Considering I work in the rehab field I think I have a better idea than you how easy it is to delay a players return even when they are completely safe and able to return to play. Hell, you can easily have two completely different medical opinions assessing the same person, and its incredibly easy to exploit this.
I'm also sure, being in the rehab field, you know there are times where
you think someone is fine and ready to go back to work, and the patient says they can't - and, after some investigation and maybe someone else's evaluation, you discover that the patient
really is right and you were wrong, and now more work needs to be done with the patient to fix the problem you didn't think existed.
Or maybe you're just that damn good, and it's
never happened to you. Or to anyone else around you.
And you're probably not typically dealing with a union, and you're almost certainly not dealing with the NHLPA who takes a
very dim view of "yeah, I don't care if your player says he's still hurt - he's fine, he can get his ass in the lineup and play, big fat f***ing faker."
What problems exactly would the salary cap fixes I discussed present?
1. You have to define what "make the salary cap apply during the playoffs" means, because that can be interpreted any number of ways and I'm not about to try and guess what you mean by it.
2. Whatever you suggest, it has to allow for teams whose sum of full-year cap hits exceed the cap but who never violated the cap because they permissibly acquired those players by accruing cap savings, to be able to use all of those players in the playoffs, without restriction. You know, like some teams are doing right now as we go into the trade deadline.
3. It alsohas to account for "legitimate" uses of LTIR where players are in fact out the entire season and unable to play in the playoffs at all, where teams use that LTIR space permissibly to acquire other players. You know, like some teams are doing right now as we go into the trade deadline.
4. It
also has to allow teams to be able to add/subtract players as needed during the playoffs due to injuries, even when teams are limited to who's available to be used because of unavailability of some players who are in the AHL playoffs.
5. It
also has to account for players legitimately injured, who may not in fact be healthy enough to play when the playoffs start, but who
can be healthy and able to play after the playoffs start.
6. It
ALSO has to be acceptable by the NHLPA, since this will have to be part of the CBA and the union is going to have to sign off on it. [Spoiler: saying players are ineligible to play in the playoffs for purely subjective reasons that have nothing to do with player fitness or league discipline, ... guaranteed not to fly with the NHLPA.]
That's just off the top of my head.
They would do what the cap is supposed to do and even the playing field.
I think it's
@KevFu or
@tarheelhockey who has repeatedly dispelled this myth of "the cap is supposed to even the playing field" numerous times in the past. If it's not either of those two, perhaps they'll know who has and that person can come and dispel it yet again.
Please do explain the cap's purpose if it doesn't exist during the only part of the schedule that actually matters outside of just getting into the playoffs?
The cap's purpose is to provide a measure of cost certainty for owners. Cost certainty without a cap = teams spend whatever they want --> the players are still bound by a 50/50 split of HRR --> they pay
a whole f***ing shitload in escrow, and they've long complained about losing money to escrow.
At this point the cap isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing, so why even have a salary cap?
Because the owners demand cost certainty, which comes via the salary cap. And, that prevents the players from getting taken to the woodshed on escrow as I allude to above.
Why do you think you know what I'm thinking, when
you know you have no idea what I think?
