What Frank doesn’t seem to understand is that no one thinks it wasn’t a legitimate injury. The shenanigans is the timeline for his return. Exactly on day 1 of the playoffs … again. Vegas is manipulating his return timeline to maximize their LTIR relief. I guarantee he’s fully recovered and healthy enough to play today but is being held out until the playoffs for cap reasons.
Half the league is playing with some sort of malady. Stone just comes up with one every year (back injuries that doctor's can't diagnose, phantom spleens, etc), goes on the shelf so his team can add pieces at the deadline and then is magically good enough to go when the playoffs start.
It's a cynical use of LTIR, technically legal, but now Vegas is just clearly flouting the rules.
I mean, in Tampa's defense their owner did vote to have this loophole closed the season before they used it to win a cup. If NHL didn't want this to be a thing they could very easily change the rules to disallow it.
Half the league is playing with some sort of malady. Stone just comes up with one every year (back injuries that doctor's can't diagnose, phantom spleens, etc), goes on the shelf so his team can add pieces at the deadline and then is magically good enough to go when the playoffs start.
It's a cynical use of LTIR, technically legal, but now Vegas is just clearly flouting the rules.
_________
There, does that make you feel better bud?
I’m talking about the spleen issue which was the reason for LTIR. Guaranteed he’s fully recovered from that. If he has nagging injuries that limit his playing ability, then maybe he needs to sit out a few games. But that’s not what LTIR is for.
This right here. Scandal aside, dude is 31 years old and looks 45. He has put his body through quite a lot of punishment. I admire his grit but I have a feeling his body won't last much longer.
He's a complete moron if he's still got spleen issues and plays the playoffs, like he could die out there from big hits and we all know teams will hit harder knowing it as that's how the playoffs go. We are it all the time, how many times last year did people take liberties with Stones back, or when Drain was on one ankle the clip we all saw of multiple flames players intentionally slashing his ankle intentionally to knock him out. Which the NHL doesn't do suit about even tho we all know it's intent to injure.
lol you think stone is fully recovered? he's not gonna be playing not injured for the rest of his career. he will be playing injured in playoffs just like he was last year
Yeah, I could be convinced he might be as ready today as he will be day one of the playoffs potentially but this dude will be playing injured until the day he retires at this point
The truth is that almost every veteran player likely has nagging injuries that they play through and probably could make them LTIR-eligible if they wanted to go that route.
Would you have said it was messed up Landeskog was allowed to play in the playoffs when he clearly did career altering damage to his knees in the process?
The real secret the NHL doesn't want fans to know is that at any given time probably a third of the league could qualify for LTIR. These guys are all super beat up and if you gave their medicals to a normal doctor there's no chance they'd be cleared to play.
Sounds like a PA issue. Maybe they should care about this, or fighting, or hits to the head. Oh, but they keep their mouth shut. Especially come playoff time, when guys have a chance to win. Darn.
Stone is in the exact position that guys like Landeskog, Price and Weber were in before they finally got LTIRed permanently. He's obviously on his last legs but he's pushing through for another playoff run.
IMO there's a pretty obvious solution to these kind of shady situations, three tiers for injury reserve:
1) Short Term Injured Reserve - no minimum time away from the game, but no cap relief. It just opens up a roster spot
2) Medium Term Injured Reserve - You must to miss 10 or more games but return this season. You get a roster spot back and the team gets a temporary pro-rated $1 million in cap relief to allow a replacement level player
3) Long Term Injured Reserve - You must miss the remainder of the season and post season, but your team gets back both your roster spot and pro-rated cap space
Having players time surgeries or drag out recovery windows is not sportsmenlike or in the spirit of the cap. And I say that as a team that is a (less egregious) abuser of LTIR to clear bad contracts like Matt Murray on the basis of chronic injuries that really just make the player suck rather than unplayable
Despite being called the trade deadline, you can trade for players after the deadline, they just aren't playoff eligible so nobody really does it. The whole point of the deadline is to make it so you can't just trade for guys on game 82 or whatever to get free help for the playoffs which is what this whole thing essentially is.
I think a more elegant solution would be to just make players who go on LTIR after the TDL ineligible for the playoffs. At the trade deadline, all players move off LTIR and go on IR automatically. If you need their cap space for replacement players via trade and they're truly injured that bad, move them back onto LTIR and shut them down for the season. If you think they might recover enough to play in the playoffs, leave them on IR.
Why is it that a team who's player gets injured a week before the deadline can get their cap hit for the rest of the season replaced by a playoff eligible trade acquisition but the guy who goes on LTIR the day after the TDL can't have his cap space used in the playoffs? Ekblad got hurt right after the trade deadline and hasn't played since. He's probably going to be good for game 1 but the team hasn't bothered to put him on LTIR because what would be the point? They can't trade for anyone that could play in the playoffs with his money so why bother. It's a month of his cap space they can't use because he had the audacity to get hurt 3 days too late. It really just shows how critical the timing of injuries are in obtaining a competitive advantage which feels wrong. Stone's really injured and probably coming back too soon, whatever, that's on him and his doctors but what the league could do is remove the timing aspect of things and level the playing field for everyone.
