NEWC - The Semis

Silverdude2167

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They handled the salary cap the way any team would. One of their top players missed the entire season due to surgery. Came back in the playoffs because the rule allows it. Would any other team handle it differently? I see being pissed about the rule, but don't see how the team did anything wrong.
They did nothing wrong by the letter of the law, if you believe the player could not play till the playoffs...of course he was skating 3 months before and that is my issue with everything

He sure seems like he could have played in the last month of the regular season, but they said he could not to cheat the system.
 

redsoxedmunds24

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That call is yahooism at its finest...............and people rail on Jack Edwards, he never shit his pants on the air like that bozo just did.

Mother of God.
Is that your first time hearing Dave Mishkin? That actually sounds pretty tame for him for a game 7 goal call.
 
Sep 1, 2019
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Interesting to read the posts about the Habs. I grew up following each Boston team roughly the same throughout the yearly sports calendar ('70s-'80s). In my personal ranking of rival hatred, the Lakers were always at the top, closely followed by the Yankees. The Canadiens didn't inspire quite the same level of disdain for me, I'm not sure why. Maybe it was timing, as the Bruins '70's Cups in the Orr era were just slightly before my time. I'll be rooting against the Habs in the Cup finals of course, they are still the Bruins mortal enemies, but I was just thinking about the relative degree ranking. I'm sure many (most) here on this forum feel differently, but I'd be interested in hearing the opinions of others.

edit: I left out a Patriots rival, since it doesn't seem there is a direct comp there. I guess when I was younger it would have been the Raiders, especially after 1976. Now I would personally probably go with the Ravens.
 

Myt1

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They handled the salary cap the way any team would. One of their top players missed the entire season due to surgery. Came back in the playoffs because the rule allows it. Would any other team handle it differently? I see being pissed about the rule, but don't see how the team did anything wrong.
The CBA empowers the commissioner to investigate the manner in which an injured player “remains” on the injured list to ensure that nothing is improper, including evasion of the Active Roster limit, and punish misuse accordingly (actual violations other than evading the Active Roster limit are undefined and so almost certainly would reasonably include deliberately keeping a healthy player on the list to evade the cap until it goes away during the playoffs).

The form that the physician signs to activate the player says that it is his determination that “as of this day [date], the Player . . . .is not disabled . . . .”

It’s pretty obvious that deliberately keeping a healthy player on the disabled list to circumvent the cap is a violation that the Commissioner and league simply have no interest in investigating and punishing. This “but it’s in the rules,” line of argument basically ignores all of this in favor of concentrating narrowly on the fact that you don’t have to be cap compliant in the playoffs.

This isn’t a ton different from the MLB foreign substances violations that the league just chose not to enforce for years.
 

Sandwich Pick

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They did nothing wrong by the letter of the law, if you believe the player could not play till the playoffs...of course he was skating 3 months before and that is my issue with everything

He sure seems like he could have played in the last month of the regular season, but they said he could not to cheat the system.
Was he doing full contact or just seen skating slowly? Something in between?
 

VORP Speed

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They did nothing wrong by the letter of the law, if you believe the player could not play till the playoffs...of course he was skating 3 months before and that is my issue with everything

He sure seems like he could have played in the last month of the regular season, but they said he could not to cheat the system.
You think he should have come back from a labral repair on his hip in 3 months? He had surgery Dec 29. How long was Pastrnak out?
 

Silverdude2167

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cshea

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You think he should have come back from a labral repair on his hip in 3 months? He had surgery Dec 29. How long was Pastrnak out?
Tampa's season ended 9/28 last year. Then they waited 3 months to have the surgery which just so happened to line up perfectly to use LTIR for the season to escape cap hell and allow him to be ready for the playoffs. Remarkable stroke of luck!

I don't think the injury was faked or anything, but they definitely monkeyed with the timelines to use it to their fullest advantage. Chicago did this too a few years ago but not as egregiously. It's more of a league problem than a Tampa problem but a team using a roster nearly $20 million above the salary cap in the playoffs is absurd.
 

cshea

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Also, Pastrnak had surgery on 9/16 and returned to game action on 1/30. Roughly 4.5 months of recovery. Kucherov had surgery 12/30 and returned to the game action 5/16. Roughly 5.5 months. Kucherov first returned to the ice in some capacity on 3/13.

Recovery times can vary, of course, but again, that extra month sure was a savior for Tampa. A gift from the heavens!
 

VORP Speed

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Am I missing something on the math you guys are using? Dec 29 --> May 16 is 138 days. Sept 16 --> Jan 30 is 136 days. They missed basically the same amount of time. And Pastrnak was a couple weeks ahead of schedule. Go look up anyone who had this surgery and see how long their recovery was. Did they delay the surgery? Kucherov was skating in early December and getting cortisone shots before finally deciding to get the surgery, so that seems like an awfully elaborate ruse -- and also a lot of risk seeing as how he could easily have missed another month and not been available in the playoffs. But I don't think the rules mandate that a player has to have any forthcoming surgery immediately upon the completion of the prior season, so the timing of the surgery is within the rules and the recovery period is completely standard for the injury/procedure.

