Quoting: coga16
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.