Mark Stone returned to the Vegas Golden Knights’ lineup on Monday night for the opening game of their playoff series against the Dallas Stars — and you knew almost right away what was going to happen.
Yes, that. Less than two minutes in, Stone opened the scoring for Vegas in what played out as a wild, entertaining back-and-forth game.
This is what playoffs are all about. Exciting and competitive.
But Stone’s return instantly renewed the on-again, off-again scrutiny of the NHL’s long-term injured reserve rules — and how they are applied.
Stone, the Vegas captain and inspirational leader, hadn’t played since a Feb. 18 game against the Nashville Predators, when he lacerated his spleen. Because Stone earns $9.5 million, the Golden Knights were able to put him on LTIR and free up enough salary-cap space to make two major trades at the deadline, acquiring defenseman Noah Hanifin from the Calgary Flames and center Tomas Hertl from the San Jose Sharks.
Hertl was already on LTIR himself – and not playing before the trade with the Sharks went down, which meant his contract also didn’t officially count against the Vegas cap until he was activated to the playing roster. That happened on April 8, in a game against the Vancouver Canucks, exactly one month after the Golden Knights made the trade. Hertl added the second Vegas goal on Monday night; Hanifin set them both up.
Talk about adding insult to injury.
But most of the firestorm centered on Stone because last year, a similar scenario unfolded, with Stone missing the end of the 2022-23 season, recovering from a back injury. This was, in fact, history repeating itself. Because Stone wasn’t healthy enough to play the final game of last year’s regular season either, but was then medically cleared to compete in Game 1 of the playoffs. Ultimately, he contributed 24 points in 22 games to the Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup championship.
Even though the NHL insists that it scrutinizes medical records closely, and will punish a team if it cheats, the fact that it’s happened twice now, in successive years, to Stone and the Golden Knights, seems entirely too serendipitous for some on social media.
So, what to do?
We’ve debated this topic endlessly before, and the most common practical solution – which has also been suggested by several NHL general managers over the years — is to tweak the rules as they apply to LTIR and make every team be cap-compliant for every playoff game, which they aren’t obliged to do at the moment. It would be a simple fix and one that might tone down the anger and suspicion surrounding the current system.
Question: If teams had to be cap-compliant for every playoff game, how would Vegas have looked with Stone, Hertl and Hanifin all in the opening night lineup vs. Dallas?
Before we add up the totals, what’s your guess?
Are they cap-compliant? Close to compliant? Or miles over?
The correct is b) close.
For the 20 Vegas players in the line-up against Dallas, the salaries add up to $84.247 million, or $747,000 over the 2023-24 salary cap of $83.5 million.
If they had to be cap-compliant for the opener, the Golden Knights could have done so by replacing one of Howden or Mantha with one of the three forwards who earn less than $1 million. In other words, they could have gotten under the number, with minimal difficulty.
Nor, it should be noted, is Vegas the only team in NHL playoff history to take advantage of the current rules as they relate to LTIR. Chicago, in 2014-15, did the same with Patrick Kane and won the Stanley Cup. And in 2020-21, Tampa Bay had arguably its best player, Nikita Kucherov, on LTIR the entire regular season and activated him ahead of Game 1 of that year’s playoffs. Kucherov showed no signs of rust at all – finished with 32 points in 23 games – and helped Tampa Bay with the Stanley Cup. So Vegas has company.
Two points to stress here.
First, there’s no question that all three of the aforementioned players who have created an LTIR flashpoint over the past decade were legitimately injured.
Second, Vegas wasn’t the only playoff team to aggressively use LTIR this past season. According to CapFriendly, Toronto actually used LTIR the most. They exceeded the cap by $14.145 million. Tampa Bay was second, at $10.276 million. Vegas was next at $8.739 million. In all, 22 teams of the NHL’s 32 teams used LTIR at some point. St. Louis had the smallest charge — only $12,349.
Medically, there’s no way of completely or accurately saying at what precise moment a player is healthy enough to return from injury. It’s always a multi-step process. Getting medical clearance to resume skating is the first step. Next, a player is cleared for contact. After that, it becomes a question of conditioning.
Naturally, the timing of a return can be massaged a little in either direction. A few more recovery days — on the “better-safe-than-sorry” theory — can be prudent. Conversely, rushing a player back too quickly could result in re-injury.
Most of the baying that you saw on social media after Stone opened the scoring on Monday night naturally focused on timing. It just felt too coincidental.
Nobody is that lucky, right?
And of course, the NHL is completely in denial that there’s an issue here. Whenever the subject comes up with the commissioner, Gary Bettman, or his deputy, Bill Daly, the inevitable explanation is something along the lines of, “We’re confident in the manner we review medical records and don’t think there’s any monkey business going on.”
Actually, “monkey business” isn’t a term you’ll hear from an NHL executive, even if that’s what they’re trying to communicate.
But Bettman and Daly are both lawyers. Deep down, they know the one thing the NHL cannot risk is the integrity of its competition. Unhappily, a system that might — might — allow teams to manipulate the timing of a player’s return from injury to gain a competitive advantage is a problem, whether they want to acknowledge it or not.
The fact that so many fans on so many forums are up in arms should be a red flag.
If Vegas happens to win again, you can be sure the outrage will only increase. In March, the NHL general managers’ executive committee spent about 90 seconds discussing the issue, according to Daly. At some point, it needs to become a serious agenda item, and result in a serious talk. Because the remedy, as noted above, isn’t all that difficult.
Understandably, any change will have to be addressed with the NHL Players’ Association and require a tweak to the collective bargaining agreement. But the CBA can be amended on the fly, if there’s a desire on both sides to fix what’s increasingly becoming a flashpoint for the NHL’s clients/fans.
Oh, and in case you wondered about the actual game on the ice, the early action was excellent hockey. Competitive, hard-nosed — just what you hope for really at this time of year. It looks as if it could be a great series. Maybe it’ll go seven. Hopefully, none of the Vegas cap dramas overshadow the action on the ice.
Because that would be unfortunate – and wholly unnecessary as well.
(Photo of Mark Stone: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