Of course, it's a ridiculous rule and it greatly favored the Lightning that they were able to take advantage of it in such a ruthlessly efficient, almost Belichick-ian way.
 

cshea

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Am I missing something on the math you guys are using? Dec 29 --> May 16 is 138 days. Sept 16 --> Jan 30 is 136 days. They missed basically the same amount of time. And Pastrnak was a couple weeks ahead of schedule. Go look up anyone who had this surgery and see how long their recovery was. Did they delay the surgery? Kucherov was skating in early December and getting cortisone shots before finally deciding to get the surgery, so that seems like an awfully elaborate ruse -- and also a lot of risk seeing as how he could easily have missed another month and not been available in the playoffs. But I don't think the rules mandate that a player has to have any forthcoming surgery immediately upon the completion of the prior season, so the timing of the surgery is within the rules and the recovery period is completely standard for the injury/procedure.

Of course, it's a ridiculous rule and it greatly favored the Lightning that they were able to take advantage of it in such a ruthlessly efficient, almost Belichick-ian way.
I goofed on the math on the two recoveries.

Still think they conveniently waited 3 months before deciding surgery was needed which lined up the cap shenanigans perfectly.
 

Myt1

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Am I missing something on the math you guys are using? Dec 29 --> May 16 is 138 days. Sept 16 --> Jan 30 is 136 days. They missed basically the same amount of time. And Pastrnak was a couple weeks ahead of schedule. Go look up anyone who had this surgery and see how long their recovery was. Did they delay the surgery? Kucherov was skating in early December and getting cortisone shots before finally deciding to get the surgery, so that seems like an awfully elaborate ruse -- and also a lot of risk seeing as how he could easily have missed another month and not been available in the playoffs. But I don't think the rules mandate that a player has to have any forthcoming surgery immediately upon the completion of the prior season, so the timing of the surgery is within the rules and the recovery period is completely standard for the injury/procedure.

Of course, it's a ridiculous rule and it greatly favored the Lightning that they were able to take advantage of it in such a ruthlessly efficient, almost Belichick-ian way.
He was magically healed immediately after the season ended, to the point of being the leading scorer in the playoffs, but couldn’t have played a week or two sooner?

Because that’s the premise you have to accept.
 

VORP Speed

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He was magically healed immediately after the season ended, to the point of being the leading scorer in the playoffs, but couldn’t have played a week or two sooner?

Because that’s the premise you have to accept.
I don’t think there was any magic involved. He got to almost 5 months after a surgery that typically has a 5 month recovery and he came back and played at his usual skill level. Injury healing isn’t a discrete event and the inherent subjectivity will prevent the league from ever attempting to split hairs over “could he actually have returned a week earlier” to punish a violation. If the league cared about this behavior it would be very easy to fix without having to get involved in second guessing medical decisions.
 

Cotillion

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or they could just adopt the NFL rule. You have to be cap compliant once the league year starts until it ends. There's a reason the Patriots and other teams want 5-10 million under the cap going into a season.
 

cshea

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I don’t think there was any magic involved. He got to almost 5 months after a surgery that typically has a 5 month recovery and he came back and played at his usual skill level. Injury healing isn’t a discrete event and the inherent subjectivity will prevent the league from ever attempting to split hairs over “could he actually have returned a week earlier” to punish a violation. If the league cared about this behavior it would be very easy to fix without having to get involved in second guessing medical decisions.
They conveniently waited 3 months for him to undergo surgery. Haven’t read anything that suggested this injury was sustained during some kind of offseason workout. Funny how that worked out. I guess “doctors said to try rest” is a pretty unprovable point though.

Then let’s take the curious case of Steven Stamkos. Plays 38 of 38 Lightning games through 4/8. On 4/9, Stamkos suddenly ends up on LTIR with the old “lower body injury” designation. As far as I can tell, no actual injury was ever reported (not uncommon in hockey, I’ll give them that). On 4/10 the Lightning, with new found cap space, acquire David Savard. Like Kucherov, Stamkos makes his triumphant, healthy return to game 1 of the playoffs. Could not have played a moment sooner. What fortuitous lucks for the Lightning to have Stamkos and Kucherov both unable to play a game sooner but be available and 100% healthy for game 1 of the playoffs!

They circumvented the cap.
 

