Happens every season. When the Hawks beat Tampa in six, Kane was on LTIR and the hawks used his then $6.3M salary to get Vermette and Timonen. Tampa was the only team in the league to appeal for changes to the LTIR rules and it fell on deaf ears.

I'll tell you "why not,"
Allen's a 1B. DeSmith is a backup.

People saying they are 18M are exaggerating (I know you are not) Nilsson isn’t playing Gaborik isn’t playing
How much over the cap are they ? At least the 9.5M of Kucherov … that’s it ? But I agree, they need to fix that loophole

6 m vs 15m is a big difference(they spent 98/83m allowed)
They didnt only over spend Kucherov's salary
They spent more at the TDL then Multiple Teams Combined as reigning champs.

Justify it however you want this run Taints their last one
Now it will be tarnished by their Cheating ways after calling out others for doing the same in years past showing them as Hypocrites to boot

the isles took the bolts to 7 despite being they were still 18 mill over the cap.

It's not cheating if it's allowed in the rulebook. It's not pretty, but it's not cheating. Whether Kucherov was healthy earlier, that's a whole different discussion which would then include cheating and a need for the NHL to be more on top of injury around the league.

to their credit they also did it without Lee.

you you think Kucherov couldn't have played game 56, but can play game 1 then you're oblivious.
They cheated.

for sure. i wonder if the lee was healthy, what the outcome could have been.

I specifically mentioned in my comment that that's an entirely different discussion. Thanks for reading part of it.