Puljujarvi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRu-AppKGqA

nyquist about to captained by the same guy who he tried to blind a few years ago

Engvall got a 3rd and yet Nyquist got a 5th?

I really like what the Wild have done this offseason. It's not sexy, it's not splashy, but I think realizing exactly where you are at in your window, and acting accordingly is underrated. They have managed to add some depth scoring, while essentially breaking even in asset cost. They have so much dead cap over the rest of this year and the next two, that they really can't be the best version of this roster, but they aren't fully throwing away Kaprizov's good years either. They seem like a team that's angling to be a dark horse type competitor for a couple of years, with good value shrewd moves, and ideally peak right when their cap opens up.

I think people forget that Minnesota still has a very deep prospect pool, so all the pieces are in place for this strategy to work, I think the tough decisions are going to be on deciding whether or not Spurgeon and Brodin are part of the long terms strategy given their current ages and contracts.

I assume you’re talking about the memo saying that the NHL will "closely scrutinize" trades involving injured players who are acquired with the intent of keeping them on the long-term injured reserve list until the playoffs to see if they violate the collective bargaining agreement. I’m not an expert in the CBA, but as far as I know there is no rule against activating a player on LTIR during the playoffs if he’s fit to play, and there is no exception for players whose injuries occurred when they were on a different team, so there’s nothing Bettman can say or do to prevent that. The salary cap doesn’t apply during the playoffs, so in that case they wouldn’t need cap space to activate him. This is a loophole that I think should be addressed, but it’s allowed under the current CBA, and the league can’t change that unilaterally.

There is, however, one CBA rule that may come into play here. When a player on LTIR recovers to the point where he is fit to play, the team is required to activate him – they can’t just leave him on LTIR as long as they want. If that happens before the end of the regular season, the team would need to have cap space for him. This applies whether the player was acquired in a trade or already with the team when he got hurt. I’m not sure how the league would scrutinize this. Do they have their own doctors they can send in to examine the player if they don’t trust the team doctors? “Fit to play” is always going to be a bit of a judgement call anyway.

The other question I have on this rule is, how is the team supposed to clear cap space if this happens after the trade deadline? They might be able to clear a million or two by waiving players and sending them to the minors, but there’s a minimum roster size, so I don’t know of any way a team that’s using LTIR to exceed the cap can make room for a $5M player coming off LTIR. Maybe that’s why the league hasn’t tried to crack down on this before. It may be an unenforceable rule. The retention on Nyquist makes it look like Minnesota is at least pretending he might be able to come back before the playoffs.

I am referring to said memo to from your first paragraph. And while I’ve read through the bulk of the CBA, I do not profess to be an expert either. But that loophole, currently allowed by the CBA, is precisely what the league threatened to “scrutinize.” I don’t think they WOULD or SHOULD have the authority they were claiming to vaguely enforce, but the threat to dock picks or try to veto the trade was too much headache for most, especially up against a deadline. By the time an injunction and arbitrator determined if the NHL possessed the authority, the deadline would be passed and it would be too late to pursue alternate avenues.

I concur that “fit to play” is a very subjective standard, particularly depending on your agenda. No team trainer ranks high enough to insist that a coach, GM, or owner activate a player. An independent trainer would likely have a different opinion, but again, few hockey players are ever 100% in season. For that difficulty of adjudication, plus most of the “more important” teams or owners carrying more clout always wanting more cap space, enforcement of LTIR (and all cap workarounds) has been loose for the history of the cap. Only the ridiculous contracts extending a decade beyond a player’s reasonable career were considered to be too subversive. If owners really wanted a change, it would have been addressed a 2-3 off seasons ago, when TBL won the Cup with a daily cap hit 50%+ over the “hard cap” limit. But nada.

That’s what made the memo so out-of-the-blue and misrepresentative of past precedent. The timing and non-inner circle teams affected made it ten fold suspicious. Now, this is just a guess—I am nowhere near as connected as I was in my time before I left sports writing for law school—but the memo came shortly after it was made clear how CBJ GM Jarmo was “perturbed” with the Bruins and GM Sweeney’s conduct. As I see it, the league revolves around and runs through Toronto, NYR, and Boston. Take that as you wish.

To your final question, cap space (and LTIR) accrues and is “consumed” on a daily basis. Total cap space and individual contract cap hits are divided evenly by days of the regular season and assessed on a prorated basis each day a player is on the roster.

For drastic simplicity, assume the season is precisely 200 days. (The actual number is lower.) Thus, only 0.5% of a player’s cap hit is assessed per day. IF Nyquist was on a team OVER the cap, his daily hit would be a wash. $27,500 would be his daily cap charge (down to $13,750 with CBJ retaining 50%). That pushes his team an extra $13,750/day over the cap, but grants them $13,750 LTIR relief to offset and accommodate.

[Please let me point out this is my very remedial, very, very unofficial interpretation and relay of the CBA.]

But say that a team is FORCED to activate Nyquist prior to the end of the regular season. Let’s say he’s activated with three days remaining. The team would need only $41,250 of cap space (daily hit * 3), not $5.5M. That could be accessed from natural remaining cap space or otherwise accrued LTIR remaining. Not insignificant to a team down to the penny like the Rangers, but workable for most every team.

Hope that made sense, hope that helped, and hope it was mostly accurate. Still think the memo was out of line and had a direct impact on trade value, but I have a sense that the powerless now will remain powerless and outnumbered in offseason meetings.

Nyquist will not be available for Minnesota at any point in the regular season due to injury.

He might be available for one playoff round or two.

But even then, he's still a rental.

Fair deal IMO.

Yeah, never was a debate if he’s a rental. Most players just traded are, with the express purpose of improving teams FOR the playoffs. Given that, players with skill sets comparable to Nyquist easily went for more than a fifth round pick.

By the way, updates in Columbus for weeks have reported Nyquist to be well on track to return by the start of the playoffs. And after the league memo, I would be shocked if the Wild did NOT activate him during the regular season, if only for the last day or few.