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

[VivaLasVegas]

Anytime most of the negative comments are from Oiler fans then you know the angels are smiling in Heaven.

 

[Finnflash]

Dallas will steam roll them anyway

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

Amazing recovery my Mark. We are impressed. Hard work pays off.

 

[TheBeard]

Vegas doctors

 

[BlueOil]

What?

your favorite team's GM can try to stop vegas from doing this by voting for rule changes, they aren't, so when are you gonna turn that petty anger to the people who can change it?

 

[Canadienna]

The thing is, though, that as long as it was legitimate to get long term injury relief for him at some stage, they're within the rules.

I went carefully through the collective bargaining agreement looking for a requirement that a player come off injured reserve (and the team stop collecting long term injury relief) when the player is healthy enough to play. When he's first hurt the team may (but isn't required to) put him on injured reserve to use his roster spot, it may (but isn't required to) collect long term injury relief against the cap hit any time going back to his original injury and they may (but aren't by the rules required to) activate a player when the player is healthy enough to play. I was really surprised, but could find nothing that said a player must be activated when healthy.

Possibly something got missed in the CBA or, more likely, a decision was made to allow some flexibility so that players can work themselves back into shape in practice rather than go straight into games as soon as the injury has healed sufficiently.

So far as I could find it is perfectly legal to hold a player out for a while after he is healthy enough to play.

However frustrating it is to see teams gain an advantage that way, there's no point in complaining about breach of rules when the rules aren't being breached, so in my opinion those that suggest rules changes to deal with it are taking the right approach.

"A Club may then exceed the Upper Limit due to the addition of replacement Player Salary and Bonuses of Players who have replaced an unfit-to-play Player, provided, however, that when the unfit to-play Player is once again fit to play (including any period such Player is on a Bona Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception Conditioning Loan to another league), the Club shall be required to once again reduce its Averaged Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit prior to the Player being able to rejoin the Club."

Article 50.10 d) iv) Page 290 of the CBA.

In addition this provision:

"If, however, the League wishes to challenge the determination of a Club physician that a Player is unfit to play for purposes of the Bona-Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception, the League and the NHLPA shall promptly confer and jointly select a neutral physician, who shall review the Club physician's determination regarding the Player's fitness to play."

Which is to say, why would they lay out a case for the league to investigate if a player is truly "unfit to play" if the teams were allowed to keep "fit to play" players on LTIR?

Edit: ... I think I might be wrong. Having read through more it genuinely sounds like the team has no obligation to return the player to the active roster after becoming healthy. It is odd then, that the league can investigate whether a player is fit-to-play, considering the team has no obligation to allow the player to return to play once placed on LTIR.

@hangman005 my apologies to you

 

[GreatSaveEssensa]

Suspend Kadri as well. Don't forget to suspend Kadri. We must never forget to suspend Kadri.

Getting old dude.

 

[eviohh26]

Anytime most of the negative comments are from Oiler fans then you know the angels are smiling in Heaven.

Pretty sure everyone outside of Vegas is annoyed at this shit. Everyone called this months ago .

 

[BlackDogg]

Growing new organs and growing the game hand in hand.

 

[Eternal Leaf]

He will plan to play game 2.

If they win he will play game 3 at home. If they lose, he's in for game 2.

This is to throw everyone off.

 

[Woodrow]

I hope they miss the playoffs.

 

[GeoRox89]

May as well get rid of the salary cap due to stuff like this (was a dumb idea to begin with).

Not defending Vegas’ cap shenanigans but the cap is still serving its purpose. It’s not about parity. It’s about cost certainty to the owners and limiting the players share of revenue

 

[Pass the Saitl Sauce]

For a deterrence they should suspend any players for game 1 of playoffs if said player does not dress in a regular season game post trade deadline.

POTENTIAL of starting a series down 1-0 in a best of 7 should prevent any future cases

And if the player is legitimately hurt and unable to dress 1 regular season game then what difference is 1 game?

 

[TheReelChuckFletcher]

Pretty sure everyone outside of Vegas is annoyed at this shit. Everyone called this months ago .

I'm a Canes fan and I have no problem with this. Other teams have done this, as well. The only reason why Vegas gets targeted for hate is because no one does it more successfully.

 

[kingsfan28]

I’m surprised no one predicted it.

Same with Hertyl. 2 miracles in one week!

 

[Riseonfire]

Personal Opinion:

If a player is on LTIR and you use that space to go over the cap, the returning player must be ready for game 82 of the season and the team cap compliant or the LTIR player is ineligible (or some other similarly damning penalty).

Needs to be addressed in the next CBA.

 

[Armourboy]

I'm a Canes fan and I have no problem with this. Other teams have done this, as well. The only reason why Vegas gets targeted for hate is because no one does it more successfully.

