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ThinkTank posted:He underwent discretionary surgery a week before cap rosters were due solving all of Tampa's compliance issues and is now skating with the team at the halfway point of the season. It's clear he waited until the last minute to get a minor corrective surgery and is now spinning his tires until the playoffs start. He's won an MVP trophy and collected his full salary this year. He has little else to play for in the regular season and took the opportunity to take a year off then join a super team for the playoffs. It's cheating through and through.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:45
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ThinkTank posted:He underwent survey the day before the Lightning resigned Cirelli giving them just enough cap space to not have to trade anybody to be compliant with an expected return right around the time the cap would no longer be in effect. Kucherov getting surgery when he did gave them exactly enough cap space for exactly as long as they needed. They started the season $300 under the cap. What a coincidence! That isn't correct. News about Kucherov's hip surgery officially came out on the 23rd of December. They then re-signed Cirelli the next day, correct, but they were still over the cap. They became cap compliant on the 27th of December, when they dumped Paquette, Coburn and a 2nd on the Sens in exchange for Gaborik and Nilsson, who were both gotten because they could be stashed on LTIR.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:52
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Sure, they needed a bit more space but the Lightning didn't have to move anyone notable despite being $7m over the cap prior to Kucherov's injury. They have a $100m payroll. The same problems the year before meant that they had to trade Miller. They gamed the system so they didn't have to do that again. This is not my original thought, it was brought up at the time and has resurfaced this week with Kucherov skating (and practicing even) with his teammates. It's legal, but it's cap circumvention through and through.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:56
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Id rather have kucherov than parade the corpse of Tyler Johnson and rotate in rookies, so no... I don’t think kucherov purposefully did this to enable the bolts. At all.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:58
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Kucherov doesn’t want to be one of the mysteriously underperforming elite Russians this year.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:59
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Pretty sure LTIR is there for when players have to do things like major surgery. Did they mess with the timelines a bit? Sure, but like noone is getting major surgery they don't need to avoid the cap, that's insane.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:02
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ThinkTank posted:Sure, they needed a bit more space but the Lightning didn't have to move anyone notable despite being $7m over the cap prior to Kucherov's injury. They have a $100m payroll. The same problems the year before meant that they had to trade Miller. They gamed the system so they didn't have to do that again. So can you explain what they were doing putting Tyler Johnson on waivers when free agency started, then, if it wasn't for the intention of creating cap space?
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Mar 16, 2021 21:03
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Darude - Adam Sandstorm posted:Pretty sure LTIR is there for when players have to do things like major surgery. Did they mess with the timelines a bit? Sure, but like noone is getting major surgery they don't need to avoid the cap, that's insane. I didn't say he didn't need the surgery ever, but it's an elective surgery that he could've done right after the playoffs or this summer. The timing worked out perfectly for them. They clearly waited until they could get the timelines to match so that they could reasonably say he'd return the day the playoffs started. If Kucherov returns before the playoffs the Lightning will not be cap complaint without slashing $10m of salary mid-season. There is no way of realistically doing that, they literally cannot even waive enough guys to get him back on the roster and still have enough players to ice a team. They would be forced to forfeit their remain games and suffer cap and pick penalties. So he's assuredly sidelined until the playoffs start. Not around the start of playoffs because he can't even be back a week early, but literally the day they begin. Anyways, don't take my word that it's suspicious. Here's Raw Charge the biggest Lightning blog saying exactly the same thing. quote:So, as Lightning fans, I suppose we do have to be kind to the critics. If Toronto or Chicago was doing something similar we’d be raising similar concerns. While the Bolts haven’t violated the letter of the law in regards to the salary cap, they sure as heck are kicking the crap out of the spirit of the rules. https://www.rawcharge.com/2021/3/15/22331016/lightning-round-some-thoughts-on-the-nikita-kucherov-situation-injury
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Mar 16, 2021 21:12
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Eh, they definitely did some cap fuckery but nothing blatantly against the rules (yet). So long as they don't intentionally hold Kucherov on LTIR they have plausible deniability and even if the league does ding them it's probably only gonna be a fine or some draft picks or something which is fair payment for a better shot at the cup. I reckon you'd never hear the PA bitching about this so the only way you'll see things change is if some owners get worked up about it.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:12
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Good Soldier Svejk posted:I reckon you'd never hear the PA bitching about this so the only way you'll see things change is if some owners get worked up about it. Players loved back diving contracts. It was poorer team managers that cried foul and got retroactive penalties attached to them. I didn't say it was illegal. It's legal by the letter of the law, but so were backdiving contracts. The league took a retroactive stand against them. I don't know why the league isn't here. Hell the Canucks are doing this too, I just think it sucks and is entirely against the spirit of the cap and fair play.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:15
