NHL warns teams against attempting to acquire injured players ahead of playoffs

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Almost at the finish line. Just three days to the NHL’s March 3 trade deadline. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered at Daily Faceoff with at least one trade-focused story each day leading up to the deadline.

Today: the NHL throws a curveball at teams looking to get cute with players whose injury timelines could stretch until the end of the regular season.

NHL Trade Deadline Countdown: 3 days

The NHL issued a memorandum to all 32 GMs on Tuesday morning, advising them that acquiring injured players ahead of Friday’s trade deadline with the intent to stash them on LTIR until the playoffs will be “closely scrutinized” for salary cap circumvention.

Two players in particular, Columbus’ Gustav Nyquist and Anaheim’s Adam Henrique, are currently injured with timelines that may bump up against the end of the regular season. Both had generated interest from teams in recent days as potential trade deadline acquisitions.

The memo would likely prevent either player from being acquired before Friday unless the acquiring team had full confidence that they could be activated prior to the end of the regular season and they had the salary cap space to activate them.

Tuesday’s warning shot essentially closes a loophole opened by the Toronto Maple Leafs when they acquired Riley Nash from Columbus on April 9, 2021 for a 2022 6th Round Pick.

Nash, then 31, was injured and the Maple Leafs knew then that he would be out until the playoffs – when no salary cap is in place. So the Maple Leafs essentially acquired a player free of salary cap consequences, as when they traded for him he was placed on LTIR and made a cap neutral transaction. Nash was then activated for two of Toronto’s playoff games in their first-round loss to the Montréal Canadiens.

Teams using the salary cap’s LTIR exception with regards to roster manipulation for the Stanley Cup playoffs has been a hot-button issue in the NHL for the past few seasons. The memo does not address the oft-criticized usage of LTIR space to acquire players, only to then activate that injured player during the playoffs – like the Tampa Bay Lightning did with Nikita Kucherov in 2021.

The Colorado Avalanche may attempt to do the same with captain Gabriel Landeskog this season. Landeskog underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on Oct. 18 and the team reported he was expected to miss 12 weeks, which would peg his timeline to return somewhere around Jan. 10.

Instead, Landeskog has not played this season. He only recently resumed skating as cameras captured him at the Avs’ practice facility last week. Now, with only six weeks remaining in the regular season after Friday’s deadline, it’s possible that Landeskog does not return until the playoffs – and the Avalanche would theoretically still have the possibility to use his $7 million in cap space to acquire other players to beef up for the postseason.

Here is the full text of Tuesday’s memo:

“It has been brought to our attention that one or more Clubs may be contemplating entering into trades where a Club would acquire an injured Player with the intention of subsequently requesting a Long-Term Injury exception for such acquired Player due to an injury that existed prior to such trade.

“Please be advised that the League intends to closely scrutinize any such transactions, particularly where: (1) the acquiring Club does not intend to (and/or does not) retain sufficient Payroll Room to activate and place any such injured Player(s) on its Active Roster prior to the conclusion of the Regular Season; and (2) the acquiring Club intends to seek (and/or subsequently seeks) to activate any such Player(s) during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. To the extent such scrutiny, and the results of any investigation (if deemed necessary), determines the opinion of the League Office that such transaction constitutes a circumvention of the CBA, the League would intend to pursue appropriate penalties and/or remedies as are set forth in CBA Article 26.”

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