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Originally Posted by OptimalTates
Not really sure what that means to you. LTIR is a use-it-if-you-need-it tool though. Landeskog has been out over a month, missed more than ten games, never been on LTIR because the Avs didn't need it. Similarly with Murray. Krug has missed over ten already with the Blues. Dumba just missed his tenth with the Wild. A lot of smaller cap-hit players would be eligible too like Johansson in Florida. None of them were placed on LTIR despite all being eligible obviously. The team's just didn't need it.
LA has Doughty (shut down for season), Brown and Athanasiou on IR (for the roster spot pre-trade deadline) but none have yet made it to the LTIR to accompany Walker and Anderson because it's a paper transaction that won't matter.
There's several non-playoff teams dealing with a number of injuries, like the entirety of Arizona's roster being injured right now or Flyers missing their top two centers and top defenseman among several injuries early in the season which is why they were out of the race so early.
Vegas in particular has had their top player sidelined for months as they desperately fought for a playoff spot. If he was ready to play before tonight, and the Knights are up to something shady, they would have already enacted that shady plan. But Howden was taken off in a stretcher, two other players are healthy scratch level players being replaced by healthy scratch level players of the same cap-hit. Smith's injury was fortuitous for cap reasons but it happened before the deadline anyways. Patrick Nolan being injured at this point is less surprising then him being healthy. So the only conspiracy-level injury we have at this point I think is Brossoit.
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Martinez in full practice for 3 months before coming off LTIR seemed a little shady.