No its because no one does it more blatantly year after year. Other teams have done it but its generally just been a single season type of thing, its not something they do every season.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

Vegas must deploy the best doctors in the world.

 

[Sra1974]

your favorite team's GM can try to stop vegas from doing this by voting for rule changes, they aren't, so when are you gonna turn that petty anger to the people who can change it?

Since I’m not in the GM meetings and I’m reasonably confident you aren’t either, I don’t have any idea whether he is or isn’t. And since he’s a dottering old fool who has wasted years on the prime of Mcdavid and talking about back in the days of Detroit I could give a rats ass what he thinks or says about it.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

"A Club may then exceed the Upper Limit due to the addition of replacement Player Salary and Bonuses of Players who have replaced an unfit-to-play Player, provided, however, that when the unfit to-play Player is once again fit to play (including any period such Player is on a Bona Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception Conditioning Loan to another league), the Club shall be required to once again reduce its Averaged Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit prior to the Player being able to rejoin the Club."

Article 50.10 d) iv) Page 290 of the CBA.

In addition this provision:

"If, however, the League wishes to challenge the determination of a Club physician that a Player is unfit to play for purposes of the Bona-Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception, the League and the NHLPA shall promptly confer and jointly select a neutral physician, who shall review the Club physician's determination regarding the Player's fitness to play."

Which is to say, why would they lay out a case for the league to investigate if a player is truly "unfit to play" if the teams were allowed to keep "fit to play" players on LTIR?

Because the assessment of whether a player is truly "fit to play" is left to the team. And even if the league decides to have someone give a 2nd opinion and that doctor says yep, I think the player is fit to play it still requires a 3rd doctor - one agreed upon by the team and the league - to give their opinion on the player's fitness to play.

Not to mention, a player on LTIR has to miss 10 games and 24 days before coming off. Not one or the other, both. It's entirely possible a player could be fit to play, but the LTIR designation forces them to stay out until checking off both criteria.

Some people [not directing this at you] are SO close to getting it, and then they wipe it all out with "... but the league should _________" when it should be abundantly clear the league is never going to do it.

 

[Martin Skoula]

You may be surprised to find out that NHL players often play injured or not at 100% in the playoffs, even though they wouldn't risk doing it during the regular season with nothing on the line.

Stone could play game 1 but does that mean he's 100% healthy come game day? Doubtful. Lacerated spleens usually take more than a month to heal fully.

That’s great so every team should be allowed LTIRing their big contracts the day before the deadline for bumps and bruises then I assume.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

How do you know? *GASP* Have I actually been replied by an actual NHL player?!?

You've been replied to by someone who understands that the NHLPA positions re: players' rights over the years don't include "let's restrict how much players can play for purely arbitrary reasons" and that your idea would absolutely have to be agreed upon by the NHLPA and codified in the CBA.

And there is no way in hell the NHLPA is letting any of its players be told "you can't play in the playoffs for any number of games, for a reason that wouldn't prevent you from having played in Game 82 of the regular season."

 

[Canadienna]

Because the assessment of whether a player is truly "fit to play" is left to the team. And even if the league decides to have someone give a 2nd opinion and that doctor says yep, I think the player is fit to play it still requires a 3rd doctor - one agreed upon by the team and the league - to give their opinion on the player's fitness to play.

Not to mention, a player on LTIR has to miss 10 games and 24 days before coming off. Not one or the other, both. It's entirely possible a player could be fit to play, but the LTIR designation forces them to stay out until checking off both criteria.

Some people are SO close to getting it, and then they wipe it all out with "... but the league should _________" when it should be abundantly clear the league is never going to do it.

I just edited my post before I saw this. I think I was wrong. After reading through it again, and reading their examples, a team is not obligated at any point to return a player from LTIR to the active roster. Only to be cap compliant when the player does return.

 

[kingsfan28]

I'm a Canes fan and I have no problem with this. Other teams have done this, as well. The only reason why Vegas gets targeted for hate is because no one does it more successfully.

There's some sound logic. It one thing for it to happen once, but 3 straight years , come on. Same guys for the most part , and all of a sudden you have like 16 mil in LTIR cap space at the TDL. They were able to add over 10 mil in cap money at the TDL with the 3 guys they got. They will be 15 mil over the cap when the playoff starts . It's fishy as F no matter how you look at it.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I just edited my post before I saw this. I think I was wrong. After reading through it again, and reading their examples, a team is not obligated at any point to return a player from LTIR to the active roster. Only to be cap compliant when the player does return.

I can recall an instance circa 2010 or 2011 where someone was eligible to come off LTIR and generally acknowledged to be fit enough to play, but couldn't come off LTIR because of cap reasons. I think they had to wait a week or so to finally come off and get into the lineup. I want to say it happened again in 2016 or 2017, but I'm less certain of that.

It happens, can happen, may happen again in the future, but it's obviously an exceedingly rare occurrence.