Vegas about to circumvent cap again? UPD: Mark Stone back practicing.

[Kent Nilsson]

Hockey has become a joke.

 

[canuckslover10]

Honestly I have no issue with what Vegas is doing. People keep bringing up the Canucks recapture penalty they had such an easy way to avoid it all they had to do was trade for Luongo and put him on LTIR. Luongo suggested this himself as well and for some reason the genius that is Benning decided not to do it. We all know for a fact Vegas wouldn't have hesitated to make that deal to avoid the recapture penalty .


As for Vegas I'm sure they would rather have their captain who is signed long term not get injured so often, they are probably stretching the truth a bit but again any team is open to do so, Tampa being an example rn but they literally can't since they don't have any assets they want to give up. Having the assets, injury, and the severity of the injury all at once is unlikely so I doubt we will see this happen more in the future.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

You don't think Vegas's electrical needs produce greenhouse gases? Get real.

It's a city in a desert with more demand than most other cities its size. That contributes mightily to climate change.

ETA: the reason for peoples' ire shouldn't be the rule, it should be the loose interpretation of "bona fide injury" to INCLUDE guys who play great in the playoffs.

Well about 40% of the power comes from renewable sources and all MGM casinos are powered by solar. But you do you.

On topic, all this butthurt has me wanting a repeat just to watch Canadian heads explode

 

[dirtydanglez]

if at first you cant win, cheat and cheat again lol

 

[hairylikebear]

We didn’t even have high draft picks to give away.

Why do they need to be high draft picks?

 

[Kent Nilsson]

Yeah, the reason being the fact that hockey is mostly popular in places where it snows a lot.

But maybe climate change is Vegas' fault too?

Building a city out of nothing in the desert is a glorious absurdity of western civilization.

 

[Bobby9]

Still pretending like this isn’t the most flagrant example of cap circumvention we’ve seen yet? Still haven’t heard you respond if you’re furious your team is doing this since you hated when Tampa did it

Bro your fav franchise spent like a decade drafting first overall and still can't win.

What the Oilers did to build their current team is 10x more embarrassing than what Vegas is doing.

 

[snag]

Shouldn’t people be furious with the 3 teams that traded a player to the Knights? The Knights wouldn’t be making these deals if the other front offices wanted to stop this.

They have no skin in the game at this point. They are selling off their present for their future. They are also kinda hogtied here too and are getting what they can...

 

[3074326]

if at first you cant win, cheat and cheat again lol

Cheating isn’t allowed, yet this is

It can be many things, but until the loophole closes, it’s not cheating

Other teams are sending them players too

 

[HanSolo]

Still pretending like this isn’t the most flagrant example of cap circumvention we’ve seen yet? Still haven’t heard you respond if you’re furious your team is doing this since you hated when Tampa did it

But just to make it clearer, no I'm not in love with Vegas exploiting this loophole while at the same time understanding that it's permissible under the rules even though it probably shouldn't be.

I also don't find the "circumvention" as odious last year because most of Vegas' acquisitions didn't play in the playoffs or barely did so, so they really only got the benefit of Barbashev as an addition. The biggest chunk of 10 mil over the cap came from Quick's contract who didn't face a single shot in the postseason. With Barbashev, Vegas was either minimally over the cap or under it when accounting for players that were actually playing.

That said, I feel differently about it today. As entertaining as it's been to see Vegas pick up Mantha, Hanifin, and Hertl without trading off any core roster pieces, if all of those players plus Stone are available for a run, I'd feel dirty about cheering for it. It's a much bigger tilt in roster strength than they got last year.

And beyond that, I was a hypocrite because the reality is I wasn't all that pissed at what Tampa did so much as I'm generally adverse to repeat cup winners and was frustrated at seeing Tampa doing so well. So I fixated on one less savory thing they did and was loudly pissy about it. Just like fans do with the Knights all the time. Or just like fans do when they're reacting to dirty hits done by another team until a player on theirs does it and all of a sudden it's "he should keep his head up" or "not my guy's fault he's bigger, taller and stronger". It happens all the time on this site.

I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong (like me repeatedly saying Vegas doesn't have the assets to make a splash, I was clearly wrong about that) or when I'm being hypocritical. My shit talking about Tampa was for a bad faith purpose and I admit it. Trying to grow every day.

