The saying "if you ain't cheatin, you ain't tryin" might not be the most sportsmanlike take on competitive activities, but it's hard to deny that there's some truth there. Some rules are "unspoken", such as "Nice guys don't go after other teams' restricted free agents", and other are written down, clear as day, like the salary cap. We've certainly seen some unbroken rules shattered this summer, and the salary cap seems to be more of an obstacle for some franchises than it is for others.
The Vegas Golden Knights, and before them the Tampa Bay Lightning, found ways to massively exceed the salary cap enroute to their recent Stanley Cup victories. Surely people complained, and it may even have left a bad taste in some of their own fans mouths. But those roster names are etched on the Stanley Cup forever. They reached the highest heights, and the victories will never be taken away from them, regardless of how they got there.
The Edmonton Oilers might want to take notes...
Cap world has changed
The NHL always seems to be a step behind the teams trying their hardest to bend the rules, but the recent change to postseason salary cap structure means the previously utilized methods won't work. It isn't as simple as getting Mark Stone to have a sore back for 82 (excuse me, 84) games any longer. The Golden Knights are approximately $8.6 million over the salary cap, and the season begins in less than two months.
While previous loopholes have closed, I think we know the Golden Knights well enough to expect that they'll have a solution. Two-pronged, given the playoff salary cap rules. I would wager that Alex Pietrangelo continues on long term injured reserve throughout the final year of his contract. That magically places the Knights at $200k below the upper limit. Pietrangelo's long term issue has kept him out of a lot of big games, so there's little question whether it's legitimate, but should he manage over the course of the regular season to get himself into playing shape, we'll see some cap gymnastics occur at the NHL Trade Deadline. The Knights always find a way.
To the league's credit, it is getting harder to skirt the cap. The original concept was to close the gap between small markets and large/rich ones, where eternally increasing player salaries prevented the loss of star players, dividing the league into haves and have-nots. The removal of the double retention option (where a player would move on paper from their original club with salary retained, to a second, which would retain a second portion of of their pay, and then on to the club that actually wished to trade for them, at a steep discount versus their yearly salary) is yet another balancing move, and it would have saved the Oilers from the Trent Frederic acquisition if it had been in place sooner.
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