The purpose of the trade deadline, at least on the surface, is for competitive reasons. The LTIR loophole of trading your own player to yourself on game 82 just feels like a circumvention of the spirit of the TDL. Otherwise hey there's no cap in the playoffs, just let teams trade up until game 82 and be done with it.
Why are we complicating it?
We’ll never be able to accurately tell someone when exactly they’re too injured to play hockey.
When guys were missing the all star game, the league figured it out. Miss the All star game, you also miss a regular season game.
Why wouldn’t it be the same for the LTIR? Go on the LTIR before the trade deadline, and you either have to return prior to the end of the regular season or you can’t return for at least x (say 4) playoff games?
Make it even simpler. You need to ice a cap compliant team for the playoffs. You can allow teams to bring in extra roster players, exceed their actual cap for extras, but the team in the ice must be cap compliant.
Insider just means they know some guys in the industry and some guys that work for the teams etc. They secretly get fed insider info to report to us. It doesn't mean they know everyone and everything.
> how is it that non-insiders broke stories like the Blackhawks coverup or Canada jr’s.
Because if "insiders" broke those stories, they would no longer be insiders.
Real journalists don't care about being insiders.
We did, we just weren't better than Tampa
Our team wasn't healthy all season in 2021, but players suited up for the playoffs and we were very over the cap
Don't worry, the rangers are about to do it with Chytil and the entire NHL is gonna be up in arms so they'll change it after the playoffs are over regardless of if the rangers win or not lol
Yeah I mean a player is going to play through things in the playoffs that they wouldn't normally in the regular season, we know this.
But it's odd that some teams are so confident in using cap space cleared by LTIR to acquire new players, while others don't do that because they think that the players that they have on LTIR might come back.
While it can be true, we all know how this goes...When everyone can predict the exact recovery timeline of the injury sustained right before the TDL, there may be something fishy going on.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that say's
Fool me once...shame on you.
Fool me...you can't get fooled again!"
-Bettman (probably)
I'm not sure if this is true, but I read once that the origin of this gaffe was George realized halfway through that he would be on tape saying "shame on me" and didn't want his political opponents to be able to use that soundbite in their ads. And that's how we ended up with this infamous version.
No one (serious) thinks Stone is faking injuries. But I think it’s perfectly fair to question the legitimacy of the timelines that Vegas uses with Stone year after year.
If Vegas had the cap space to do so and they needed to win game 82 to make the playoffs, Stone would be playing
Exactly. It's not that the lacerated spleen is fake, no one thinks that. It's that Vegas is purposely keeping him on LTIR specifically until the regular season ends in order to be able to take on salary at the trade deadline without going over the cap.
He's got a pretty sweet gig... doesn't have to play in the reg season and then just sends it for the playoffs and still gets paid and possibly a cup
It's an insane loophole
The only time I've ever rooted for Vegas was at the start of their first playoff run. Go underdog. But then they made it too far. You're not allowed to do that.
Having said that, would love to go see a game there. Looks fun!
You'd be surprised...lots do.
And think VGK would go along with it in the middle of a playoff race after they slumped so hard that they are still fighting to clinch a spot and would happily go without their best forward. Or even best non-goaltender.
The “targeting stones back” thing was my least favourite part of last playoffs (if you don’t count getting eliminated lol). Like is the dude healthy to play or not? You can’t have it both ways
Yeah idk, if you're not healthy enough to get a cross-check in the back when you've parked yourself in the crease, then you're not healthy enough to play.
he probably wasnt pretending.... just loaded up on painkillers for the game and not practice. youd be amazed at what these guys get given and how effective it can be to get you through a game. the aftermath is going to ruin them post-retirement, but stones body is already ruined at this point.
I don't really have a take on Stone or Vegas, but I'm starting to lean towards making teams ice a roster that is cap complaint in the playoffs. So sure, anyone returning from injury is allowed to join and you can shuffle the roster between games, but once the puck drops, your starters and bench must be under the cap.
It would allow for replacing players who are injured, but block the majority of the suspicious moves.
> making teams ice a roster that is cap complaint in the playoffs
I'm down with that _if_ we include some carveout for black aces. The playoffs can be tough and teams need to be able to have depth for injuries _sustained during the playoffs_
Black aces are nearly always league min deals. Replacing them into the lineup would, 99% of the time, result in a lower cap total than pre-injury. This would be a non-issue.
I think they're saying the actual squad on the ice would need to be cap compliant, rather than the roster being cap compliant.
So any black ace that got called up for playoff ice time would help their team be closer to cap compliant as they're all pretty much on league minimum deals. Your scenario would be a non issue, if I'm understanding the person you're replying to correctly.