 

[snag]

Bro your fav franchise spent like a decade drafting first overall and still can't win.

What the Oilers did to build their current team is 10x more embarrassing than what Vegas is doing.

incompetence != flagrance

 

[Vegas07]

Why do they need to be high draft picks?

Because it’s easier to say no to the deal if you get offered lower picks.

Lots of posts here about how the Knights front office need to “do the right thing” and “stop cheating” and stop trying to help themselves.

I don’t see posts about how Washington, Calgary and San Jose need to “do the right thing” and “stop getting involved with the cheaters and helping them cheat.”

It also makes me doubt the league will “fix” this issue if so many front offices don’t seem to care.

 

[ploppsdman]

2005-06: NHL does not have a hard cap.
2023-24: NHL still does not have a hard cap.
In between: NHL doesn't have a hard cap.

Fans: OMG, THE NHL DOESN'T HAVE A HARD CAP!



This is a completely original idea that no one else has ever suggested before, and I'm sure will have no unintended consequences or inadvertently create problems for any cap-abiding team, like:

100%. You must be cap compliant at all times. If you won’t be cap compliant in the playoffs, don’t make trades in the regular season making you out of compliance in the playoffs. Otherwise, only ice a team up to the cap during the playoffs. What Vegas does is bs.

 

[snag]

Because it’s easier to say no to the deal if you get offered lower picks.

Lots of posts here about how the Knights front office need to “do the right think” and “stop cheating” and stop trying to help themselves.

I don’t see posts about how Washington, Calgary and San Jose need to “do the right thing” and “stop getting involved with the cheaters and helping them cheat.”

It also makes me doubt the league will “fix” this issue if so many front offices don’t seem to care.

It's not about not caring.....it is about lining up at the trough before it's all gone. I mean, if it is going on you might as well try and get you some too....

 

[Gnome17]

you used the wrong punctuation for this thread, it is never a question with the Knights.

 

[nothingbeatshockey]

As a Caps fan, I am no fan of LV. But until the NHL changes the rules, don't hate the player, hate the game.

 

[hairylikebear]

Because it’s easier to say no to the deal if you get offered lower picks.

Nah, if you're going to move the goalposts to include *only* high picks, there needs to be something fundamentally different that excludes lower picks entirely, not just that they are harder to say no to. What makes them hard to say no to is their value as an asset, and low picks also have value, just less of it. So the fact that they got low picks is still a perfectly fine answer for why Vegas' trade partners chose to be complicit.

Also Vegas gave up major assets in the Hertl trade, so I don't really understand why you're even saying this stuff.

Lots of posts here about how the Knights front office need to “do the right think” and “stop cheating” and stop trying to help themselves.

I don’t see posts about how Washington, Calgary and San Jose need to “do the right thing” and “stop getting involved with the cheaters and helping them cheat.”

It also makes me doubt the league will “fix” this issue if so many front offices don’t seem to care.

You might be right that those teams deserve some level of criticism, if they have some awareness of what Vegas is doing behind the scenes. But if so, it would not exonerate Vegas.

This is of course assuming that Vegas has done anything wrong at all.

 

[Vegas07]

It's not about not caring.....it is about lining up at the trough before it's all gone. I mean, if it is going on you might as well try and get you some too....

I mention those teams because they are the ones that traded a player to the Knights. It sure looks like other front offices are still willing to do deals with the Knights (no matter how many fans accuse Vegas of cap circumvention).

 

[Non Player Canadiens]

who will get fined a pick for this cap circumvention? Devils or Sens?

a Canadian team, probably.

 

[Da McBomb]

If the league is going to allow Vegas to cheat the cap, then mind as well f***ing scrap the cap altogether like the old days and let everyone go at it.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

It's a city in a desert with more demand than most other cities its size. That contributes mightily to climate change.

You think the incremental power demand from a city like Vegas contributes mightily to climate change? Might need a source for that outrageous hyperbole.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Vegas. That's not one of them.

 

[Strangle]

The injuries are real enough, the problem is it's so common for NHLers to play through injuries that it's basically impossible to prove that player X isn't actually injured. Yes, he could be playing through said injury but due to the cap peculiarities it's sometimes advantageous for him and his team for him to remain on LTIR. You can't very well adopt a rule that makes it official that players must play through injuries, can you?