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It's kind of a weird thing because most teams wouldn't be good enough to lose Kucherov for an entire season and still easily make the playoffs, but the Lightning are that good. Though it also helps that their division is total dogshit. If they were in the MassMutualMicrosoftOffice365Amazon division they might be a little more in danger of missing. Probably not still though since I'm pretty sure they're better than most of those teams Kucherov or no.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:27
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I hope stashing Kucherov on LTIR bites them in the rear end when they play and lose to Carolina in the first round instead of demolishing Chicago or whatever other garbage team gets the #4 seed in their division.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:29
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Mind_Taker posted:I hope stashing Kucherov bites them in the rear end when they have to play Carolina in the first round instead of Chicago. It'd probably be Florida who they'd face if they don't win the division, tbh.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:30
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Kilza posted:It'd probably be Florida who they'd face if they don't win the division, tbh. Yeah I guess Florida could finish anywhere from 1 to 3 in that division. But honestly they seem like a really tough out too.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:32
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Tampa Bay would be a lock for the playoffs in any division even without Kucherov. But yeah I could absolutely see Florida giving them fits because they look fabulous right now. Lord knows how it'll actually shake out but that'd be a fun series.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:34
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ThinkTank posted:I didn't say he didn't need the surgery ever, but it's an elective surgery that he could've done right after the playoffs or this summer. The timing worked out perfectly for them. They clearly waited until they could get the timelines to match so that they could reasonably say he'd return the day the playoffs started. He apparently didn't have a hip problem until early December though. He had a groin injury during the playoffs. Even if the hip thing was during the playoffs, they didn't end until the end of September. A month or two to attempt rehab is pretty normal for those sorts of injuries before attempting surgery, and hip surgery is super invasive. Edit: I'm also not claiming that there isn't some timing stuff going on, but no player is getting surgery just to get it, and no player is waiting several months to get a fairly invasive surgery. A week or two sure, but you're talking a timeline of up to 3 months that Kucherov waited just to do cap poo poo and that's fuckin nuts. Darude - Adam Sandstorm fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Mar 16, 2021 |
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Mar 16, 2021 21:34
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DJExile posted:Tampa Bay would be a lock for the playoffs in any division even without Kucherov. Based on the 3 games they've played against the Panthers so far, I feel confident that the Bolts would be able to handle them in the playoffs, but it's hard to really know until you reach that point, given how 2019 went. Really, the true advantage of winning the Central is that it means they wouldn't have to beat both the Canes and Panthers to reach the semi-finals. It's kind of a hellish gauntlet to try and win the Cup if you need to go through both of them and then the teams that come out of the West and East divisions
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Mar 16, 2021 21:45
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Darude - Adam Sandstorm posted:
It's not really that crazy. It's an elective not a mandatory surgery. It was bothering him but it's not the type that would've left him unable to walk or in constant pain. He could've played through it, many players do (not that I'm suggesting that's at all sensible). If Kucherov were presented with the following two scenarios on October 1st, which do you think he chooses? 1) You have the surgery today, you return around the end of March and get 10-15 games in before the playoffs. The team will have to find a way to clear significant cap space to allow you back onto the roster, so that likely means moving three of Killorn, Johnson, Sergachev, Gourde and/or Palat for picks and role players before the season starts. 2) You try rehab for a couple months and delay the surgery until a week before the season. The team does not have to make any significant changes to the lineup. You rejoin the team at the start of the playoffs and make a run for a second straight cup with a near identical group of guys. The cap problem is kicked down the road to 2021/22. Seems like a really easy choice to me.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:47
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How is Ralph Kreuger still employed? Sabres are 0-9-2 in their last 11 games and 6-0 loss last night.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:52
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th3t00t posted:How is Ralph Kreuger still employed? Teams aren't allowed to fire their coach this season unless they lose to the Sens multiple times. Sucks to be outside of the Canadian division and have that not be possible. 
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Mar 16, 2021 21:55
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Caps vs Islanders should be must see TV tonight.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:58
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th3t00t posted:How is Ralph Kreuger still employed? Because Buffalo probably doesn't have the money to pay two head coaches. I'd expect them to replace him at the earliest moment they don't have to eat two salaries.