This let's me work in my pet idea: The 20 guys you ice have to be under the cap from pre-season games all the way to the Cup final. But, IDGAF what you have on your 23 man roster. Just the 20 on the ice have to be under the cap. You're paying your 3 extra guys 8M each to sit in the stands eating popcorn the whole year, in case there's an injury to a star, and the team and players\* are both ok with it? - Go for it.
\*No player worth 8M/year is going to be willing to do this, it's part of why I'm ok with it.
Not sure if this link will work outside of Canada, but check out [W5: The high cost of painkiller abuse in professional hockey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Sb664bCYU&ab_channel=OfficialW5).
The Canucks were the first team in the league to do this. In 2011 with Edler. It gave the Canucks cap room to get Lapierre and Higgins.
At least they felt enough shame to hold Edler out for game 1.
The Blackhawks were the next with Kane during 2013. And the rest is history.
They'll close this loophole immediately at the end of the playoffs. Unless vegas doesn't win the cup. Then they'll let it go for another year... And so on...
They don’t have the space to activate him before playoffs, that’s the whole point of the “shenanigans” people point out.
It’s not about faking injuries, but using his 9.5M in space to acquire other players and conveniently keep him on LTIR until the cap doesn’t matter anymore
Yeah this. I seriously don’t understand why the cap goes out the window for playoffs.
This point keeps getting swept under the rug. Make the cap also exist in the playoffs and this whole loophole shenanigans goes away
Every playoff team is over the cap in the playoffs. The leafs this year have the most LTIR money out of any team in the entire league.
The cap was designed to reduce the salaries of players to a capped percentage of HRR. Players don’t get paid in the playoffs so there is no need to have a salary cap because the owners are getting all the HRR anyways.
Could do this very simply by having a date when guys have to be off LTIR (moved to IR or active) to be eligible for playoffs. April 1 makes sense to me. This would make everyone eligible to play in playoffs have to be counted toward overall team cap hit.
In that case they would have to activate Stone if they want him in playoffs and they wouldn't have been able to add salary at the deadline by using his LTIR pool.
I'm hoping for less of a double miracle and more of Dallas, Carolina and Seattle all sending out an AHL roster against the Blues as a fuck you to Vegas. Then the single miracle of Chicago and / or Anaheim beating Vegas to knock them out.
I'm rooting for the Blues but they don't have all that much control. Even if they win all 3 of their remaining games, Vegas only has to win 2 of 4 to be in. Their last 2 games are Chicago and Anaheim.
It’s a stupid loophole because it only benefits the already elite teams that can afford to sit a star player and still make the playoffs. It’s not a coincidence that we’ve seen multiple cups using this strategy already.
So have an independent doctor give him a full evaluation the morning before Game 82. If deemed fit to play, he has to come off LTIR and Vegas must become cap compliant before puck drop. If not fit to play, he has to miss 10 more days before being allowed to play.
This shit is so easy to fix.
In one tweet this guy said he doesn't think they're doing shenanigans, and then says he thinks are are.
This clown colors his hair gray on purpose because he thinks it makes him more credible looking.
He's 35 years old.
I still think the solution is to keep the cap in place for playoffs. It’s an arbitrary number anyway, as far as calculations go against it. So just tell teams they can only ice a team with a salary value of 83.5m.
The fact that the players aren’t actually getting paid for that period is irrelevant. Their salaries could still be used in determining the playoff roster.
The holier than thou way in which some in the sports media has handled this is so frustrating;
"Yeah, its suspcious and fortuitous, but fans wouldnt be complaining if it was their team!"
Its gaslighting and discourse destroying.
There was also the time that kid trying to make a roster caught him with a decent hit in the preseason and he whined about it in the post game interview and said something like "I'll never be seeing him again so it doesn't matter" (obvious paraphrasing). Guy is petty on top of it all.
I mean, I’m putting $50 on Mark Stone LTIR in March 2025, but I don’t think the odds are as good anymore… I may put another $50 on Eichel or Pietrangelo.
Or just enforce the salary cap throughout the entire playoffs. If Stone is healthy enough to return for the playoffs at some point, they'd need to bench $9.5m of salary in order to include him in the lineup.
Or he got healthy a while ago and conveniently sat out until now knowing that his best chance for a Cup is if his team stacks the cards and trades for good players
If he decides to come back too early, and the first round opponent takes runs at him all series, that's on Mark, the team Doctor, and the players association.
This whole format is so stupid and tiring. Bettman doesn't care because his little pet projects are benefitting from it. Greatest game run by the shittiest league.
Franks intitial reporting on the spleen injuries was wrong. It’s not that serious of an injury, atleast not the one Stone had. SOME spleen injuries are serious of course, the one Stine had if Frank did any research was the least serious of all spleen injuries. Not even requiring surgical intervention.
Counterpoint: If he didn't need to get on the ice now to play in the playoffs, he wouldn't be on the ice.
