By now, everyone is probably familiar with the circumstances surrounding the Lightning's salary cap moves this season.
Nikita Kucherov, the Lightning's highest-paid player with a $9.5 million cap hit, missed the entire regular season after undergoing offseason hip surgery in December.
"Our hope, and it's a realistic hope, based on the expected timeline of recovery for this type of surgery, is that he would be ready for the playoffs," Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois said after Kucherov's surgery was announced.
The news, and BriseBois saying that Kucherov was expected back for the playoffs so early into the recovery process, immediately had some suspicious of cap circumvention. The timing just seemed too perfect.
With Kucherov out, the Lightning were able to put him on long-term injured reserve, which is meant to provide temporary salary cap relief while a player is injured. But since Kucherov was expected to be sidelined for the entire regular season, the Lightning were able to have the relief of his $9.5 million cap hit for the entire regular season. Since there is no salary cap in the playoffs, Kucherov would be able to return in May with no issues and the Lightning would be able to dress a lineup in the playoffs that they wouldn't have been able to in the regular season.
That's exactly what happened, and Kucherov made his season debut in Game 1 of the Lightning's first-round matchup against the Panthers last month. He didn't seem to be laboring at all upon his return, and scored two goals and one assist in Game 1. He picked up points in five of the Lightning's six games against the Panthers in the first round, and four of the Lightning's five games in the second round as they made quick work of the series against the Hurricanes.
Through the Lightning's 11 game of the playoffs so far, Kucherov has five goals and 13 assists for a total of 18 points.
During the Hurricanes' cleanout day this week following their elimination, Dougie Hamilton reignited the discussion surrounding the Lighting's cap situation.
"We had a great season," Hamilton said. "We lost to a team that's $18 million over the cap or whatever they are.”
The rules surrounding long-term injured reserve have been around for a long time, but I can't think of another circumstance in the past when it has caused this much debate over whether what the Lightning did was cap circumvention, or discussion over what the league should do to prevent situations like this in the future.
For what it's worth, the NHL's CBA has provisions that are meant to prevent teams using the rule as a way to circumvent the cap, as covered in Article 16. The first point under the section covering long-term injured reserve stipulates that it must be verified by the team doctor, and that the player must sign off on it:
Any determination that a Player is eligible to be placed on the Injured Reserve List, or designated as Injured Non-Roster, shall be made by the Club's physician in accordance with the Club's medical standards and documented by a verification signed by the Club physician and countersigned by a Club executive in the forms attached to this Agreement as Exhibit 28 (which shall also be signed by the Player) and 28-A, respectively. Such forms must be received by Central Registry and sent to the NHLPA and the Player, all in accordance with Exhibit 3, prior to the Player being added to the Injured Reserve List or designated as Injured Non-Roster, as applicable.
(This point, by the way, should eliminate any discussion fans are having about the Penguins doing the same with Evgeni Malkin unless legitimately, medically necessary. He's in a contract year. No player in a contract year is going to sit out any longer than he has to. The NHLPA would get involved."
The next point specifically mentions that the league has the right to investigate long-term injured reserve usage in order to rule out cases of cap circumvention.
The Commissioner may take whatever steps he deems necessary to investigate the circumstances under which a Player is: (i) placed, or remains, on the Injured Reserve List, or (ii) designated Injured Non-Roster. If the Commissioner has reason to believe that the Injured Reserve List or Injured Non-Roster status has not been utilized properly by the involved Club or otherwise Circumvents any provision of this Agreement, or if he determines that the Club has used the Injured Reserve and/or Injured Non-Roster designations to evade the Active Roster limit, he may take such disciplinary action against the Club as he deems appropriate.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told TSN's Pierre LeBrun last month, and Daly confirmed that the NHL did investigate the Kucherov situation, along with several other usages of long-term injured reserve around the league this season. In the case of Kucherov, Daly told LeBrun that the league "determined that the provision was invoked and applied in a consistent manner with the requirements of the CBA.’’
Alright. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that's true and that this was legitimately not cap circumvention, and Kucherov did need to be on long-term injured reserve as long as he was on it.
Is there anything the NHL should do to prevent teams like the Lightning exceeding the regular season cap by such a large margin come playoff time?
It's not as simple as saying that the salary cap should just carry over into the postseason.
The salary cap in the regular season fluctuates on a day-to-day basis based on which players are on the active roster on any given day. A player has a daily cap hit that's determined by their total cap hit divided by the number of days in the regular season. A team's total daily cap hit is just every player on the active roster's daily cap hit combined. By the end of the regular season, all the daily cap hits must just add up to $81.5 million or less (or whatever a team's cap hit may be due to long-term injured reserve relief). That means that a team can exceed the cap with a particular lineup on some days, as long as they make up for those overages with days in which they are under the cap. Those daily cap hits just need to add up to less than the ceiling in the end.
The biggest problem with just carrying the cap over into the postseason is that there is no set number of days that a team will be playing in the postseason, so that day-to-day fluctuation of the rosters would be tricky. One solution to that would be that instead of using one total cap like in the regular season, there could be a daily cap hit that teams must adhere to on a game-to-game basis. But that's not perfect either, because it would limit teams in ways that they aren't limited in the regular season.
Another issue would be what becomes of the Black Aces, the extra players who come up from the minors or their junior/college/European teams for the playoffs following the conclusion of their own seasons. Usually, the Black Aces are all just on the active roster, since there are no limitations in the postseason. One solution here is just taking the concept of the taxi squad from this season -- where players aren't on the active roster and are treated the same cap-wise as if they were in the minors -- and using it in the postseason.
Still, the day-to-day fluctuation of the roster is the biggest hurdle here, and why there isn't a salary cap in the postseason in the first place. I don't know what a solution might be that wouldn't create limitations that don't exist in the regular season.
YOUR TURN: Should the NHL do anything to prevent situation like the Lightning's from happening? If so, what?
