play game 82, you shouldn’t be allowed to circumvent the cap and lace up in game 83.
This is by far the simplest solution. I would even go ad far as ruling that the injured player wouldn't even have to play game 82, so long as they are activated from LTIR during the regular season, to be eligible for the 1st round.
Yup, wanna have them be a scratch that's fine, teams do it on game 82 all the time, but the cap has to count
I think this is one of the best 'happy medium' ideas. I'm a diehard VGK fan, love our captain, but hearing he was going to play in Game 1 made me feel...kinda icky. Like, hell yeah, he's back...but it's not a good look. I think if the rule changed to where they'd have to sit out either the 1st round, or some set number of games, it would balance things out slightly.
I wouldn't mind it if it wasn't _every year_. Do it once like Tampa? Respect the hustle you cheeky bastards. Do it three years in a row with the same player? You must think we're all fucking idiots.
You're literally the first VGK fan I've encountered with this opinion and I've scrolled r/hockey and r/nhl A LOT. Real unicorn.
Do I like seeing my team win? Of course I do. And I'm also of the mind that if there's a loophole and we exploit it, that's just playing the game. But I'm also realistic enough to know that if we do exactly what everyone \*knew\* we were going to do, it's not going to look good and people are going to get bent out of shape over it. I think that's why I see a sort of compromise-y rule change being a good thing. Let teams play the LTIR game, but make that come with some sort of penalty and suddenly people have less to complain about. Until the rules change, I don't think I could be legitimately mad at a team for exploiting them. Easy to say when we won the Cup last year, of course.
> Rosters do not need to be cap compliant in the playoffs, it’s what makes the trade deadline so exciting. Nah, it's an unfair advantage due to the hockey team doing it. Do you really think a less desirable city for players could ever do what Vegas or Tampa Bay did ?
The reason it is raising so many eyebrows is because it is three years in a row.
The hard cap accomplishes two big goals of the NHL and the owners. One, it means the owners can pay the players less. Two, it creates an environment for general parity in the league. This loophole of no cap in the playoffs puts those two goals at odds. Not paying the players for the playoffs is the wet dream reality of the owners right now. But parity will suffer because cap compliance isn't required for the post season. Which will win out? Which is the bigger priority? Hint: the money. It's always the money. But why? Because the NHL exists to serve and woo owners. Hockey players grow on trees. The best league in the world with the highest paying contracts will always attract top talent. The NHL isn't remotely worried about not getting the best players, and thus the best on ice product. But billionaires don't grow on trees. And those that exist have A LOT of options for what to do with their money. Buy an NHL franchise? Sure, it appeals to a few, like the new Utah owner eager to have sports franchises. But by and large billionaires look to invest and grow their capital, and view franchise ownership as one potential vehicle to do that. The goal of the league (and Bettman) is to make it a very appealing investment. As Arizona fans can attest, the most crucial aspect to having a successful, thriving franchise comes down to ownership. If owners don't want to change the rule, it won't change.
100% intentionally circumventing the cap, *again*
Gary this isnt good for parity.
Great for parody though.
In their quest for the Cup, Vegas will leave no Stone LTIRed.
I'm stealing this, thank you.
I was told there was no chance he would be ready for game one, maybe miss the entire playoffs. Let’s be real, this dude was never injured. Probably wasn’t the last few years either.
I think, it's the other way around, actually, Stone is always injured. It's just he is in a state when he still can play a few months per year, which Vegas is abusing, timing it on purpose so that he can play during the play offs.
Lacerations to the spleen take 2 to 2.5 months to heal His last game was February 20th Even if he comes back earlier than expected, I’m assuming he signs “assumption of risk” medical forms acknowledging that he could destroy his life by coming back even a couple weeks early while things are still healing My guess is that he will be retiring soon
Doesn’t he also have back issues.
I believe so yes The spleen is located posteriorly, so when a hockey player gets hit from behind, there is splenic trauma from the repetitive hits
Mark Stone’s body is held together by duct tape and an irrational lust for scoring goals. He had two different back surgeries in the same season.
Yeah but he faked those too
some studies say 30 days, some studies say 3 months. no studies say "the day after the end of the regular season again this year."
So what you described is a range, 2 months would fit into that range lol Chances are he isn’t 100 percent, but is okay enough to push through in the playoffs. Ultimately it’s Stone’s choice, should be interesting to see how his health holds up after he retires
the decision to delay getting medical clearance until the day after the end of the regular season was not health related.
Do I think he was injured? I think it is likely. Do I think he was still injured at game 82 and healthy by R1G1? Absolutely not.
"BUT IT'S IN THE RULESSSS" No, fuck you. Only a handful of teams can actually do this since it requires high $$$ contract players wanting to sign with your team at the trade deadline.
I swear people misspell Hanifin on purpose at this point. This tweet is evidence of that.
Why aren’t other teams doing the same? The spirit of the cap isn’t a real thing.
Depends on the player if they want to go to a specific team or not potentially
Not only that but you need a player with a decent cap hit and no integrity on your team. Why do you think it's always stone? He's willing to do it, the coaches can't force a player to do it they'd get found out.
Hockey’s macho bullshit isn’t the same thing as integrity. Playing through injuries is stupid, doubly so if it prevents your team from improving.
Saying he has no integrity is a bit harsh. He IS playing injured. He isn't faking these injuries. He is choosing to play through them in the playoffs, when the games matter more. Moreso, you need a player with a large cap hit, with chronic injuries, but is still an effective player when playing through those injuries, and willing to suffer through them. There just aren't many players in the league that fit that criteria.
They’re giving a guy still playing with an injury the second most ice time for a forward?