Myt1

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I don’t think there was any magic involved. He got to almost 5 months after a surgery that typically has a 5 month recovery and he came back and played at his usual skill level. Injury healing isn’t a discrete event and the inherent subjectivity will prevent the league from ever attempting to split hairs over “could he actually have returned a week earlier” to punish a violation. If the league cared about this behavior it would be very easy to fix without having to get involved in second guessing medical decisions.
That’s perfectly fine as a matter of administrative reality. It’s another thing entirely to pretend that they didn’t deliberately hold out a healthy player until the second the playoffs started in order to gain a competitive advantage, and that the CBA didn’t have a specific mechanism to address this, and that an arbitrator wouldn’t likely uphold discipline issued against Tampa Bay for these activities. Because all three of those things are accurate.

He was quite obviously sufficiently healed, and the impetus for leaving him on the Injured list were the cap shenanigans. “But the league doesn’t give a fuck that Tampa Bay just committed the same blatant violation for a second time,” is a very different thing than, “This is all perfectly within the rules, because the timing was completely coincidental and this was a completely normal recovery period.”
 

kenneycb

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It’s a fringe use case that requires very specific circumstances to happen, namely a (1) very highly paid player (2) on a cap strapped team (3) has to get hurt (4) with an injury that requires surgery that (5) requires a multi-month recovery with a (6) plausible recovery timeline that lines up with the playoffs starting. I don’t see it happening all that often moving forward.
 

MiracleOfO2704

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It’s a fringe use case that requires very specific circumstances to happen, namely a (1) very highly paid player (2) on a cap strapped team (3) has to get hurt (4) with an injury that requires surgery that (5) requires a multi-month recovery with a (6) plausible recovery timeline that lines up with the playoffs starting. I don’t see it happening all that often moving forward.
And that’s fine. But what about this part?

Then let’s take the curious case of Steven Stamkos. Plays 38 of 38 Lightning games through 4/8. On 4/9, Stamkos suddenly ends up on LTIR with the old “lower body injury” designation. As far as I can tell, no actual injury was ever reported (not uncommon in hockey, I’ll give them that). On 4/10 the Lightning, with new found cap space, acquire David Savard. Like Kucherov, Stamkos makes his triumphant, healthy return to game 1 of the playoffs. Could not have played a moment sooner. What fortuitous lucks for the Lightning to have Stamkos and Kucherov both unable to play a game sooner but be available and 100% healthy for game 1 of the playoffs!
 

kenneycb

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Well that’s happened twice now since the cap was instituted so, no, I don’t see it happening all that often moving forward. And in most years there’s a legitimate reason to field your best team in the regular season. This year was different because of the changing regulations around fans.

This year’s Lightning are the definition of a fringe case. At a certain point I just stopped caring. It sure as hell isn’t impacting my enjoyment of hockey.
 

Myt1

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They are a fringe case. I don’t understand what it is about them being a fringe case that makes people think that, “This is perfectly within the rules,” when it pretty plainly isn’t, is all.

We’re mostly continuing to talk about it because of the pushback against reality framed as world-weary objectivity. Let’s just agree that it happened and it’s bullshit, but the league doesn’t care, and then never talk about it again.
 

RIFan

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They conveniently waited 3 months for him to undergo surgery. Haven’t read anything that suggested this injury was sustained during some kind of offseason workout. Funny how that worked out. I guess “doctors said to try rest” is a pretty unprovable point though.

Then let’s take the curious case of Steven Stamkos. Plays 38 of 38 Lightning games through 4/8. On 4/9, Stamkos suddenly ends up on LTIR with the old “lower body injury” designation. As far as I can tell, no actual injury was ever reported (not uncommon in hockey, I’ll give them that). On 4/10 the Lightning, with new found cap space, acquire David Savard. Like Kucherov, Stamkos makes his triumphant, healthy return to game 1 of the playoffs. Could not have played a moment sooner. What fortuitous lucks for the Lightning to have Stamkos and Kucherov both unable to play a game sooner but be available and 100% healthy for game 1 of the playoffs!

They circumvented the cap.
The Stamkos LTIR stinks far worse than the Kucherov LTIR. Most of Savard's salary was retained by Columbus and Detroit so TB only had to account for $1,062,500 of space for Savard. Going into the trade deadline reports I saw indicated they did not have enough space to even trade for a minimum salary player. Stamkos was LTIR effective 4/9, but he actually wasn't put on LTIR until 4/16 with the date being retroactive to 4/9. I have not yet seen an explanation of how the trade was allowed to go through when they would not have been cap compliant at the time of the trade. Ultimately this all lands on the NHL's lap for allowing all that to happen without consequences.
 

Salem's Lot

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or they could just adopt the NFL rule. You have to be cap compliant once the league year starts until it ends. There's a reason the Patriots and other teams want 5-10 million under the cap going into a season.
If the owners tried to do something like that, be prepared for a long lockout. The players would never agree to that unless the union completely broke.