Gary Bettman buries his head in the sand when it comes to money

According to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, pulling a Kucherov is now a “front-burner issue.” On Tuesday at the league’s annual spring general managers meeting, he mentioned that he doesn’t consider teams’ usage of long-term injury reserve a problem at the moment.

“Nobody in that room [of NHL general managers] believes that it’s being abused,” Bettman said. “I think it’s the perception. Nobody was sitting there saying, ‘this is a terrible abuse, we have to fix it.’ That hasn’t been the case at all.”

Fans are however well too aware of the manipulation of the salary cap, especially when getting close to the postseason. It all started last season when the Tampa Bay Lighting activated star forward Nikita Kucherov at the start of the playoff after he had missed the entire regular calendar on long-term injury reserve after undergoing hip surgery. When he returned for the postseason, his $9.5 million salary didn’t count against the cap. The Lightning finished the regular season with a cap hit of more than $98 million, per Cap Friendly — despite the salary cap being $81.5 million. Kucherov was activated for Game 1 of the playoffs and helped lead the Lightning to their second-straight Cup.

There is it: pulling a Kucherov.

Per insider Pierre LeBrun, it was Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken It was Holland, after discussing it over the past month with other GMs, who tabled the conversation about LTIR and the potential, one day, for a playoff salary cap of some sorts.

According to a source, the GMs had a discussion about erasing the LTIR loophole that allows teams to build non-salary complaint rosters in the regular season by stashing high-budget salaries on long-term injury reserve, but the conversation was ultimately tabled to the next GM meetings, this July at the draft in Montreal.

“I believe, overwhelmingly, the view of the general managers is that this hasn’t been a problem for the last 17 years,” Bettman said. “This is something that would be nice to adjust to change the perception, but I don’t think it’s viewed that it’s been a problem, because it hasn’t.”

Bettman did inform general managers the salary cap is expected to rise $1 million to $82.5 million for the 2022-23 season as league revenue is on target to be over $5 billion this season.

But when it comes to that Kucherov move, Bettman isn’t focused on it. The Vegas Golden Knights are the ones struggling to respect the salary cap this season as they fight for a playoff spot. Things are tight in the Vegas’ wallet as the team placed captain Mark Stone on LTIR just as it was activating Jack Eichel. Per CapFriendly, the Golden Knights have a projected cap hit of $92.5 million, thanks to Stone ($9.5 million salary) and Reilly Smith ($5 million) both on LTIR, but once they’re healthy, the club will have issues clearing both players for the regular season. They could be eligible for the playoffs, but for that, Vegas needs to compete for a spot.

But Bettman maintains that the usage of long-term injury reserve a problem at the moment: and that’s the same guy that says the Arizona Coyotes will make more revenues in a 5000-seat arena at the Arizona State University…