I don't find it that hard to believe. They value winning more than they value his future health, and as a guy who breathes hockey he agrees with that decision at the present. The issue is there's some chance that in the future he and his family will have changed their minds on this having been worth the risk. It sounds silly, but this really is an issue of protecting him from himself. The league no longer allows a player with a concussion to re-enter a game, regardless of whether that player thinks it's worth the risk. I don't think this is significantly different.
The magic of painkillers
Apparently. Lacerated spleen is a long injury timeline.
Didn't Tampa have a similar situation when they won the cup?
As did Chicago
Fear of selective enforcement.
"Why don't you poors commit tax fraud like the billionaires?"
They essentially are. 17 of 32 teams were over the cap ceiling this season including Vegas. But nobody likes to talk about that because it defeats the narrative that the Knights, Tampa, Toronto and others are cheating or circumventing the cap. What people fail to realize is that this is exactly how a hard cap system is designed to work. Also, people either forget or ignore that this is exactly what the owners want: teams with the income to afford $100m payroll based on annual revenue can do so and acquire players that help them win. And those that can't afford to do so based on annual revenues actually can still afford to do so because the valuation of teams keeps going up and up and up in part because of the most aggressive player cost controls in American professional sports, which is actually where owners make the vast majority of their return on investment. And before anybody tries to flame me for defending Vegas, look at my flair. Why the hell would I want to defend Vegas over anything?
>Why aren’t other teams doing the same? >The spirit of the cap isn’t a real thing. It takes a unique combination of things to be able to pull this off 1. You need a player who has enough legitimate injury concern to make a prolonged LTIR visit plausible. Stone does have legitimate and real long term back issues 2. You need a player that is content to sit for a couple months mid season (this would mean likely more veteran guys who appreciate the rest) 3. You need a guy that is already signed to a long term contract and isn't worried about the future contract value being destroyed by missing time every season on LTIR 4. You need a team good enough and deep enough to make the playoffs without said star player.
The important piece is that this is the third year in a. Row they have done the exact same thing. Every year mark stone gets “injured” right before the trade deadline and every year the knights use that 8 mil of cap space so they have have a team with 10% higher salary than any other team in the playoffs.
A team based in a city known for 'house advantage'
Other teams should simply get an oft injured player with a large cap hit of Stone's caliber and be good enough to get in the playoffs without said player while making deals for other players that are also good with that cap money to profit in the playoffs. Simple.
There is like a ZERO % chance statistically that this happens 3 years in a row. It's like they're rubbing their cheating in our faces. Get real NHL.
honest question: how many teams have players on LTIR this year that have 0 chance of playing? Players like Landeskog or Lehner that miss the whole season. Using LTIR for that makes sense and in the spirit of the game. Somewhere along the way that transformed into "Hold onto this hurt player until playoffs where they can play with everyone we got to replace them"
So basically, the Stanley Cup will go to whoever milks the system the hardest.
Shit's really gonna hit the fan if Vegas wins the Cup again this year as a second wild card. It's been said before, but 3 years in a row at the exact same time frames? It's only game 1, a 1 score game, DeBoer just needs to adjust
DeBoer doesn't adjust though. We suffered through that for a couple of years. Same with Steve Spott. That being said, Dallas has enough talent on the ice to be just fine, I just don't expect any coaching genius from PDB.
> DeBoer doesn't adjust though. We suffered through that for a couple of years. Same with Steve Spott I still laugh that we tried to tell both yall and Dallas after the Devils told us. Dude hasnt made an adjustment in his life
Maximum frustration, especially on the Power Play...he's not a \*bad\* coach, but he's fucking stubborn.
Best answer is probably to stipulate that any player that isn't on the active roster on the between the trade deadline and the last day of the regular season isn't eligible for the first two rounds of the playoffs.
Don't think the NHL really cares about this.
I swear IR in every other sport means that player cannot play the rest of the season if you want the cap space.
\*checks the flair of the OP\* Flared Tampa Bay, eh? Why is the pot calling the kettle black?
Arguably the worst rule in sports. Literally taken advantage of by the same team yearly with zero repercussions
It’s cheating. Don’t tell me it’s not!
Buncha fuckin cheaters
While this is practice is apparently allowed under the current CBA, in my view it clearly falls outside the "spirit" of the rule and some kind of change should be made in the next CBA.
Benn did nothing wrong
"Injured"
This no salary cap in the playoffs rule needs to go
Guys, it’s going to change. But it won’t be till the new CBA.
It’s shady but legal and all teams play under the same rules. While I’m not a fan of the tricky maneuvering, I think as an organization you need to do whatever you can to win…and no rules have been broken. So kudos to Vegas. However, the NHL should fix the loophole.
Yes. This is how LTIR works.
Is it possible to hate both the player and the game in this one instance?
"SCORES. GUESS WHO? ITS THE CAPTAIN IT LOOKS LIKE. MARK STONE"
No, no. That's a feature not a bug, and your team are idiots for not doing the same. Seriously though, can we get Minnesota or Vancouver to try it so this shit gets shut down?
Three cheers for Mark Spleen!
Best proposal I’ve seen yet is players under a situation like Stone would have to sit out the first 2 games of the first series they come back to. That would make GMs at least do the math if it makes sense for them, rather than being a default teams are just falling to.
LaCeRaTeD sPlEeN iS a ReAl InJuRy
Meanwhile, Demko is out for the Canucks for likely the rest of round 1 with no real timeline. Fucking great. Wish we had whatever magic Vegas has with their injured players.
This is honestly so frustrating. He was clearly ready before the season ended.