Once again, a NHL team has found a way to subvert the rules and cheat the salary cap. Even worse, it is in a way that doesn’t even make the team better, it actually helps the team screw over the players by avoiding paying them.
What happened? Well, the New York Islanders traded a conditional draft pick to the Boston Bruins for goaltender Tim Thomas. Yes, the same Tim Thomas who is spending this entire season holed up at his house in Colorado with his family trying to avoid doomsday or something.
What’s so wrong about that? Well the $5 million that Thomas is due in salary won’t be paid, but it will count against the Islanders’ cap. That means that New York won’t be below the salary cap floor – the supposed minimum a team can spend on salary in a season.
Didn’t the league just go through a four-month lockout to get rid of these sorts of loopholes? This is pretty ridiculous.
So now the Isles have dodged paying for actual guys that will suit up for them. They’ve dodged paying money to their talent, even though a lucrative move to Brooklyn is just a few seasons away.
It’s yet another reason how the NHL is messed up and yet another reason why fans shouldn’t be blindly buying back into this league’s garbage.
Want a good way to police the salary cap in the NHL? How about however much your active roster is making per season, that’s your cap number! Or is that too simple for a league run by Gary Bettman to actually comprehend.
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