The Toronto Maple Leafs’ recent deal involving Chris Tanev has stirred up questions about the NHL’s Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) rules. In a recent mailbag post, The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek was asked if the NHL might ever revisit the use of LTIR, especially for older players who are signed to contracts that virtually guarantee they won’t play them out. When it comes to Toronto, many believe Tanev will end his career on LTIR, effectively allowing the Leafs to circumvent the salary cap. Should this be allowed?
While the debate around LTIR rules is valid, using the Tanev deal as a trigger for change overlooks a long history of teams exploiting this loophole.
What are the Maple Leafs Guilty Of?
Technically, the Maple Leafs aren’t guilty of anything. There is no hard and fast rule about doing what Toronto did, which was to sign an older player to a contract they might not see all the way through.
Duhatschek writes that teams who knowingly sign players well past their best-before date do so because that’s sometimes the cost of doing business. For the Maple Leafs, Tanev was an in-demand UFA and they wanted the player. They made a four-year pitch to him at the age of 34 years old, knowing that with the way he plays and his injury history, he is unlikely to make it as an NHLer to the age of 38.
If they were thinking along those lines when the deal was signed, the organization was comfortable with the trade-off.
A question in the mailbag post asked why the NHL doesn’t amend the LTIR rules, specifically targeting contracts of four years or longer for players aged 35 or older. Under this proposal, only half of such contracts would be claimable on LTIR, with the remaining half staying on the cap.
The idea here would be to ensure that contracts remain within the spirit of the cap and discourage teams from signing aging players with the expectation that they will spend significant time on LTIR.
The NHL Paved the Way for the Leafs to Do This
The practice of manipulating LTIR to gain cap flexibility is not new. Teams have long sought creative ways to navigate the salary cap, often signing players past their prime and using LTIR to manage their cap space. This practice, while controversial, has been within the legal boundaries of the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement.
Duhatschek adds:
If the league genuinely wanted to do that [change the rules], they would find ways of plugging the loopholes in the system. This, by the way, is inherently just like the NHL. As soon as a rule is in place, teams try to find creative ways of circumventing it. Ever since the cap system was introduced, teams have found complicated, but legal ways to get around the theoretical cap ceiling.
source – ‘Which NHL bottom feeder will be competitive first, concussions and more: Duhatschek mailbag’ – Eric Duhatschek – The Athletic – 07/17/2024
This doesn’t even take into account the LTIR debate about injuries in the playoffs. As the scribe points out, several high-profile examples have already carved a pathway for the Leafs to follow. Patrick Kane, Nikita Kucherov, and Mark Stone all spent significant portions of their seasons on LTIR, only to return in time for the playoffs and contribute to Stanley Cup victories for the Chicago Blackhawks, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Vegas Golden Knights, respectively.
Fans and teams that aren’t using these rules don’t like it, but everyone is entitled to the same grey space that the NHL barely looks at.
Are the Maple Leafs Breaking the Spirit of the Salary Cap?
LTIR loopholes have led to a growing perception that the cap system is flawed. Fans and some team executives argue that the NHL must address these loopholes to maintain competitive balance and integrity. Even if that were true, there are bigger worries than Tanev’s deal.
There is no telling that he won’t play out his contract. It seems like a virtual guarantee he’ll miss time over the next four seasons, as he’s only once played a full 82-game season. That said, he didn’t sign this deal with the expectation he’d sit out years three and four and be sent to Robidas Island.
Teams signing players well past their prime is often a strategic decision driven by the laws of supply and demand. In-demand players command high salaries, and teams sometimes accept the risk of future LTIR placements as a cost of doing business. The Maple Leafs’ handling signing of Tanev is exactly that, nothing more.
Even if the NHL is likely to consider changes to the LTIR rules, (which feels unlikely) this Tanev deal shouldn’t be the catalyst for change. The next round of collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations presents an opportunity for the league to address the issue. The NHL can address it then. Likely, the league doesn’t really even see a problem worth addressing.
