Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
This is pure jealousy.
Is anyone here going to tell me with a straight face that if Lucic suddenly came down with a rash that allowed him to go on LTIR and for us to get a true offensive center/winger to supplement our team with that cap space, that anyone here would be upset about it. Does anyone think we would be focused on doing the honorable thing and honoring Lucic's contract without taking the LTIR relief?
Kucherov isn't playing for the full season. He may not be in adequate game shape by the time the playoffs roll around, so essentially you may be losing your top offensive forward for the year to a hip injury that requires surgery.
Okay, so you take lemons and you make lemonade. Sign the rest of the roster that you wouldn't be able to. People can bitch about the timing, but it's a business decision based on a health situation. If Kucherov could play at 100% and the injury would resolve itself with treatment, I can guarantee that he would be playing and that they would have to move some salary to sign some guys. They're just making the most out of the situation, and who can blame them? I wish all GMs for teams I cheered for were this shrewd. Everyone can do what they're doing. There's nothing in the CBA saying they can't. If it becomes that big of a problem, then amend the CBA next time around.
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There is a huge amount of that make no mistake. The owner of the Lightning is going to pay a huge amount of money to Kucherov not to play for him this year. If they had not just won a Stanley Cup is the owner willing to spend that kind of money for his best player not to play for the team? Would he be willing to let his GM pay Cernak and Cirelli on top of what he's paying Kucherov and allow him more time to find a move that doesn't completely screw the team going forward? I am pretty petty myself, and I hope the owner takes a pretty harsh loss and goes into desparation mode in a year or two ordering a fire sale to his GM.
As much as players want to play, I have to think owners and management expect and want productive players making 9.5 million a year to still play if possible. But after winning it likely allows the team to realize that you have 66.5 million committed to this guy over the next 7 years, and getting him fixed now likely helps you maximize that investment vs trying to force him to play now, and cumulatively build up more and more injuries to the point where the last 4 years become sunk cost and the production in the 3 leading up to that also lacked.
So they are going to play without their best player for now, and Brisebois now has a bit more time to try and wiggle out of this or order a Thug to club McDonaugh and Tyler Johnson on the knee next off season to IR them...still that puts the owner in a position where he's still spending 90+ million on the team, and he may not be so foregiving if it's a team that doesn't win the Cup again.