I don't know how representative those behind-the-scenes videos of those trade calls are, especially on a hectic day like Deadline Day, but I still have no idea how that NTC didn't come up during those trade calls. Here are two examples that were filmed, and in both cases the NHL guy mentions "there's no trade restrictions for the players involved" as one of the things that are checked. Really bizarre stuff, especially in times of CapFriendly and so on.
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Teams found to have violated the cap face fines of up to US$5 million, cancellation of contracts, loss of draft picks, loss of points and/or forfeiture of game(s) determined to have been affected by the violation of the cap.
So technically, shouldn't Vegas now be fined and lose some draft picks? If Martinez is healthy, how can he stay on LTIR?
The weird thing is that the way the CBA is written, there doesn't appear to be any requirement for a team to activate a player from LTIR when he is healthy.
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A Club may then exceed the Upper Limit due to the addition of replacement Player Salary and Bonuses of Players who have replaced an unfit-to-play Player, provided, however, that when the unfit-to-play Player is once again fit to play (including any period such Player is on a Bona Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception Conditioning Loan to another league), the Club shall be required to once again reduce its Averaged Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit prior to the Player being able to rejoin the Club.
They can't reactivate him until they're compliant, but there's seemingly no requirement for them to become compliant and reactivate him.
It's strange. The league can require a second opinion before allowing a team to put a player on LTIR to ensure they're not faking an injury to circumvent the cap, but there doesn't seem to be a similar mechanism on the other end of the injury.
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Did Vegas come out and proclaim Martinez as healthy after they made the trade?
No, but they indicated that he is close and has been in main practices for a while now.
I imagine they won't proclaim anything until the cap situation is sorted out, or game 1 of the playoffs. Whatever happens sooner. It's Kucherov all over again. He was in main practices weeks before he was magically ready the minute the playoffs started.
Does the NHL have any way of actually forcing the issue, or is it just based on the honour system?
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Why would they ask the player to waive or submit waiver forms if they were in the understanding that the NTC was not in effect.
According to reports the initial trade from OTT to VGK was approved by the NHL with the understanding that there was not a valid NTC in effect because that is what OTT told them. Checking in with the NHL wouldn't have made a difference, the evidence of this is that the NHL approved the trade to ANA, they didn't think he had a NTC either.
It's absolutely on OTT if they gave false information at the time of the first trade. If they reported that the player didn't submit his list on time how is VGK supposed to know different. I suppose they are at fault for not double checking with the player after the trade but the majority of the blame here clearly lies with OTT.
No, he did not file with the NHL. Hopefully that process gets fixed as a result of this though.
Vegas is operating their billion dollar professional sports franchise based off of what their competitors tell them is Kosher? Instead of reading and understanding the fine print on a contract they’re now accountable for? That’s bold.
Part of my post was coming from documented insider speculation that the team might now ask the player to waive the NTC. Not cool, and too late.
The weird thing is that the way the CBA is written, there doesn't appear to be any requirement for a team to activate a player from LTIR when he is healthy.
They can't reactivate him until they're compliant, but there's seemingly no requirement for them to become compliant and reactivate him.
It's strange. The league can require a second opinion before allowing a team to put a player on LTIR to ensure they're not faking an injury to circumvent the cap, but there doesn't seem to be a similar mechanism on the other end of the injury.
That's an interesting interpretation. You could also interpret it that you can't reactivate any player from LTIR until you are out of LTIR altogther - but obviously that's not how it works or is intended to work.
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A Club may then exceed the Upper Limit due to the addition of replacement Player Salary and Bonuses of Players who have replaced an unfit-to-play Player, provided, however, that when the unfit-to-play Player is once again fit to play (including any period such Player is on a Bona Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception Conditioning Loan to another league), the Club shall be required to once again reduce its Averaged Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit prior to the Player being able to rejoin the Club.