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Mar 16, 2021 22:12
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ThinkTank posted:It's not really that crazy. It's an elective not a mandatory surgery. It was bothering him but it's not the type that would've left him unable to walk or in constant pain. He could've played through it, many players do (not that I'm suggesting that's at all sensible). Absolutely its an easy choice in a vacuum, but there's further context. FIrst we have to assume they're lying when they say that the problem wasn't a problem until December which I find dubious but its possible. However, we also know that they were trying to find a trade that they were happy with for the two months prior to that surgery happening, and if they trade Johnson, this whole issue doesn't exist. So not only do we have to assume that the Lightning and doctors and Kucherov are lying about when the hip problem became an issue, we also have to assume that they held back on surgery just in case they couldn't offload Johnson which just doesn't seem that likely.
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Mar 16, 2021 22:22
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th3t00t posted:How is Ralph Kreuger still employed? What jhet said. That would be a whole lot of money to be paying two people to not be your coach. And honestly at this point, even if they did, I'm not sure what a mid-season coaching change is going to do for that team at all in the big picture. This isn't exactly a roster full of all-stars that would be tearing up the league if not for an incompetent coach.
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Mar 16, 2021 22:32
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The dead cat bounce from firing an aggressively incompetent coach can be pretty huge though
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Mar 16, 2021 22:36
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DJExile posted:What jhet said. That would be a whole lot of money to be paying two people to not be your coach. And honestly at this point, even if they did, I'm not sure what a mid-season coaching change is going to do for that team at all in the big picture. This isn't exactly a roster full of all-stars that would be tearing up the league if not for an incompetent coach. I mean, to be fair, they could hire me to manage this team and the results would be nearly the same. But they'd have to pay yet another person a non-zero number of money when not many will even want to be watching them play right now. They might be better off hiring a sports psychologist to try to figure out what the issue is with the guys in Buffalo right now, because it's got to be more that just Kreuger and his bad lines and structure. I'm sure it doesn't help, but this seems like more of an organizational and confidence issue rather than just a terrible coaching issue. I really hate to see it too, because it's going to leave an impression on the people there, and that's an additional thing that won't just disappear when the coaching staff turns over again.
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Mar 16, 2021 22:39
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Eric the Mauve posted:The dead cat bounce from firing an aggressively incompetent coach can be pretty huge though You could fire and replace literally everyone connected to that team who isn't an active player and the most they might be able to do is get ahead of New Jersey. At this point even that might be a stretch.
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Mar 16, 2021 22:39
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Darude - Adam Sandstorm posted:However, we also know that they were trying to find a trade that they were happy with for the two months prior to that surgery happening, and if they trade Johnson, this whole issue doesn't exist. Even a trade of Johnson and a 1st for a 6th or something wouldn't be enough. The Lightning would've had to move out somewhere in the neighbourhood of $9m in real salary while taking none back to keep Kucherov on the roster. That means moving another player or not resigning one of Cirelli or Sregachev. They'd likely still have to move $3-4m more salary out on top of that to be able to sign three league minimum players as replacements. Maybe it was a huge coincidence the timing, but with ten days to go before the season started the Lightning had made no attempts to address their serious cap issues after waiving Johnson (unsuccessfuly) two months prior. I guess they could've been banking on a series of miracle trades to solve all their problems in the week between Christmas and New Year, but I skmehow doubt that. It all worked out way too conviniently for the Lightning for them not to have known well in advance they'd have $10m of LTIR coming to them before the season began.
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Mar 16, 2021 22:40
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It's slimy but again, there's nothing short of the league independently determining it amounts to circumvention that leads to actual punishment. The alternative is drastically altering how LTIR works for contract value and the PA would never do that because that leads to the death of guaranteed contracts and managers don't really have a reason to complain because both the top and bottom-feeders use it for their own means to gently caress with the cap I guess we can dunk on Tampa for being the Patriots of the NHL
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Mar 16, 2021 22:50
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th3t00t posted:How is Ralph Kreuger still employed? Scott Howson allowed Scott Arniel to go 11-30 (not sure the L vs. OTL breakdown) in 2011-12 before he went "Oh, alright" and fired him into the Sun. Some GMs are bad, OP. CBJSprague24 fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Mar 16, 2021 |
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Mar 16, 2021 22:58
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Good Soldier Svejk posted:It's slimy but again, there's nothing short of the league independently determining it amounts to circumvention that leads to actual punishment. There are already rules against bringing in ringers for the playoffs, it's why a few weeks before there is a roster freeze and unlisted players are not eligible. It would make sense to require a team's playoff roster to somehow be affected by cap considerations. I know it's not as simple as adding up the annual cap hits because it's calculated daily (teams can bank cap space early in the season and run a deficit later in the season and still come in under.) But it's ridiculous that Tampa could freely use a $9.5m player in the playoffs without affecting their cap space.
