Golden Knights General Manager Defends Use Of LTIR Following Mark Stone Injury

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Graham Montgomery
March 11, 2024 (7:48 PM)

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The Vegas Golden Knights have become comic book-like villains in the NHL. Their use of LTIR to get around the salary cap has raised many eyebrows across the league. Today general manager Kelly McCrimmon addressed this issue.

McCrimmon Defends use Of LTIR With Mark Stone

The Golden Knights GM talked about Mark Stone on the Jeff Marek show this morning. He addressed the captain's injury while trying to convince fans and media members alike that the team is fully operating within the NHL's rules when it comes to LTIR. He made sure to add that Stone's injury is fully legitimate.

"Google 'lacerated spleen' and see if you can tell when a player is going to be back. It's ridiculous to suggest that these weren't significant injuries or aren't significant injuries. Furthermore, the National Hockey League polices all of this. The rules are the rules, the NHL watches this very carefully."

He also talked about the moves he was able to make, both last year and this year, thanks to cap relief from LTIR. He went a step further saying that he wouldn't have been doing his job if he didn't take advantage of those situations.

"Last year ... we acquired Ivan Barbashev, Jonathan Quick, and Teddy Blueger (at the deadline). I would suggest to you we probably could have acquired all three players without Mark Stone's LTIR. This year, it happened that there were opportunities available to use that space, so that's what we did. The flip side is to have $9.5 million of LTIR space as a general manager and sit on your hands, and I don't think that's doing our job the way that we should."

All of that being said, many fans still are not buying the story with Stone and the team's LTIR strategy in general.

Fans Call Out Golden Knights For Questionable LTIR Moves

While it must be emphasized that Stone's injury is legitimate, many fans simply are not buying it due to his injury history. It must be said that his injuries have come at a convenient time for the team as both of his latest major injuries came right before the trade deadline. As such, fans ae not happy.

That being said, this is very likely just a coincidence. Albeit a happy coincidence for the Golden Knights, who are now set up to win a second consecutive Stanley Cup. For the rest of the league, we will just have to deal with this nonsense another year. As it stands though, Vegas could very well miss the playoffs as they currently hold the 2nd wildcard spot. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking to imagine the team missing the cutoff though.

As seen on Vegas GM: 'Ridiculous to suggest' our injuries aren't serious