The key points in that clause state that “when the unfit-to-play Player is once again fit to play”, …, “the Club shall once again be required to reduce its Average Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit”. Once they are fit to play, not once they are activated from IR, not once the team has cap space, but once the player is fit to play. Teams are responsible for ensuring that they are cap compliant by the time a player is medically fit to return. So if reports that Martinez is fit to play are true, then the VGK are in violation of the letter of this rule as well as clearly being in violation of its intent, and the NHL should immediately apply the prescribed penalties for violation of this rule.
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Vegas is operating their billion dollar professional sports franchise based off of what their competitors tell them is Kosher? Instead of reading and understanding the fine print on a contract they’re now accountable for? That’s bold.
I'll say it again. It doesn't matter if they read the contract 10 times. The NTC is part of the contract but if the list isn't submitted on time then it is not in effect. According to reports OTT told VGK and the NHL that he had not submitted his list and it was therefore not in effect. Vegas would have no reason not to believe that because the league approved the trade on that basis. Should they have talked to Dadonov after about which teams he would have included on his list? sure they should have but as far as they were concerned it wouldn't matter anyway if they wanted to trade him other than to make him happy.
There is blame all around here. OTT for allegedly being inept, the NHL for having a lax system in place when it comes to NTC's and Vegas for clearly not communicating well with their player. As far as I'm concerned, if the reports are right, OTT made the biggest error here.
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I'll say it again. It doesn't matter if they read the contract 10 times. The NTC is part of the contract but if the list isn't submitted on time then it is not in effect. According to reports OTT told VGK and the NHL that he had not submitted his list and it was therefore not in effect. Vegas would have no reason not to believe that because the league approved the trade on that basis. Should they have talked to Dadonov after about which teams he would have included on his list? sure they should have but as far as they were concerned it wouldn't matter anyway if they wanted to trade him other than to make him happy.
There is blame all around here. OTT for allegedly being inept, the NHL for having a lax system in place when it comes to NTC's and Vegas for clearly not communicating well with their player. As far as I'm concerned, if the reports are right, OTT made the biggest error here.
“According to reports”. Who is the source? I bet it’s not Ottawa. I bet it’s not the NHL. This was a phone call.
The key points in that clause state that “when the unfit-to-play Player is once again fit to play”, …, “the Club shall once again be required to reduce its Average Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit”. Once they are fit to play, not once they are activated from IR, not once the team has cap space, but once the player is fit to play. Teams are responsible for ensuring that they are cap compliant by the time a player is medically fit to return. So if reports that Martinez is fit to play are true, then the VGK are in violation of the letter of this rule as well as clearly being in violation of its intent, and the NHL should immediately apply the prescribed penalties for violation of this rule.
It's all meaningless though if there is no way for the rest of the league to force the issue. Vegas (or any team) can say whatever they want and unless the player objects and files a grievance saying that they are being held out on IR unnecessarily, what can anyone do about it?
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The key points in that clause state that “when the unfit-to-play Player is once again fit to play”, …, “the Club shall once again be required to reduce its Average Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit”. Once they are fit to play, not once they are activated from IR, not once the team has cap space, but once the player is fit to play. Teams are responsible for ensuring that they are cap compliant by the time a player is medically fit to return. So if reports that Martinez is fit to play are true, then the VGK are in violation of the letter of this rule as well as clearly being in violation of its intent, and the NHL should immediately apply the prescribed penalties for violation of this rule.
That's not where the sentence ends though. By ignoring the end of the sentence, you're changing its meaning.
"...when the unfit-to-play Player is once again fit to play..., the Club shall be required to once again reduce its Averaged Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit prior to the Player being able to rejoin the Club."
They must do that prior to the player being able to rejoin the club. If they don't do it, he can't rejoin the team. That appears to be the only penalty.
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It's all meaningless though if there is no way for the rest of the league to force the issue. Vegas (or any team) can say whatever they want and unless the player objects and files a grievance saying that they are being held out on IR unnecessarily, what can anyone do about it?
