Dec 9: A worst-case scenario has happened for St. Louis, as both Husso and Jake Walman are now out with injuries. The team will play short again tonight as eight players with the Springfield Thunderbirds are also dealing with COVID-19. The team doesn’t have cap space, doesn’t have recall options, and now will have just 11 forwards and six defensemen tonight. Jon Gillies, who was signed yesterday, will presumably backup Lindgren, though it’s not actually even clear how he can be added to the roster given the cap situation, unless they use their other emergency goaltender exemption (Lindgren is already up on one of them).
Dec 7: The St. Louis Blues head into tonight’s game at a serious disadvantage. Not only has the team lost two in a row and now has to play a second consecutive match against the league’s best team (by points percentage) in the Florida Panthers, but they’ll have to do it shorthanded. The Blues will dress just ten forwards tonight along with seven defensemen, because of the precarious cap situation they find themselves in.
Already using almost all of the long-term injured reserve relief from Klim Kostin and James Neal, the Blues have just over $113K in available cap space according to CapFriendly. That’s not enough to make a recall, and with Robert Thomas missing the game due to injury, they don’t have enough healthy, active players to suit up tonight. Already the team is using an emergency goaltending exemption for Charlie Lindgren–who was called up instead of Joel Hofer because of the difference in salary between the two–after Jordan Binnington joined Tyler Bozak in the COVID protocol.
To secure that cap-free exemption they had to have Kyle Konin, a 23-year-old netminder who last played competitive hockey at Grand Valley State University in 2020, serve as Ville Husso‘s backup against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Now they’ll have to play a man short once again, in order to secure a second recall exemption to bring up an additional forward for Thursday’s game against Detroit.
This new exemption will allow them to recall a player without incurring a cap hit, but there are restrictions on it too. Only players with a cap hit of $850K or less can be brought up, meaning someone like Mackenzie MacEachern is out of the question. The risky part isn’t necessarily playing a man down, it’s that things could get even more complicated for St. Louis if another player suffers a minor injury. Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic ponders on Twitter about Thomas’ injury and whether he has been forcing himself to play through it because of his team’s cap situation.
Kostin did skate today, according to Rutherford, but he won’t be eligible to play for another five games because of his LTIR designation. There’s not a quick fix coming for the Blues and things could get worse if anyone else goes down, or is forced to enter the COVID protocol.
When are teams going to learn that it’s better to be something like 0.5% worse and have cap flexibility than it is to give out that extra 1 million dollars to upgrade your tenth best forward? The only time it ever works is if you’re an elite team and get lucky enough like Tampa to have a significant injury to one of the highly paid guys where it won’t impact making the playoffs or not. Having to do all of these salary cap gymnastics just doesn’t make sense to me, especially because it almost guarantees a deadline deal will be impossible unless you manage to find away to dump other money off.
+1 to jdgoat. And it goes beyond that … it’s how many gymnastics GMs are going through to hand over 6, 7, 8 million dollars to second liners and second pairing defensemen, and grabbing after the fanciest toy they see out there on their eternal Christmas trees. Vegas gives away the Vezina winner for nothing, and then goes out to grab damaged goods making $10 million, and their long term plan for dealing with the coming cap apocalypse is to wave buh-bye to the very productive Reilly Smith, which still won’t be enough. For instance.
So, riddle me this Batman. Why didnt the league just agree to raise the salary cap just a tiny bit knowing this could have happened this year? This was the worst year to have a flat cap. You’ve seen so many EBUGs even for non-Covid reasons, then add in Covid and you have a mess. are finances so tight that they wolnt lower the cap but wolnt raise it either? seems to be a nessicary expense.
… because the league collectively lost hundreds of millions last year?
Because the point of a cap isnt so it can be manipulated and changed so teams who decide to play with chance against the cap can go unpunished. Its the teams fault. This article is literally about one team in this situation, not some situation all gms are in from some unforseeable or unavoidable reason lol.
