Thought this was worthy of discussion. The NHL GM's meet next week and one of the items on the agenda is the much discussed "LTIR loophole". Essentially the issue is that there is no salary cap in the playoffs. Last season the Lightning stashed Nikita Kucherov on LTIR for the season, used the salary relief gained by his contract being on LTIR to add players, then were able to activate Kucherov for game 1 of the playorrs and ice a roster with a total salary cap hit of $89.5 million, well above the $81.5 million salary cap. Vegas has tried to follow suit, to an even more egregios degree with a fully healthy payroll approaching $95 million this season, but are likely to miss the playoffs. This isn't an entirely new phenomenon, I believe the Blackhawks used a Patrick Kane injury and LTIR to add at a deadline and then activate him for a playoff run that resulted in a Cup.
https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/ice-breakers-gms-to-discuss-potentially-closing-ltir-playoff-loophole/
The GM who is bringing this up is proposing a rather simple solution. The cap hits of the 20 skaters you dress on a playoff game must not exceed the salary cap. So, in the Lightning example, they could play Kucherov but would need to sit other players in order to be cap compliant. Another idea in the article is that a player who finishes the season on LTIR must miss the first round of the playoffs.
We'll see if anything happens. The main reason the current system exists is because the players don't get paid in the playoffs. So they calculate the salary cap during the length of the regular season and in the playoffs there's nothing left to count.
What do folks think?
https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/ice-breakers-gms-to-discuss-potentially-closing-ltir-playoff-loophole/
The GM who is bringing this up is proposing a rather simple solution. The cap hits of the 20 skaters you dress on a playoff game must not exceed the salary cap. So, in the Lightning example, they could play Kucherov but would need to sit other players in order to be cap compliant. Another idea in the article is that a player who finishes the season on LTIR must miss the first round of the playoffs.
We'll see if anything happens. The main reason the current system exists is because the players don't get paid in the playoffs. So they calculate the salary cap during the length of the regular season and in the playoffs there's nothing left to count.
What do folks think?