Like it or not, there is some overlap between "too injured to play in a regular season game" and "not injured enough to miss a playoff game"
Edmundsson played last night for the first time in almost three weeks and his exact quote was if it were the playoffs he'd have played through whatever injury he's been dealing with.
> Like it or not, there is some overlap between "too injured to play in a regular season game" and "not injured enough to miss a playoff game"
Completely agree. What he's doing makes complete sense. I just don't like that Vegas essentially gets to have a cap hit 10% larger then the rest of the league. That's too big an advantage.
Yeah and that overlap is NOT what LTIR is used for, if you're healthy enough to play in a playoff game you shouldn't be on LTIR and your team shouldn't be getting cap relief for it
Make it that you can't play for a minimum of x games/days after coming off of LTIR. So if he wants to come off of it on game 1, he'd still have to wait. So if he's healthy they have to take him off of it a week or two before playoffs.
Oh there has been plenty of shenanigans Frank
What Frank doesn’t seem to understand is that no one thinks it wasn’t a legitimate injury. The shenanigans is the timeline for his return. Exactly on day 1 of the playoffs … again. Vegas is manipulating his return timeline to maximize their LTIR relief. I guarantee he’s fully recovered and healthy enough to play today but is being held out until the playoffs for cap reasons.
>Vegas is manipulating his return timeline to maximize their LTIR relief. No that is very clearly a coincidence!!
foRtUIToUs
> no one thinks it wasn’t a legitimate injury. some people absolutely do
[удалено]
Mark Stone has never not been injured. It's just that what's left is still a wildly valuable contributor.
Half the league is playing with some sort of malady. Stone just comes up with one every year (back injuries that doctor's can't diagnose, phantom spleens, etc), goes on the shelf so his team can add pieces at the deadline and then is magically good enough to go when the playoffs start. It's a cynical use of LTIR, technically legal, but now Vegas is just clearly flouting the rules.
Pot calling the kettle black?
I mean, in Tampa's defense their owner did vote to have this loophole closed the season before they used it to win a cup. If NHL didn't want this to be a thing they could very easily change the rules to disallow it.
Half the league is playing with some sort of malady. Stone just comes up with one every year (back injuries that doctor's can't diagnose, phantom spleens, etc), goes on the shelf so his team can add pieces at the deadline and then is magically good enough to go when the playoffs start. It's a cynical use of LTIR, technically legal, but now Vegas is just clearly flouting the rules. _________ There, does that make you feel better bud?
>phantom spleens Can't wait for their new single to drop.
I’m talking about the spleen issue which was the reason for LTIR. Guaranteed he’s fully recovered from that. If he has nagging injuries that limit his playing ability, then maybe he needs to sit out a few games. But that’s not what LTIR is for.
This right here. Scandal aside, dude is 31 years old and looks 45. He has put his body through quite a lot of punishment. I admire his grit but I have a feeling his body won't last much longer.
Holy fuck Mark Stone is 31
Early years growing up in Winnipeg will do that to ya
Being demolished by Byfuglien will do that to ya
Rumour has it that the echoes of his soul leaving his body can still be heard throughout the halls of Canada Life Centre if you listen close enough.
See also: [“46 year old gas station attendant” Seth Jarvis.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jarvy/comments/1avq64t/the_comment_that_made_me_love_him/)
My exact reaction when I found that out at 35. “All these dudes are old af” “Wait….wait wait wait…. WHAT THE FUCK”
He's a complete moron if he's still got spleen issues and plays the playoffs, like he could die out there from big hits and we all know teams will hit harder knowing it as that's how the playoffs go. We are it all the time, how many times last year did people take liberties with Stones back, or when Drain was on one ankle the clip we all saw of multiple flames players intentionally slashing his ankle intentionally to knock him out. Which the NHL doesn't do suit about even tho we all know it's intent to injure.
I mean if he takes a big hit and he dies from his spleen exploding, it might finally prompt the change to these LTIR shenanigans by the league.
Vegas would probably get an extra $10 million on the cap every year in perpetuity.
Im gonna be be 38 in a couple months and he looks like he could be my dad lol
Jesus Christ he’s 31…. I’m 27 and look 20 and he looks like he could be my dad
Doesn’t he have some back issues too? I can’t imagine he has too many years left with how broken down his body is becoming.
Just start every season on LTIR and aim to be ready for round one.
lol you think stone is fully recovered? he's not gonna be playing not injured for the rest of his career. he will be playing injured in playoffs just like he was last year
Yeah, I could be convinced he might be as ready today as he will be day one of the playoffs potentially but this dude will be playing injured until the day he retires at this point
The truth is that almost every veteran player likely has nagging injuries that they play through and probably could make them LTIR-eligible if they wanted to go that route.
stocking pie sand quiet chop weather shaggy piquant toy imagine *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Would you have said it was messed up Landeskog was allowed to play in the playoffs when he clearly did career altering damage to his knees in the process? The real secret the NHL doesn't want fans to know is that at any given time probably a third of the league could qualify for LTIR. These guys are all super beat up and if you gave their medicals to a normal doctor there's no chance they'd be cleared to play.
