When the Vegas Golden Knights placed Mark Stone on long-term injured reserve at the end of February after he suffered a lacerated spleen, some folks around the hockey world were shaking their head.
The move occurred just weeks before the trade deadline, and effectively freed up over $9 million in cap space to add an impact player or two, prompting familiar questions about cap circumvention that typically circulate around this time of year.
The Golden Knights took advantage of the cap relief they got, adding impact players such as Noah Hanifin from Calgary and Tomas Hertl from San Jose.
We’ve seen this happen before: Last year, Stone returned from LTIR during the playoffs. In 2021, Tampa Bay Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov returned in time for Round 1. Both teams won the Stanley Cup those years.
Like it or not, the LTIR usage is perfectly legal in the context of the collective bargaining agreement. But is there an appetite to close that loophole?
“There’s a couple managers that said they’re not 100 per cent comfortable with the idea that someone can’t play Game 82, but then is OK two or three days later to play Game 1 of the playoffs,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on the “Saturday Headlines” segment of Hockey Night in Canada.
“You can’t do anything about it under this CBA, it’s collectively bargained, but I think they’re going to be curious to see if we get to the next CBA, if there’s any discussion about if you can’t return in the regular season, is there a certain amount of time you’re going to have to miss in the playoffs.”
Teams can use — and have used — the cap relief LTIR provides to make trades ahead of the trade deadline that perhaps would not be possible without that extra room on the books. Though a team must become cap compliant as soon as its injured player is activated, the salary cap doesn’t apply in the playoffs.
Friedman reported that it’s this particular aspect of LTIR — that a player is not activated for the final game of the regular season, but instead ready for Round 1, when the salary cap does not apply, just a few days later — that could drive a change during next round of negotiations.
The current CBA is set to expire in September 2026.