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  • NHL May Try to Fix This Salary Cap Loophole

    Image courtesy of © Walter Tychnowicz-Imagn Images
    Thomas Williams

    By Thomas Williams -

    For several years now, NHL teams have been using a salary cap loophole to ice the best roster possible in the playoffs.

    Whether it is Nikita Kucherov on the Tampa Bay Lightning, Mark Stone on the Vegas Golden Knights, or most recently Matthew Tkachuk on the Florida Panthers; the very best playoff-bound teams have had players be injured enough to get placed on Long-Term Injured Reserve. And the timing of it is the most important.

    For these examples, the player went on LTIR before the trade deadline, just in time for their team to load up with that extra cap space created with them out of the lineup. And then they make a triumphant return almost immediately in the first round and since teams do not need to be salary cap compliant in the playoffs, there is a sizeable advantage just because they had a guy out nursing an injury for a few months.

    Well, the NHL and NHLPA are reportedly going to address this issue. According to Chris Johnston, this could include the existence of a "playoff salary cap" or something like that.

    No further details on how this could work or when it could be in place, but at least they are aware of it.

    • If John Tavares isn't returning to Toronto, he would be a perfect fit for the Wild. [Hockey Wilderness]
    • In his full, seven-round mock draft, Corey Pronman has the Wild taking lots of Europeans, including a World Juniors standout Finnish goaltender. [The Athletic]

    Off the trail...

    • There's "no doubt" that the Edmonton Oilers will be able to re-sign defenseman Evan Bouchard. [Edmonton Journal]
    • Schedule for the 2026 Winter Olympics has been released. [NHL.com]
    By Thomas Williams  

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    bisopher

    Agreed that it's past time to fix the LTIR loophole.  The best option I've heard is to require each team's roster to be at or under the regular season per-game salary cap.  This will probably be seen as too restrictive, but hopefully a small (10%, not more than 15-20% for sure) increase can be agreed to.

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    bisopher

    Oh, and congrats to the Panthers, and to Sam Bennett for the Conn Smythe.  Pretty sure we can put to bed any chance he's coming to MN now, his price just went waaay up.

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    Imyourhuckleberry
    1 hour ago, bisopher said:

    This will probably be seen as too restrictive, but hopefully a small (10%, not more than 15-20% for sure) increase can be agreed to.

    Wouldn't 10% be an additional $9.5M contract?

    It seems like 5% should be sufficient.

    Definitely shouldn't be more than 10%.

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    bisopher
    21 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

    Wouldn't 10% be an additional $9.5M contract?

    It seems like 5% should be sufficient.

    Definitely shouldn't be more than 10%.

    Yes, agreed. I knew that the number shouldn't be excessive, but I didn't complete the math. 5% to maybe 10% should more than enough.

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    MrCheatachu

    There needs to be a fix, the 'honor' system isnt working.

    Personally, last season the Landeskog situation pissed me off the most.  Yeah, I get it...its a phenomonal story that a guy blew out his knees to get a cup, and had not played professionally for 3 years and is then ready to go and put up 4 points in 5 games of the playoffs for the Avs?  If his AHL conditioning stint finished up a DAY earlier, the Avalanche would not have been able to afford to get Brock Nelson at the TDL.  Landeskog's $7M aav did not hit the colorado cap at any point in the regular season.

    Am i arguing that the Landeskog comeback wasnt an insane story and the dude being able to play professionally again is super fricking awesome?  No...I'm arguing that the team prevented a healthy player from coming back to their roster in order to fit a TDL acquired player.  That needs to be fixed.

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