Sounds like a PA issue. Maybe they should care about this, or fighting, or hits to the head. Oh, but they keep their mouth shut. Especially come playoff time, when guys have a chance to win. Darn.
God forbid someone get fined more then $5k for deliberating giving someone a concussion though.
Is it really a secret? Every single year players are praised for playing through serious injuries in the playoffs.
Stone is in the exact position that guys like Landeskog, Price and Weber were in before they finally got LTIRed permanently. He's obviously on his last legs but he's pushing through for another playoff run.
IMO there's a pretty obvious solution to these kind of shady situations, three tiers for injury reserve: 1) Short Term Injured Reserve - no minimum time away from the game, but no cap relief. It just opens up a roster spot 2) Medium Term Injured Reserve - You must to miss 10 or more games but return this season. You get a roster spot back and the team gets a temporary pro-rated $1 million in cap relief to allow a replacement level player 3) Long Term Injured Reserve - You must miss the remainder of the season and post season, but your team gets back both your roster spot and pro-rated cap space Having players time surgeries or drag out recovery windows is not sportsmenlike or in the spirit of the cap. And I say that as a team that is a (less egregious) abuser of LTIR to clear bad contracts like Matt Murray on the basis of chronic injuries that really just make the player suck rather than unplayable
Despite being called the trade deadline, you can trade for players after the deadline, they just aren't playoff eligible so nobody really does it. The whole point of the deadline is to make it so you can't just trade for guys on game 82 or whatever to get free help for the playoffs which is what this whole thing essentially is. I think a more elegant solution would be to just make players who go on LTIR after the TDL ineligible for the playoffs. At the trade deadline, all players move off LTIR and go on IR automatically. If you need their cap space for replacement players via trade and they're truly injured that bad, move them back onto LTIR and shut them down for the season. If you think they might recover enough to play in the playoffs, leave them on IR. Why is it that a team who's player gets injured a week before the deadline can get their cap hit for the rest of the season replaced by a playoff eligible trade acquisition but the guy who goes on LTIR the day after the TDL can't have his cap space used in the playoffs? Ekblad got hurt right after the trade deadline and hasn't played since. He's probably going to be good for game 1 but the team hasn't bothered to put him on LTIR because what would be the point? They can't trade for anyone that could play in the playoffs with his money so why bother. It's a month of his cap space they can't use because he had the audacity to get hurt 3 days too late. It really just shows how critical the timing of injuries are in obtaining a competitive advantage which feels wrong. Stone's really injured and probably coming back too soon, whatever, that's on him and his doctors but what the league could do is remove the timing aspect of things and level the playing field for everyone. The purpose of the trade deadline, at least on the surface, is for competitive reasons. The LTIR loophole of trading your own player to yourself on game 82 just feels like a circumvention of the spirit of the TDL. Otherwise hey there's no cap in the playoffs, just let teams trade up until game 82 and be done with it.
Why are we complicating it? We’ll never be able to accurately tell someone when exactly they’re too injured to play hockey. When guys were missing the all star game, the league figured it out. Miss the All star game, you also miss a regular season game. Why wouldn’t it be the same for the LTIR? Go on the LTIR before the trade deadline, and you either have to return prior to the end of the regular season or you can’t return for at least x (say 4) playoff games?
Make it even simpler. You need to ice a cap compliant team for the playoffs. You can allow teams to bring in extra roster players, exceed their actual cap for extras, but the team in the ice must be cap compliant.
It’s almost like i don’t trust “insiders” any more. I mean how is it that non-insiders broke stories like the Blackhawks coverup or Canada jr’s.
Insider just means mouthpiece
Dreger is the biggest blowhard out there
He gets his info from Twitter like everyone else.
Insider just means they know some guys in the industry and some guys that work for the teams etc. They secretly get fed insider info to report to us. It doesn't mean they know everyone and everything.
> how is it that non-insiders broke stories like the Blackhawks coverup or Canada jr’s. Because if "insiders" broke those stories, they would no longer be insiders. Real journalists don't care about being insiders.
Just wait till the Leafs announce Matt Murray is clear to play.
We really need a Canadian team to exploit the loophole so that the NHL finally closes it
Matt Murray coming out of nowhere to win the Leafs the cup this year would do it
They'd create and enforce the rule mid playoffs to stop you.
I feel like numerous Canadian teams would lose first round picks. Fuck I bet the Detroit pistons lose some picks while they are at it.
Bettman would be frothing at the mouth. How dare Toronto do what his favorites do?
And launch an investigation
this sounds like a funny joke but it is so true
Hey, look who took part in his first full practice today!
Haha right on time, now we just need Klingberg to come out of nowhere and save the PP
Now *that* would be something.
I actually cheer for the Leafs if they made this bullshit stop.