“Theyre over the cap you say? Why should they get punished for their decision making and lack of foresight or even making trades now for cap relief? Thats dumb to punish someone for not playing within the same rules every other team does, just raise the cap for them” pfft lol
@vondooche any other year i would agree but thanks to covid (and this isn’t a debate that you think covid is real or not) you can get a player put on the covid list and is out for 2 weeks how do you plan for that in an offseason. like or not we’re in f’ed up times with covid and overall we have made exceptions in society for covid. what blows my mind is we can’t make exceptions to cap rules for covid players. eventually every nhl team is going to experience what the note are going through, all am saying in a time that we need to be a bit more flexible why can’t cap rules be adjusted for covid. i’m not saying this because my team is going tur this bs but more of at some point later in the season other teams are going to feel the covid crunch and tbh the length your on covid protocol would it just be better to just say player x has an upper body injury and put him on ltir. honestly covid protocol and the length on ltir are almost the same, just like service time in mlb i really can see teams going we’re putting player x on ltir because of insert ltir worthy injury here just to get cap relief, than putting a player on the covid list where your out player x for 2 weeks and no cap relief
The NHL salary cap is broken. Always has been. The players got absolutely screwed by the owners.
@Dave – When I read your post, there, the words “indentured servants” came to mind. It’s not really that far off, is it? A third millennium (A.D.) version, just to keep with the times, so to speak.
League minimum for those “indentured servants” is more money than I’ve made the last twenty years, and the increase of ticket prices to pay those salaries is the reason why I’ve been to all of two NHL games since they tore Boston Garden down. My sympathy for them is minimal.
@Nha Trang – As professional athletes, they will *always* be paid more than us bipedal grunts. Don’t forget the escrow crap that takes more $ away from them and back to the owners’ deep pockets. The last discussions I heard was that it might not be totally paid back by the end of this CBA. Make no mistake, this isn’t “sympathy” from me or “apathy” from me, it’s just an interpretation of the state of affairs in today’s NHL.
Were all free range slaves. Always will be with a monetary system. Funny how the awesome shit where as long as youre productive you get everything society hasta offer, but the greedy cucks running this mafia tie in the bad shit they do as a government to it while yall allow their words supercede their actions which show this government is the communist terrorists.
This vaccine mandate for employment is being forced by who? The government, how very commie of them. Coupd go on but youd just argue it all so aint bousta waste that time
@VonDooche – “The government, how very commie of them” – Not getting any argument from me on that.
The N.H.L. owners and players union should have kept the roster insurance that they implemented throughout last season. With the roster insurance of a Covid-19 reserve list agreed upon and in place general managers wouldn’t be backed up against the wall with this current roster and cap limbo. The team owners have left their own managers of their own business at a disadvantage to find solutions in this tough but real environment. Owners and those who represent the employees of this business that are also the product of this business have failed in protecting the health and safety of the employee. There are a couple of players who have contracted this disease and it now has affected their hearts, their seasons are over according to team doctors. The players lose, management loses, the customer loses, and the owners lose. The interesting part is the whole industry has made the choice to be losers, but as long as owners are making money and the customer still goes to be entertained that seems to be all that matters. This reminds me of the Steely Dan line from the song “Kings” “And While We Sung His Name We All Went Hungry Just The Same”.
@Score314 – “…but as long as owners are making money and the customer still goes to be entertained…” – with fewer customers going to be entertained, to the tune of ~10-40% reduction in NHL barns. Sad state of the league in 2021-2022…
oops….
I heard mention by The Hockey Guy , last night in that plans are in works to bring back the Taxi Squads, which may help with the influx of all the players being place in Covid Protocal and rash of injuries , which I think it should have been kept with what is become chaotic for most or all teams this year, NHL needs to bring it back,
Teams should be allowed to dress local alumni.
Pens could send out an Errey Trottier Bourque line with Wregget in goal.
Troy Loney & Rod Buskas FTW!
I bet a hull, federko, and Pierre turgeon line could do some damage lol. Or even a mcdonald,kariya kelly chase line. Put Grant fuhr in goal or Darren pang!
@bighiggy – Holy Jumpin’!
Gino Cavallini, Brian Sutter, Tony Twist and Curtis Joseph in Goal
NHL and Buttman need to bring back the Taxi Squads so not only Blues with their depth and salary cap issues and future debacles for other teams in the near future
How is that under similar circumstances, the Islanders beg to suspend play and are granted a pause? What does Lou L have on the NHL brass? Perhaps Lou could just steal another player from another team instead? He’s done that before.