2021 Playoffs - Who Do You Have?

There won't be any changes to the rules around LTIR. Tampa Bay aren't the first team to do it. They won't be the last.

Cory
 
MMarch said:
Tampa is the obvious perpetrator here. I did a little more research and this is what I came up with for current roster salary in the playoffs with a 2020-21 salary cap of $81.5 million:

Lightning $98,840,470
Blues $90,143,266
Islanders $88,427,235
Oilers $85,603,497
Capitals $85,485,369
Jets $84,372,152
Toronto $84,162,850
Vegas $82,827,661
Penguins $82,530,744
Avalanche $82,524,228
Canadiens $82,277,688
Bruins $81,126,431
Wild $80,814,896
Predators $80,701,024
Panthers $79,862,366
Hurricanes $79,482,882

I can’t really fault teams for taking advantage of it I guess. I blame the NHL for knowing this is an ongoing issue and doing nothing to address it. $10 million in extra salary between the Lightning and Isles is pretty hard to overcome. $19 million gap between TB and FL is borderline criminal and never should have happened.
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It is totally circumvention of the cap, but done very intelligently.

I knew what TB was doing right from the beginning of the season. I was watching them to see what they would do in order to get under the cap because they still had to sign Cirelli and they were already over the cap. There were rumours about trading Tyler Johnson to unload his contract.

Then Cirelli signs a decent size deal just before Christmas, and I was left scratching my head. Then by the end of the week, they announce that Kucherov is going to have surgery and will need 5 months to recover and will most likely miss the entire season. Suddenly, they were under the cap by a hair (like by 50k or something, I can't remember exactly). I remember thinking, "how convenient".

The story was that Kucherov discovered his hip issue in early Dec. and tried non-surgical techniques at first but it wasn't effective. For sure it was strategic on Tampa's part when they found out about Kucherov's injury.

The bigger question is if they actually knew about it earlier, and strategically planned the "discovery" of the injury, where they could time it perfectly. Supposed they did. Not a hard sell to Kucherov to put it off. Since it is a hockey related injury, his salary would be covered by insurance. He would be paid fully during his 5 month recovery. If he had the surgery right after the SCF, he would have 3 months to recover in the off season, and come back at end of February. But, there was a really good reason to put off the surgery for 3 months. A chance for cup #2, and a salary, but without having to play for it.

Win for organization, team and player. Hard to fault them for doing it.

I don't know how you could set up a rule to prevent this since it was a legitimate hockey injury. You can't force a player to have surgery at a certain time. There was another player recently that did that too. Put off surgery until the fall because they wanted to enjoy the summer instead of being in rehab. Can't remember who it was.
 
Isn't there some other weird loophole where if you have a player that is already on LTIR, that there is cap relief that allows a team to go over the salary cap in the off-season. This was used because at the start of the season, you needed to be under the cap, but could use this to exploit that rule. I think it was the Leafs that did it recently? Not completely sure.

Props to the team's cap management team in knowing the cap rules and finding loop holes. Earned every penny of their salary.
 
MMarch said:
Tampa is the obvious perpetrator here. I did a little more research and this is what I came up with for current roster salary in the playoffs with a 2020-21 salary cap of $81.5 million:

Lightning $98,840,470
Blues $90,143,266
Islanders $88,427,235
Oilers $85,603,497
Capitals $85,485,369
Jets $84,372,152
Toronto $84,162,850
Vegas $82,827,661
Penguins $82,530,744
Avalanche $82,524,228
Canadiens $82,277,688
Bruins $81,126,431
Wild $80,814,896
Predators $80,701,024
Panthers $79,862,366
Hurricanes $79,482,882

I can’t really fault teams for taking advantage of it I guess. I blame the NHL for knowing this is an ongoing issue and doing nothing to address it. $10 million in extra salary between the Lightning and Isles is pretty hard to overcome. $19 million gap between TB and FL is borderline criminal and never should have happened.
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Part of the inflated numbers are also teams that trades for rental players at the deadline, so your total can be over the salary cap because the salary is prorated. As long as in the end, you are under the cap.

NYI have Palmeri and Zajac.
TB has Savard
Habs added Staal
Bruins added Hall, Reilly
Panthers added Montour and Wallmark, Carlsson.

Also if you have a high salaried player missing significant time in the regular season, teams get some more wiggle room because that turns in to LTIR relief. So with Stamkos missing 18 games this year, that gave TB some more cap space to play with. If he didn't get injured, maybe they wouldn't be able to fit Savard under the cap.
 
will-411 said:
There won't be any changes to the rules around LTIR. Tampa Bay aren't the first team to do it. They won't be the last.

Cory
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Not the first for sure, but no one has done it this blatantly and to this level before. The league would be ignorant to not address a known problem like this that takes away the parity they promote.
 
Lightning squeaked out their Game 7 and Habs stood strong in their series.

It simply comes down to whether Price can maintain his current play, or peaked too early.

I'm also waiting for the 1993 Roy comparisons which would be an insult to St. Patrick. Unless the Habs lose, and Price finally gets that rumored trade to Colorado and wins a cup there?

Either way Price fanpersons, get your cards queued up for sale! ;)
 
TheGriceBoys said:
I'm also waiting for the 1993 Roy comparisons which would be an insult to St. Patrick. Unless the Habs lose, and Price finally gets that rumored trade to Colorado and wins a cup there?
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Their statistics are similar, and these Habs have had a more difficult road to the final then the 1993 Habs did. Not sure why it would be an insult?
 
TheGriceBoys said:
Either way Price fanpersons, get your cards queued up for sale! ;)
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Hope you guys already cashed in on Carey. Come on home to Merica Stanley! I need Habs to grab one game for my winning bet. Also very considerate of the Habs to sport American colors as well to celebrate! Yay!
 
TheGriceBoys said:
Hope you guys already cashed in on Carey. Come on home to Merica Stanley! I need Habs to grab one game for my winning bet. Also very considerate of the Habs to sport American colors as well to celebrate! Yay!
Click to expand...

Thank you Lightning, just, thank you! Congrats on the back to back!
 
MMarch said:
Not the first for sure, but no one has done it this blatantly and to this level before. The league would be ignorant to not address a known problem like this that takes away the parity they promote.
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It’s a CBA issue so the owners and players will have to agree. If it’s going to impact cap space, it impacts player revenue share and compensation. They aren’t going to be quick to give that up, not when they’re team may be the next one to benefit from the rule.

Cory
 

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