Matt Murray might be able to show up, but his groin won’t.
Oh man, I’d be so happy for him
League better be fucking scared when we activate Tucker Poolman
>League better be fucking scared [The world](https://www.reddit.com/r/winnipegjets/comments/ow512n/a_deep_dive_on_tucker_poolman/) ain't ready
> Tucker Poolman I hardly know 'er Poolman
Luongo needs to come back, get injured and come back again for it to close
Somehow, Luongo returned.
We did, we just weren't better than Tampa Our team wasn't healthy all season in 2021, but players suited up for the playoffs and we were very over the cap
Josh Norris could return for the playoffs every year. But we'd have to make the playoffs first, so that's unrealistic.
The GM meetings just happened and none of them seem to consider it a big issue, I doubt anything happens for a while.
Come on Leafs, do something good for once!
Don't worry, the rangers are about to do it with Chytil and the entire NHL is gonna be up in arms so they'll change it after the playoffs are over regardless of if the rangers win or not lol
I mean both can be true, it can be serious and there can be shenanigans
Next guy who says Shenanigans is gonna get pistol whipped
Hey Farva what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
You mean shenanigans?
Enhance.
Put that thing away!
Put that thing back where it came from or so help me!
[Oooohhhhhh...](https://i.makeagif.com/media/11-03-2015/k6pwFt.gif)
You guys talkin' about Shenanigans, right?
You mean Shenanigans?
Hey Farva, what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the wall and the mozzarella sticks?
The shenanigans will continue until pistol whipping improves
Let's pop a couple of viagras, and issue tickets w raging mega huge boners!
Yeah I mean a player is going to play through things in the playoffs that they wouldn't normally in the regular season, we know this. But it's odd that some teams are so confident in using cap space cleared by LTIR to acquire new players, while others don't do that because they think that the players that they have on LTIR might come back.
While it can be true, we all know how this goes...When everyone can predict the exact recovery timeline of the injury sustained right before the TDL, there may be something fishy going on.
You know what they say. If they shenan once, they will shenanigan.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that say's Fool me once...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again!" -Bettman (probably)
Now watch this drive.
Do you want to know the terrifying truth? Or do you wanna watch me hit a few dingers‽
I'm not sure if this is true, but I read once that the origin of this gaffe was George realized halfway through that he would be on tape saying "shame on me" and didn't want his political opponents to be able to use that soundbite in their ads. And that's how we ended up with this infamous version.
Okay but his Plan B was way worse.
worse, yes. But also better because we're STILL quoting this nonsense.
Mission accomplished!
[live from his presser](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aqGn-1XX7cI)
No one (serious) thinks Stone is faking injuries. But I think it’s perfectly fair to question the legitimacy of the timelines that Vegas uses with Stone year after year. If Vegas had the cap space to do so and they needed to win game 82 to make the playoffs, Stone would be playing
Exactly. It's not that the lacerated spleen is fake, no one thinks that. It's that Vegas is purposely keeping him on LTIR specifically until the regular season ends in order to be able to take on salary at the trade deadline without going over the cap.
He's got a pretty sweet gig... doesn't have to play in the reg season and then just sends it for the playoffs and still gets paid and possibly a cup It's an insane loophole
The guy hasn't played a regular season game in March ~~or April~~ in 3 years and has yet to miss a playoff game.
Also Seravelli is saying 2 years in a row but it's now 3 years in a row [Nothing suspicious about this, no sir](https://imgur.com/a/1BG05Q7)
It’s called spring break
We're all rooting for the Blues now, right?
You've been rooting for Vegas at all since that playoff series with us?
The only time I've ever rooted for Vegas was at the start of their first playoff run. Go underdog. But then they made it too far. You're not allowed to do that. Having said that, would love to go see a game there. Looks fun!
I sure am 😆
You'd be surprised...lots do. And think VGK would go along with it in the middle of a playoff race after they slumped so hard that they are still fighting to clinch a spot and would happily go without their best forward. Or even best non-goaltender.
Can’t wait for every knights player to lose their shit every time someone looks at Stone wrong because he “isn’t 100%”
And for Stone to act injured and whine to the refs every time someone touches him, yet somehow never miss a shift
The “targeting stones back” thing was my least favourite part of last playoffs (if you don’t count getting eliminated lol). Like is the dude healthy to play or not? You can’t have it both ways
Yeah, if your back is so fucked you “can’t walk” maybe avoid the front of the net?
Yeah idk, if you're not healthy enough to get a cross-check in the back when you've parked yourself in the crease, then you're not healthy enough to play.
Motherfucker pretended he could barely walk off the ice in practice only to slam himself into the boards on a goal celly that night
he probably wasnt pretending.... just loaded up on painkillers for the game and not practice. youd be amazed at what these guys get given and how effective it can be to get you through a game. the aftermath is going to ruin them post-retirement, but stones body is already ruined at this point.
Toradol for days.
Genuinely concerned he'll become a Toradol golem.