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Mar 16, 2021 23:20
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ThinkTank posted:Even a trade of Johnson and a 1st for a 6th or something wouldn't be enough. The Lightning would've had to move out somewhere in the neighbourhood of $9m in real salary while taking none back to keep Kucherov on the roster. That means moving another player or not resigning one of Cirelli or Sregachev. They'd likely still have to move $3-4m more salary out on top of that to be able to sign three league minimum players as replacements. You are correct about the amount of cap they needed to shed. I speculated after the playoffs that they'd need to dump at least 2 of Gourde, Killorn and Johnson in order to become cap compliant. As for the timing, I imagine there were offers on the table for those guys, but the reality is that nobody wants to help bail out the Stanley Cup champions without getting something really good out of it, whether it is a 1st round pick or maybe a player like Alex Barre-Boulet or Taylor Raddysh, for example. There wasn't any deal like the JT Miller one in the 2019 off-season to be had. And so BriseBois likely wasn't wanting to make those deals until he absolutely had to, and was able to wait it out and didn't have to pull the trigger on any theoretical deal like that (aside from the Paquette/Coburn dump) once Kucherov could be placed on LTIR (which I imagine he was keeping tabs on the entire time). It's convenient, yes, there's no doubt about that. But I still don't think your main theory (Kucherov's surgery was done when it was solely so they could stash him on LTIR for the entire season) holds any water.
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Mar 16, 2021 23:22
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CBJSprague24 posted:Scott Howson allowed Scott Arniel to go 11-30 (not sure the L vs. OTL breakdown) in 2011-12 before he went "Oh, alright" and fired him into the Sun. I mean also at this point i have to imagine in a year with no gate revenue owners are not thrilled about the idea of paying an ex coach and also a new coach at the same time in a lost season anyway. But still, fire the dude and promote the assistant or something..
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Mar 16, 2021 23:23
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Buffalo only make like $10mil income last year, and that was with most of a season played.
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Mar 16, 2021 23:28
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ThinkTank posted:Even a trade of Johnson and a 1st for a 6th or something wouldn't be enough. The Lightning would've had to move out somewhere in the neighbourhood of $9m in real salary while taking none back to keep Kucherov on the roster. That means moving another player or not resigning one of Cirelli or Sregachev. They'd likely still have to move $3-4m more salary out on top of that to be able to sign three league minimum players as replacements. I think Vancouver being bad is really affecting you lol. Also, looks like Taylor Hall is gonna get another team a 1st overall pick.
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Mar 16, 2021 23:46
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Duckman2008 posted:I think Vancouver being bad is really affecting you lol. They've been bad for nearly a decade now. Maybe that explains a lot 
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Mar 16, 2021 23:56
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ThinkTank posted:They've been bad for nearly a decade now. Maybe that explains a lot I may just be hallucinating but I swear that team once had a gaunt skeleton-looking ginger man with telepathy who could duplicate himself I think it may be haunted is what I'm saying
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Mar 17, 2021 00:05
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Jhet posted:Because Buffalo probably doesn't have the money to pay two head coaches. They do have the money, T-Pegs just doesn’t want to pay it. Unfortunately Ralph has another year on his contract after this one so he will get paid another $3.9m whether he coaches or not. They also don’t really have anyone in the organization to be interim coach because they fired their legitimately good AHL coach after last season because they are dumb as poo poo idk Hot rumor is they want to hire the coach of the Providence Friars but have to wait until after the college season is over. Idk why they wouldn’t want to hire Boudreau, Elliot Friedman seems to think he would do it. He was very good at coaching during the regular season and if the goal is just to make the playoffs at all, seems like a good bet!
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Mar 17, 2021 00:41
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gently caress the NHL for the Luongo recapture rule being retroactively applied. gently caress it forever for that. Not like Benning wouldn't have squandered that cap space anyway, but gently caress em regardless.
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Mar 17, 2021 00:46
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Speaking of the recapture penalty being entertaining and great, I can't wait for Shea Weber to retire early.
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Mar 17, 2021 00:52
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