Golden Knights place Tomas Hertl on long-term injury reserve

Beyond anyone's comprehension since entering the National Hockey League in 2017, the Vegas Golden Knights and General Manager Kelly McCrimmon have found a way to circumnavigate the salary cap by continuously finding reasons and ways to put their players on LTIR, and as the 2023–2024 playoffs approach, it appears that they have done it again, albeit temporarily, as they have placed recently acquired Tomas Hertl on it so they can recall goaltender Jiri Patera on an emergency basis.

With this most recent transaction, the Golden Knights have a total of $21,250,000 buried in LTIR, with an overall projected cap hit north of $98 million.


This circumstance is currently okay by National Hockey League rules and regulations; however, moving forward, it may be advisable that the league look into this and change anything that would allow a team to figure out a way to skirt the system and use it to their advantage because it's become ridiculous.


Gary Bettman and his band of merry men in New York should be under pressure for a litany of issues. Somehow everyone needs to get into a room to hatch out a plan so that the Vegas Golden Knights, along with every other team that has found a way to use this loophole moving forward, are unable too, so that fans can hope that this will change, but deep down they all know, it won't