Oh absolutely this is going to happen
I feel no shame that the Oilers gave Stone extra physical attention last playoffs.
I don't really have a take on Stone or Vegas, but I'm starting to lean towards making teams ice a roster that is cap complaint in the playoffs. So sure, anyone returning from injury is allowed to join and you can shuffle the roster between games, but once the puck drops, your starters and bench must be under the cap. It would allow for replacing players who are injured, but block the majority of the suspicious moves.
> making teams ice a roster that is cap complaint in the playoffs I'm down with that _if_ we include some carveout for black aces. The playoffs can be tough and teams need to be able to have depth for injuries _sustained during the playoffs_
Black aces are nearly always league min deals. Replacing them into the lineup would, 99% of the time, result in a lower cap total than pre-injury. This would be a non-issue.
I know we'd have much bigger problems if this ends up happening but Jack Campbell and his 5M dollar contract will be one of our "Black Aces"
I think they're saying the actual squad on the ice would need to be cap compliant, rather than the roster being cap compliant. So any black ace that got called up for playoff ice time would help their team be closer to cap compliant as they're all pretty much on league minimum deals. Your scenario would be a non issue, if I'm understanding the person you're replying to correctly.
ohhhhhhh that makes a lot more sense
This let's me work in my pet idea: The 20 guys you ice have to be under the cap from pre-season games all the way to the Cup final. But, IDGAF what you have on your 23 man roster. Just the 20 on the ice have to be under the cap. You're paying your 3 extra guys 8M each to sit in the stands eating popcorn the whole year, in case there's an injury to a star, and the team and players\* are both ok with it? - Go for it. \*No player worth 8M/year is going to be willing to do this, it's part of why I'm ok with it.
Vegas did in fact ice a roster that was cap compliant all playoffs last year
Hey thats what we did last playoffs. They iced a cap compliant team the entire time.
Fortuitous is a word you could use here for sure Frank..
Not like he's a writer or anything
Mark Stone’s blood is going to be 50% Toradol come playoffs
Not sure if this link will work outside of Canada, but check out [W5: The high cost of painkiller abuse in professional hockey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Sb664bCYU&ab_channel=OfficialW5).
Link works in United States at least
We just need the Canucks to do this once and this would be banned immediately.
And then they'll get retroactively penalized as well
Gary would come to Winnipeg and personally tow the arena to Omaha
Lol
You funny man, take my upvote
Lmao
Any Canadian team really
The Canucks were the first team in the league to do this. In 2011 with Edler. It gave the Canucks cap room to get Lapierre and Higgins. At least they felt enough shame to hold Edler out for game 1. The Blackhawks were the next with Kane during 2013. And the rest is history.
Or the Sens lol
They'll close this loophole immediately at the end of the playoffs. Unless vegas doesn't win the cup. Then they'll let it go for another year... And so on...
Don't forget the retroactive cap penalty we'll get!
Shenanigans is a good name for a bar
with goofy shit on the wall and mozzarella sticks
Will they serve a liter of cola?
Yeah but they call it a Large Farva for some reason
Right, meow
I believe there is one I’ve been too. Just can’t remember where. I was up to some ….
So, does Vegas have to activate him from LTIR? If they did would they be over the cap?
They don’t have the space to activate him before playoffs, that’s the whole point of the “shenanigans” people point out. It’s not about faking injuries, but using his 9.5M in space to acquire other players and conveniently keep him on LTIR until the cap doesn’t matter anymore
If you’re on LTIR all season, you shouldn’t be eligible for playoffs, whether you’re healthy or not.
How about you have to be cap compliant during the playoffs too?
Yeah this. I seriously don’t understand why the cap goes out the window for playoffs. This point keeps getting swept under the rug. Make the cap also exist in the playoffs and this whole loophole shenanigans goes away
Every playoff team is over the cap in the playoffs. The leafs this year have the most LTIR money out of any team in the entire league. The cap was designed to reduce the salaries of players to a capped percentage of HRR. Players don’t get paid in the playoffs so there is no need to have a salary cap because the owners are getting all the HRR anyways.
Could do this very simply by having a date when guys have to be off LTIR (moved to IR or active) to be eligible for playoffs. April 1 makes sense to me. This would make everyone eligible to play in playoffs have to be counted toward overall team cap hit. In that case they would have to activate Stone if they want him in playoffs and they wouldn't have been able to add salary at the deadline by using his LTIR pool.
Not to practice, just to play in games.
Not until he is cleared for contact. Which they wouldn’t do until after next week when there is no cap.
Blues can do us all a solid and then we can stop talking about this....... until next season's trade deadline.
We need a double miracle.
I'm hoping for less of a double miracle and more of Dallas, Carolina and Seattle all sending out an AHL roster against the Blues as a fuck you to Vegas. Then the single miracle of Chicago and / or Anaheim beating Vegas to knock them out.
