NHL sends a stern warning to teams ahead of Friday's trade deadline

Whoa! Gary Bettman is now actively effecting the trade market!

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 1 year ago
NHL sends a stern warning to teams ahead of Friday's trade deadline
Zuma Press

According to a report from NHL insider Chris Johnston, the NHL has sent a memo to its 32 teams this morning essentially warning them that any trades involving injured players between now and Friday's trade deadline will be "closely scrutinized".

This is, in effect, a warning to teams trying to use the long-term injured reserve loophole which allows teams to acquire a player and sit him out until the playoffs without suffering a salary cap penalty.

From Johnston:

As pointed out by Johnston, this could affect the market for injured players like Gustav Nyquist, Sean Monahan, Adam Henrique and JT Miller.

What's ironic to me is that the NHL is only NOW attempting to address this problem when the Tampa Bay Lightning flagrantly used the rule back in 2020-21 when they elected to sit superstar Nikita Kucherov out for the entire season. On paper Kucherov was out the entire regular season, yet magically healed in time to not only join the team for their playoff run but to also lead the team in points en route to a Stanley Cup championship. Yep... nothing fishy there...