I dont know why people are acting like Tampa faked this....all medical records and examinations have to be looked at by the NHL league office when it comes to LTIR
A team just cant put guys on LTIR and just say trusts us

it sucks that they were able to load up like that for the playoffs but they played within the rules and their players met all the requirements to be on LTIR for the year

here are the other teams calling BS.

doesnt matter what other teams say, do you think the NHL actively helped them circumvent the CBA

yes, actually I do.

They even came out and said such when they said, they don't want the flat cap to break up teams. That was code for, well TB will get help.
The issue here isn't if he had surgery or whatever. It's that they allowed them to shelf him until the playoffs. He could have played sooner. It's just really continent that he didn't suit up for not 1 single regular season game but hey....that 1st playoff game he's there! I'm you know, that was just some arbitrary event that took place there. Not one game sooner could he have been on the ice...nope not at all... And if you believe that, I have some beach front land to sell you in NV.

If he had played one regular season game it would have been an issue. You want to claim he couldn't have played that game. But it's pretty clear watching him he could have played that game and you tried to hide behind it. That is the issue.
You just can't seem to wrap your head around that.
Fact is the league knew the flat cap screwed teams hard, they didn't want it to have a long effect on teams, and they knew there were no other fixes so they let them get away with it.
Because truth is, they knew other teams didn't have capital to sink into a league that wasn't making money this year. All the owners were taking loses and no one wanted to pay up so TB could be cap compliant without a huge compensation. Which was probably looked at as extraordinary situation.

But don't come over here crying about how it didn't happen, when everyone knows it did and it's total bs. Even the other players on the ice.

dude its not a conspiracy theory

THANK YOU! I couldn't agree more! If they really did cheat the NHL would've never let it happen.

I dont see how the NHL benefits from this, all it does it complete undoes everything in the CBA. They arent tearing down the salary cap era just to help the tampa bay lightning this one time.

if the nhl was actively helping teams circumvent the cap, wouldnt the knights have been getting bailed out instead of hving to dress 15 skaters multiple games this season bc of their cap issues

For Detroit that deal doesn't make sense, would rather keep svechnikov and the fourth.

Nobody's denying Kucherov had surgery, what people are doubting is the time line. It's pretty big red flag when he comes back the same day the salary cap no longer exists. Another red flag is the fact that he was skating a month before he came back, not just light skating but full practices. Which is why there wasn't an ounce of rust on him since day one. Argue all you want that he's just that good you're kidding yourself anyone that hasn't played all year will have a bit of rust to his game. Which is why people are only saying that he was more than ready to come back before the play offs started and should have been activated.

The NHL said they investigated and found that everything was with in the rules, but all the NHL did was look at paper work they couldn't be bothered to send their own doctors in there to get a second opinion. If they had there wouldn't be any doubt about any of this.

you posted non sensical gibberish pretending your opinion is a fact and projecting your thoughts about a deep rooted conspiracy of the NHL allowing Tampa and only Tampa to circumvent the cap

Your evidence is Dougie Hamilton making a comment with no evidence?

Time to break out the tinfoil hats.

Are you sure the league didn't send anyone down? If you are sure how do you know they didn't? I'm not saying you're wrong but I am curious how you could know that.

Cooper said it himself they only asked for paper work, that was it. I'm watching my game at the moment but just do a google or youtube search on his interview.

Sorry it wasn't Cooper it was Brisebois.

I understand the frustration of so many other fanbases that the NHL has rules in place that enabled TB to take advantage of the cap, but they were completely compliant with the rules. Everyone that wants to accuse and claim that Kucherov has been healthy and ready to play NHL games a month or two prior to the playoffs, it’s all just entirely baseless and frankly you guys are just straight up whining. His timeline between surgery and actually playing his first game was COMPLETELY reasonable. He returned 4.5 months after his surgery of a 5-6 month standard timeline. You guys are actually ridiculous crybabies.

No worries I knew what you meant. If the league thought something was wrong I don't think they'd say anything to Tampa about it sending someone. It might not have been someone from the league there a good chance they would contract it out. They only asked Brisebois for the paperwork but that's not saying they didn't send someone maybe they found nothing wrong and all they needed was the official paperwork so they could file it away.

Blues pass, but you can certainly make a different offer for the Big Red Dog.

We're talking about the same NHL that can't figure out how to properly & consistently discipline players or ref games, right?


...yeah, I'm sure it's fine.

Do you really think none of the other teams questioned this at all? The NHL asked for the paperwork for their report and if it wasn't sent to every team it was sent to every team that asked about it. If a team was still unsatisfied do you really think they wouldn't say something to the league. The reason no team spoke out about is because TB didn't break any rules. If it weren't for COVID there is a very good chance the season would've started with a lockout and there might not have been a season at all. It's not a conspiracy so you can put the tinfoil hat away.