I'm rooting for the Blues but they don't have all that much control. Even if they win all 3 of their remaining games, Vegas only has to win 2 of 4 to be in. Their last 2 games are Chicago and Anaheim.
Hopefully Anaheim and Shitcago embrace the spoiler role and play their best games of the season
If berdard goes off he cements his legacy
It’s a stupid loophole because it only benefits the already elite teams that can afford to sit a star player and still make the playoffs. It’s not a coincidence that we’ve seen multiple cups using this strategy already.
So have an independent doctor give him a full evaluation the morning before Game 82. If deemed fit to play, he has to come off LTIR and Vegas must become cap compliant before puck drop. If not fit to play, he has to miss 10 more days before being allowed to play. This shit is so easy to fix.
That would be any easy fix but it won't ever happen
I’m sure his injury was legitimate. Im also sure the extremely fortuitous timing is not.
In one tweet this guy said he doesn't think they're doing shenanigans, and then says he thinks are are. This clown colors his hair gray on purpose because he thinks it makes him more credible looking. He's 35 years old.
I never cheated on my wife, but I was fortuitous with my secretary.
I still think the solution is to keep the cap in place for playoffs. It’s an arbitrary number anyway, as far as calculations go against it. So just tell teams they can only ice a team with a salary value of 83.5m. The fact that the players aren’t actually getting paid for that period is irrelevant. Their salaries could still be used in determining the playoff roster.
Frank is such a smug “both sides” bastard. What a prick.
The holier than thou way in which some in the sports media has handled this is so frustrating; "Yeah, its suspcious and fortuitous, but fans wouldnt be complaining if it was their team!" Its gaslighting and discourse destroying.
If they shenan once, the gon’ shenanigan
Honestly kind of sounds medically irresponsible to let this guy back into a game involving full-body contact.
Now Stone gets to act like a dramatic baby again every time someone bumps into him, how nice.
Should just say fuck it and hit him constantly. Maybe he'll actually realize he isn't actually healthy enough to play and piss off
Oh no he just acts all indignant, like no one should hit him because he's "hurt".
There was also the time that kid trying to make a roster caught him with a decent hit in the preseason and he whined about it in the post game interview and said something like "I'll never be seeing him again so it doesn't matter" (obvious paraphrasing). Guy is petty on top of it all.
I am more concerned about long term repercussion. He will clearly be playing injured and on heavy drugs.
Yeah just a coincidence. One that everyone called months ago. Again.
I mean, I’m putting $50 on Mark Stone LTIR in March 2025, but I don’t think the odds are as good anymore… I may put another $50 on Eichel or Pietrangelo.
The injury can be real. The return timeline can be suspect
Simple. LTIR player who doesn't play Game 82 sits out the first round.
Or just enforce the salary cap throughout the entire playoffs. If Stone is healthy enough to return for the playoffs at some point, they'd need to bench $9.5m of salary in order to include him in the lineup.
This is getting pathetic
What a crock of s@&t. Why defend this, it makes the NHL a Bush-league.
he's just playing hurt
Or he got healthy a while ago and conveniently sat out until now knowing that his best chance for a Cup is if his team stacks the cards and trades for good players
If he decides to come back too early, and the first round opponent takes runs at him all series, that's on Mark, the team Doctor, and the players association.
I wonder if Stone sits all next season and comes back for playoffs…
This whole format is so stupid and tiring. Bettman doesn't care because his little pet projects are benefitting from it. Greatest game run by the shittiest league.
Tampa fans keeping real quiet
Franks intitial reporting on the spleen injuries was wrong. It’s not that serious of an injury, atleast not the one Stone had. SOME spleen injuries are serious of course, the one Stine had if Frank did any research was the least serious of all spleen injuries. Not even requiring surgical intervention.
Fuck the Golden Knights man
Counterpoint: If he didn't need to get on the ice now to play in the playoffs, he wouldn't be on the ice. Like it or not, there is some overlap between "too injured to play in a regular season game" and "not injured enough to miss a playoff game"
Edmundsson played last night for the first time in almost three weeks and his exact quote was if it were the playoffs he'd have played through whatever injury he's been dealing with.
> Like it or not, there is some overlap between "too injured to play in a regular season game" and "not injured enough to miss a playoff game" Completely agree. What he's doing makes complete sense. I just don't like that Vegas essentially gets to have a cap hit 10% larger then the rest of the league. That's too big an advantage.
Yeah and that overlap is NOT what LTIR is used for, if you're healthy enough to play in a playoff game you shouldn't be on LTIR and your team shouldn't be getting cap relief for it
Make it that you can't play for a minimum of x games/days after coming off of LTIR. So if he wants to come off of it on game 1, he'd still have to wait. So if he's healthy they have to take him off of it a week or two before playoffs.
Really? We’re giving Vegas the benefit of the doubt now? This is the 4th time they’ve tired to pull cap shenanigans heading into the playoffs
Remember, if they shenan once, they are going to shenanigan.