How the NHL can solve the Mark Stone cap avoidance
It's no secret that the Vegas Golden Knights have been finding creative ways to circumvent the cap for years. They started trading for LTIR contracts to give them more cap space. In order to fit Mark Stone's massive contract of $9.5 million in their cap structure, and since he is usually injured during the season anyway, one of the other tactics Vegas has used is to keep players on LTIR during the regular season when the cap counts, then bring them off LTIR when the playoffs start, as Stone "magically" heals in time for the playoffs.
They've been doing this for years, and it's no surprise that many think it isn't a coincidence, but is being done on purpose. Of course, eventually, you have to pay the pied piper, and Vegas has legitimately started to lose some of their key players in recent years as you can't magically dance around the cap for every player. Several notables they've lost include Reilly Smith, Nate Schmidt, Alec Martinez, and most recently Chandler Stephenson and Jonathan Marchessault.
Vegas pulled their "Mark Stone avoidance" act this past playoff season as well. Stone was on LTIR at the beginning of the season and then right before their first game was "magically" taken off LTIR - something that's either a miracle of fortunate on their part or something that is occurring by design.
The NHL needs to do something about this, otherwise, other teams will start copying it and soon the cap will be meaningless, just like when Arizona would trade for every LTIR contract under the sun hoping another team would trade draft assets to them for it. Anyway, here's my solution to end this problem, make of it what you will:
If a player spends the majority of the season on LTIR but dresses for 10 or more regular season games and then comes off LTIR when the playoffs start - no cap penalties are incurred.
If a player spends the majority of the season on LTIR but dresses for less than 10 regular season games then comes off LTIR when the playoffs start - 50% of the player's overall cap hit will be applied to next year's salary cap for that franchise as a cap penalty.
If a player spends the majority of the season on LTIR and is taken off LTIR when the playoffs start - not only does 100 percent of the player's cap hit apply as a cap penalty to next year's salary cap for that franchise, but the player who "magically becomes healthy when the playoffs start" will be deemed ineligible to play in the first round of the playoffs. If the franchise dresses the player anyway in violation of this order, the franchise will then be forced to forfeit the following game and a game win automatically be awarded to the opposition.
Additionally, the franchise will be fined no less than $10 million for playing this ineligible player in the playoffs. If a second offence is committed by the franchise, they will then forfeit the remaining playoff games in their series, thus awarding the series win to their opposition by default. They will also be fined an additional $20 million and the employment of all coaching staff and management will be automatically terminated and a one-year ban from seeking employment with another NHL franchise will be put in place. There will be a subsequent permanent ban from working for that franchise again for all coaches and management.
Just my opinion, of course, but I think this is a reasonable solution to a thorny problem. Vegas will probably scream bloody murder at this, but that's to be expected since they are by far the biggest offenders.
This means if these rules were in place, Vegas would have a $9.5 million cap penalty applied to their franchise next year, and Stone would've been ineligible to play in the first round which of course Vegas lost to Dallas anyway, even with Stone in the lineup. The penalties for subsequent disobedience of league rules I admit are harsh, but they should be in this case. Guaranteed Vegas would cease doing this immediately.
feed