Vegas Golden Knights accused of cheating the salary cap yet again

Vegas yet again puts a star player on LTIR, and hockey fans are responding with negativity and disbelief.

In 2023, the Vegas Golden Knights placed forward Mark Stone on LTIR, giving them an additional $9.5 million in cap space. This gave VGK insane flexibility during the trade deadline, and he suspiciously came back during playoffs.




This isn't the first time these conspiracies have arisen, in 2021 Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov was placed on LTIR for the majority of the season and came back during playoffs. As GM's are aware that the cap rules are different during playoffs.


The league is receiving backlash from not preventing this «loophole» for GM's to use. Which is totally acceptable considering it is becoming a repeated offence. This would allow Vegas to look at players such as Jake Guentzel, Noah Hanifin, Vladimir Tarasenko, and more.

As we know, Garry Bettman does not like to fix the NHL's obvious problems. But something along the lines of not allowing LTIR players to return just for playoffs should be done. Which could involve changing cap rules in general.