Avalanche Roundtable: Does the NHL need to fix the LTIR system?

Going to be a bit of a grab bag of questions today as we are a week out from the NHL Draft and two weeks from free agency. The majority of decisions that teams will make are coming in the next 16 or so days. Let’s get into this week’s roundtable.

Another Stanley Cup was won by a team who utilized LTIR to ice a team that wouldn’t have been cap-compliant in the regular season. Does the league need to fix this?

AJ: I think there should be some kind of solution. Immediately after Vegas won, there was already talk about Mark Stone’s back and how this might become the norm for him moving forward. A team’s star player conveniently being hurt every spring and allowing them oceans of cap space at the deadline and that star player returning for Game 1 of the playoffs goes against every spirit of competition that exists.

When Tampa did this with Kucherov, it was widely viewed as a fluke thing with a 56-game season. Vegas has now tried it two consecutive years. Rudo is right that a hard cap would make life impossible for injury-ravaged teams (see: Avs last year??), but this manipulation is turning into an actual strategy. The league slammed the door shut on 15-year contracts because of cap circumvention reasons, why isn’t this any different?

Jesse: It’s so hard to solve this issue. It’s obvious that there is some level of issue here. Two of the last three Stanley Cup Champions had rosters that would have been significantly over the salary cap in the regular season. Not a great look for a league that is very proud of its cap system and the parity it creates.

That said I don’t really know if there’s a better solution, and from everybody that I have spoken to about this, the entire system is designed to be difficult to trick. Meaning, if your team is utilizing LTIR, the league does a fair bit of checking in to make sure the player is legitimately unable to return to play, and the team isn’t enjoying the cap relief.

But as AJ points out, everything surrounding Mark Stone’s situation the last number of seasons now raises some serious question marks.

Is the solution simply forcing teams to have cap-compliant rosters in the playoffs? You would have to use a similar system to the taxi-squad rosters from the COVID season in order to facilitate a team’s black aces, but you could figure out a way to make it work.

Rudo: It’s tough, you don’t want to punish a team or player for an injury that is entirely out of their control so something direct like a true hard cap would just feel bad for everyone. At, the same time teams shouldn’t be allowed to get away with pulling ridiculous things to squeeze extra money in some cases upwards of 10% above the cap. I don’t have a great solution here and I don’t think the league has any interest in changing things so expect the shenanigans to continue.

The NHL has watched its recent expansion teams experience significantly more success than any other league. Is this the one area other leagues should be looking to copy from the NHL?

AJ: I think so and it sounds like we’re going to get to see if the NBA and, especially, MLB were paying attention to what quick success can do for a new market. MLB being set up most similarly to the NHL will make it interesting but I’m hoping when those leagues inevitably expand to 32 teams as well that they look at what happened in the NHL and try to give the new franchises every chance to be good. I almost never get to say this but good job, NHL.

Jesse: You have to give new teams a chance out of the gate. The NHL setting up lottery rules that favored the Vegas Golden Knights was the first time something like that had happened in pro sports and look at the success the league is enjoying because of it.

They have (obviously) already added Seattle, and now it sounds like you have cities and potential owners starting to line up to get in on the action.

Rudo: Absolutely. The Expansion changes made by the NHL have made expansion teams competitive immediately. The fastest way for a team to endear itself to a market, especially if it is a non-traditional market, is winning.

Vancouver bought out Oliver Ekman-Larsson in one of the bigger buyouts we’ve seen. If the Avs kicked the tires on him, what kind of deal would you be comfortable with?

AJ: I’m expecting to be the dissenting voice here but after hearing the news and going back to watch some video of OEL last year, I’m not sure I’d even kick the tires on him. He cedes the blueline with essentially zero resistance, his mobility is way down from his prime, and he has been a significantly worse player in his own zone the last several years. His offense isn’t nearly good enough anymore to make up for bad defense, and if you were looking at that kind of profile, at least John Klingberg has proven he can still fill that job if you wanted. I’m not convinced OEL has anything left in the tank. So I guess that leaves me at a one-year deal worth about $1M.

Jesse: On a one-year deal… I don’t know? $1.5M-$2M would likely be my high end. Anything beyond one year (they wouldn’t) and I’m not touching that for a dollar over $1M.

Rudo: I think $2.5M would be as high as I’m willing to go and would prefer something $2M or under, any real term is completely off the table. The Avs have at least one defensive spot available and OEL for all his shortcomings was on a 33-point pace last season with minimal PP production. The Avs have the players to provide him some shelter and get quality out of him.