This is why, if the player is on LTIR for game 82 of the season, they should be ineligible for the playoffs.

Healthy or not, you need to be on the roster by game 82 to play in the playoffs

 

[Ted Hoffman]

100%. You must be cap compliant at all times. If you won’t be cap compliant in the playoffs, don’t make trades in the regular season making you out of compliance in the playoffs. Otherwise, only ice a team up to the cap during the playoffs. What Vegas does is bs.

That team in my example is cap compliant at all times.

Wait, your excuse is "so don't do anything that puts you out of compliance in the playoffs?" Cool, we'll make the cap a truly hard cap so the sum of the cap hits can never exceed the cap. In which case,

Well, what can I say except ...

You've just made the salary cap even more inflexible, made it more difficult for teams to make trades in-season, confined better players to non-playoff teams, made playoff teams overall weaker, made the playoffs more boring, and decreased fan interest. And, because teams have to strictly stay under the cap even with the IR allowances you give them, you've caused player salaries to get depressed as teams realize f***, I gotta keep cap space available in case shit hits the fan and they cram down salaries on contracts to depress cap hits so they everyone can fit under the cap at all times, with room to spare for unexpected circumstances, no exceptions.

But goddamn it, you "fixed" the "problem" of teams "going over the cap." I can't wait to see how you "solve" all the actual problems you created.

I swear to god, it's like talking to a petulant 6-year old who demands a pony and gets pissed they don't get one, and they don't think about the fact they live on the 16th floor in downtown with the nearest park 2 miles away, but they SWEAR TO f***ING GOD they know how to take care of one and nothing bad will happen, and then they're shocked to find out ponies are 1500 lb. animals that shit and knock over stuff and break things in a 900 sq. ft. because they're so big, and the 6-year old gets pissed and wants someone to make it stop and then say "this isn't my fault, I didn't ask for this!"

 

[Strangle]

If the league is going to allow Vegas to cheat the cap, then mind as well f***ing scrap the cap altogether like the old days and let everyone go at it.

Agreed 100%

Just scrap the cap

But just to make it clearer, no I'm not in love with Vegas exploiting this loophole while at the same time understanding that it's permissible under the rules even though it probably shouldn't be.

I also don't find the "circumvention" as odious last year because most of Vegas' acquisitions didn't play in the playoffs or barely did so, so they really only got the benefit of Barbashev as an addition. The biggest chunk of 10 mil over the cap came from Quick's contract who didn't face a single shot in the postseason. With Barbashev, Vegas was either minimally over the cap or under it when accounting for players that were actually playing.

That said, I feel differently about it today. As entertaining as it's been to see Vegas pick up Mantha, Hanifin, and Hertl without trading off any core roster pieces, if all of those players plus Stone are available for a run, I'd feel dirty about cheering for it. It's a much bigger tilt in roster strength than they got last year.

And beyond that, I was a hypocrite because the reality is I wasn't all that pissed at what Tampa did so much as I'm generally adverse to repeat cup winners and was frustrated at seeing Tampa doing so well. So I fixated on one less savory thing they did and was loudly pissy about it. Just like fans do with the Knights all the time. Or just like fans do when they're reacting to dirty hits done by another team until a player on theirs does it and all of a sudden it's "he should keep his head up" or "not my guy's fault he's bigger, taller and stronger". It happens all the time on this site.

I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong (like me repeatedly saying Vegas doesn't have the assets to make a splash, I was clearly wrong about that) or when I'm being hypocritical. My shit talking about Tampa was for a bad faith purpose and I admit it. Trying to grow every day.

Surprisingly honest and mature, good on you man

You don't think Vegas's electrical needs produce greenhouse gases? Get real.

It's a city in a desert with more demand than most other cities its size. That contributes mightily to climate change.

ETA: the reason for peoples' ire shouldn't be the rule, it should be the loose interpretation of "bona fide injury" to INCLUDE guys who play great in the playoffs.

OMG, go post in r/climatechange and leave the rest of us alone

 

[Da McBomb]

Agreed 100%

Just scrap the cap

But even with no cap... Vegas and the Florida teams will still have a huge advantage because everyone wants to play in those markets. But at least then the other markets could pay whatever they want to attract players... which is better than how it is now.