The league has a procedure where it hires independent MDs to follow up on all LTIR claims. A few weeks ago, the last time this issue came up (Eichel activated, Stone to LTIR), Friedman mentioned that the league has been closely following Carey Price's situation to make sure Montreal wasn't fiddling the cap. This is what they are supposed to do in every case.
I don't doubt that the league quietly allows teams a certain amount of wiggle room in activating players from LTIR. That's probably what saved the Lightning's bacon last year. But it's pretty clear in this case that the Knights know they have to reactivate players well before the end of the regular season, and they tried to deal with it by shedding Dadonov's cap hit. And now they are neck-deep in the soup.
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That's not where the sentence ends though. By ignoring the end of the sentence, you're changing its meaning.
"...when the unfit-to-play Player is once again fit to play..., the Club shall be required to once again reduce its Averaged Club Salary to a level at or below the Upper Limit prior to the Player being able to rejoin the Club."
They must do that prior to the player being able to rejoin the club. If they don't do it, he can't rejoin the team. That appears to be the only penalty.
That isn't the only sentence that deals with this situation. Apparently the rules governing the process are not all available to the public, but keeping a player on LTIR when he is clearly fit to play is, in fact, something the league can punish a team for under the cap circumvention rules.
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“According to reports”. Who is the source? I bet it’s not Ottawa. I bet it’s not the NHL. This was a phone call.
It's all about the context.
Vegas could have said "what's the deal with his 10 team NTC" and Ottawa could have said "no issue" meaning "hey Vegas, relax you're not on the list so this is good". Ottawa could have also asked the player if he was ok with Vegas, not remembering or reading the email list provided, the player could have thought "wow that's nice of them to check even though I gave them a list that didn't include Vegas - ya I'm good" and then Ottawa responded to Vegas "player says he's good to go".
It doesn't really matter if Ottawa misled Vegas or Vegas just didn't check or ask the right questions. The player has a 10 team NTC that was filed correctly before any deadline, and the NTC transfers with the players.
Sucks to suck Vegas.
Having said that, I think the NHL should nullify this trade, but take 10 points away from Edmonton for looking so ugly. Also, as punishment for being idiots, Vegas should not be allowed to use any of the players on the LTIR list until next year.
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Vegas could have said "what's the deal with his 10 team NTC" and Ottawa could have said "no issue" meaning "hey Vegas, relax you're not on the list so this is good". Ottawa could have also asked the player if he was ok with Vegas, not remembering or reading the email list provided, the player could have thought "wow that's nice of them to check even though I gave them a list that didn't include Vegas - ya I'm good" and then Ottawa responded to Vegas "player says he's good to go".
Maybe but you are making some pretty big assumptions there that none of the parties involved take this sort of transaction seriously at all. According to Friedman they were specifically told that his NTC was void for this season because he didn't submit a list, that would make your scenario impossible.
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It doesn't really matter if Ottawa misled Vegas or Vegas just didn't check or ask the right questions. The player has a 10 team NTC that was filed correctly before any deadline, and the NTC transfers with the players.
It absolutely makes a difference in how the league punishes Vegas in this. It also makes a difference in public perception as to which party(s) looks like the idiots here. If Ottawa screwed up then they should bear some of the responsibility, how will that all work? I have no idea.
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I’m not saying he’s lying. He can only say what he’s been told. There are at elast two sides to this story though.
That's true but it's the only information we have right now yet people are jumping to the exact opposite conclusion based on nothing but their dislike of Vegas.
Anyway I'm done with this, at least for now.
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Dadonov negiocated that NTC and is fully in his rights to negate the trade.
I dont buy for a second that management didn't know. You have 50 contracts not 150.
This whole cap circumvention hoopla is getting out of hand. For once I would like to see the NHL do something. Once Tampa exploited the loophole other GMs were licking their lips.
It's absolutely on OTT if they gave false information at the time of the first trade. If they reported that the player didn't submit his list on time how is VGK supposed to know different. I suppose they are at fault for not double checking with the player after the trade but the majority of the blame here clearly lies with OTT.
I was on CapFriendly yesterday when the trade went down and he had an NTC.
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