GM requests NHL revisit LTIR playoff loophole

A meeting of NHL General Managers coming up next week will have a controversial topic on the agenda. According to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, GMs have added the long-term injured reserve playoff "loophole" at the request of one of their colleagues.

"In an $81.5 million cap world, how can you dress a $90 million roster in the playoffs?" the GM asked in his letter requesting that the topic be added to the meeting's agenda.

As most fans are aware, once the playoffs hit, the salary cap is no longer in place. That means players can be brought back from LTIR with no issue whatsoever. The most famous (or perhaps infamous) case of this is when the Tampa Bay Lightning placed star Nikita Kucherov on injured reserve for all of the 2020-21 regular season. He came back in the playoffs to help his team win the Stanley Cup.

According to Seravalli, the unnamed GM is posing this solution: The salary of the 20 players iced by a team in a playoff game must add up to less than the salary cap limit for that season. Teams could still use LTIR during the regular season to pick up additional players, but would have to make roster decisions during the playoffs to ensure the team on the ice is under the cap.

Seravalli states that GMs aren't blaming the Lightning for doing what they did. A general manager's job is to take advantage of any and every action possible to ice the best team they can. Ironically, this issue was raised at a meeting in the past by Tampa Bay's GM, but other teams at the time weren't onboard with closing the loophole.

One major issue, according to Seravalli, is whether closing the LTIR loophole would trigger another vote by the NHL Players Association on the current collective bargaining agreement. That remains to be determined.

Source: Daily Faceoff

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