Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
You cannot "just put them on LTIR." People do understand that Kucherov actually underwent actual surgery, right?
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Such an overblown issue. Kucherov had serious surgery, for which normal recovery time would have seen him return well into the POs. People freaked out because he skated (by himself) a couple months before the POs and was doing non-contact practice a month before.
Yes, TBL signed extensions for players with Kucherov on LTIR. Because, for all they knew, he was not going to be available all season. Any other thought process would see them play short handed all year.
And no, lots of teams couldn’t withstand the loss of a Kucherov and still make the POs. Tampa didn’t sign a bunch of good players they didn’t have before. What they did was give some of their current players raises.