According to Chris Johnston of NorthStar Bets, the NHL sent out a memo this morning to teams explaining that they would “closely scrutinize” any trades of injured players with the express intent of keeping them on long-term injured reserve until the playoffs. Gustav Nyquist is a perfect example of this kind of trade chip, as he is not expected back in the regular season.
Scrutiny is one thing, but it’s hard to believe that the league would put a complete stop to these moves. In 2021, the Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Riley Nash, knowing he wouldn’t be ready before the playoffs, only to activate him for game one. It might mean a closer look at situations like Adam Henrique, as the Anaheim Ducks forward is not expected to miss the rest of the season, but is still on the shelf for another few weeks. Any acquiring team would likely be expected to activate him (and have the room to do so) well ahead of the playoffs, instead of waiting for the salary cap to disappear on day one of the postseason.
- More smoke is rising from the Arizona Coyotes, who have one of the biggest trade chips in Jakob Chychrun sitting in the press box. Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia reports that the Los Angeles Kings, Washington Capitals, Carolina Hurricanes, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Edmonton Oilers are all pursuing the Coyotes defender. Chychrun hasn’t played since February 10 as he awaits his new destination.
- Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet points out that the New York Rangers don’t actually have to wait until tomorrow to acquire Patrick Kane, only past today’s salary cap threshold. The cap is calculated on the active roster at 4pm CT every day, meaning the Rangers could land Kane a few minutes later and have him applied to Wednesday’s number instead. All signs continue to point to Kane joining the Rangers this week, potentially even in time to take on the Philadelphia Flyers tomorrow night.
GET IT DONE RON HEXTALL
If the price was right, sure.
But, the Yotes want our 2025 and 2026 picks and not the next two years’. Can’t move those.
Does Chychrun fox this team? Do you win 1st round with his add? If the answer is no then pass.
Isn’t Hextall on record being unwilling to trade away the top picks the next few years?
There is actually a simple enough fix for the playoff cap issue.
Make the rule such that teams don’t have to be cap compliant for the whole roster, including taxi squad and players coming off IR, BUT the roster for any given game should still have to be cap compliant.
This addresses all of the other roster managment issues, but prevents a team from loading up to put out a stacked roster by gaming the rules. AKA “The Tampa”.
The league needs to just not allow injured players to be traded, or at the very least make it so that that player goes on the acquiring teams active roster and is ineligible for LTIR. The cap is just a joke nowadays because any team can pretty much put any player on the IR to make cap space. We’re almost seven months into the season, everybody is banged up with something. There should be zero incentive to ever trade for an injured player who is not going to play.
can’t trade injured players? that’s ridiculous. I get there is circumvention but if a guy is out till mid-March, why can’t he be traded. This would lend itself to teams withholding info on injuries.
I would say any player traded from LTIR should be reviewed by the league. I also believe that teams should be forced to be cap compliant (including LTIR players eligible to return) one week before the playoffs. So a Kucherov would have been counted against the cap number in-season.
Maybe the NHL should have an LTIR and an LTIR-Season which includes playoffs. so someone like a Muzzin is on the 2nd but a Nyquist or Kucherov or Stone (potentially) on the first.