Why can't teams also be cap compliant in the playoffs?

[JoeSchmoe]

Stone goes on LTIR to free up cap space for Eichel. Day 1 of the playoffs Stone will magically be good enough to go back in.

This circumvention could easily be stopped if the team iced in the playoffs also had to be under the cap. Why did the league allow this loophole?

Every cup contending team has at least one or two banged up players that could use a break in exchange for trade deadline rentals. Expect the LTIR floodgates to open if the league doesn't take action.

[GASabresIUFAN]

Good f'ing question.  The simple answer is that the teams and players wanted it this way.  The owners of big money teams want every advantage they can get.  

I went looking through all the teams cap situations in search of a goalie and was surprised by how many teams this season seems to have a bunch of players out injured.  We have discussed Buffalo's terrible mess, but look at Mon, LV, Edm, Chi etc.  12 teams have 5 of move injured players.

 

[Porous Five Hole]

It doesn’t bother me one bit.  You cannot initially just stash guys on LTIR because it is convenient. 
If the return date is manipulated (which, BTW, is pure message board speculation), it still doesn’t upset me. Teams should push.  While it is hypocritical to the Sabres Connolly situation a generation ago, things change. 
 

It would have been more fun to watch Vegas squirm their way into cap compliance on the fly mid-season, but those days are coming.  

[Taro T]

40 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

Stone goes on LTIR to free up cap space for Eichel. Day 1 of the playoffs Stone will magically be good enough to go back in.

This circumvention could easily be stopped if the team iced in the playoffs also had to be under the cap. Why did the league allow this loophole?

Every cup contending team has at least one or two banged up players that could use a break in exchange for trade deadline rentals. Expect the LTIR floodgates to open if the league doesn't take action.

At least 2 reasons, likely more.  In no particular order:

1.  As teams are allowed to bank cap & then use that banked cap space to legitimately exceed the cap later in the year in order to do something the players are in favor of - get all the teams closer to the cap the players don't want the practice reined in too far..  (Though, counterintuitively, when other teams approach the cap which effectively raises nominal player salaries it reduces the ACTUAL take home pay of individual players as the players cut of revenue sharing is fixed (prior to & post COVID Recapture at exactly 50% of HRR.  Don't recall exactly what the %age is during recapture) and every extra $ on paper that the players get paid increases ever so slightly the denominator bywhich everybody's post escrow salary gets adjusted.)  It would be extremely cumbersome to design a system that could completely account for some BF-LTIR injuries being more BF than others AND leave the players getting exactly 50% of the pie. 

2.  The big spenders don't like the cap nor revenue sharing & items such as these are some of the bones thrown to those dogs to get their buy-in on a system that actually works pretty well for everyone.

If the (ab)use of BF-LTIR really does become excessive, the league will make tweaks to it.  Be glad that 1. it doesn't effect the Sabres in ANY material fashion (it's good to be out of the playoffs by Thanksgiving, just wish the Sabres could stay relevant past the US version rather than just the Canadian one. 😕 ) and 2. the Sabres have owners w/ deep enough pockets that the Sabres can pull the same shenanigans should it ever matter for them to do so. 😉

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Taro T

[Eleven]

The CBA wasn't written that way.

 

I think I've got it in six.

[Zamboni]

3 hours ago, Eleven said:

The CBA wasn't written that way.

 

I think I've got it in six.

Yep. And I would add … The CBA wasn’t written (and gladly agreed to by all parties) that way.

Not nearly enough have a problem with the way it is/was written. At this point it’s a non issue until the majority make it an issue.