Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanni
Are these guys formally retired in the eyes of the NHL or are they going on LTIR with retirement officially effective when their contracts are up? The argument could be made that until they are officially retired by the NHL/PA they have just announced their retirement effective at the end of their contract.
I think we also need to consider this year as an anomaly. Our alignment with the NHL is so out to lunch that we are seeing the NHL pre-season retirements come out now, half way through our season.
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I think this season is an anomaly but I think during our off-season we should consider if we can update how we handle to better align to the realities of what's happening in the NHL.
I see two paths
- We keep the current approach, which is if the player is on LTIR they aren't retired, but they get hit hard in re-rates. This benefits GMs in some cases (they can continue to use a player this year) but it also hurts GMs in others (e.g. GMs have to keep a non retired player on their roster using up cap space - Colin Wilson, Dustin Byfuglien (bit of a different situation), etc)
- We become more liberal in our definition of retirement and if a player communicates they aren't playing any more, or accepts an off-ice position - we consider them done.
This has been a moving target and we are doing the best to be consistent in how we apply the rule. But I think it's time to figure out how to evolve it given the NHL behaviours in play. To me that's a call we can align on in the off-season.