The Toronto Maple Leafs may be guilty of signing an older player to a contract he might not finish, but did they really do anything wrong?
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Chris Tanev’s Iffy Contract Sparks Debate About NHL LTIR Rules
July 30, 2024
by Jim Parsons
The Toronto Maple Leafs’ recent deal involving Chris Tanev has stirred up questions about the NHL’s Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) rules.
In a recent mailbag post, The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek was asked if the NHL might ever revisit the use of LTIR, especially for older players who are signed to contracts that virtually guarantee they won’t play them out. When it comes to Toronto, many believe Tanev will end his career on LTIR, effectively allowing the Leafs to circumvent the salary cap. Should this be allowed?
While the debate around LTIR rules is valid, using the Tanev deal as a trigger for change overlooks a long history of teams exploiting this loophole.
What are the Maple Leafs Guilty Of?
Technically, the Maple Leafs aren’t guilty of anything. There is no hard and fast rule about doing what Toronto did, which was to sign an older player to a contract they might not see all the way through.
Duhatschek writes that teams who knowingly sign players well past their best-before date do so because that’s sometimes the cost of doing business. For the Maple Leafs, Tanev was an in-demand UFA and they wanted the player. They made a six-year pitch to him at the age of 34 years old, knowing that with the way he plays and his injury history, he is unlikely to make it as an NHLer to the age of 40.
If they were thinking along those lines when the deal was signed, the organization was comfortable with the trade-off.
