The Sports Villain Edition

Surjan Singh (SS) is a mechanical engineer. He writes at An Engineering Self-Study and previously published the excellent Stiffness Edition and Engineering Safety Edition.

Surjan here. A few weeks ago in Dallas, 18,000 men, women, and children relentlessly booed a man, all because of his timely recovery from a lacerated spleen.

Why is this interesting?

In each NHL playoff season, a player emerges that everyone loves to hate. Usually, the catalyst is a dangerous hit or a breach of unwritten rules, like licking your opponents or turning your back to the play to screen the goalie. But this year, the subject of this hatred was Mark Stone, captain of the Vegas Golden Knights, whose only crime (besides using an absurd amount of tape on the knob of his hockey stick) was the timing of his injury and subsequent recovery.

Mark Stone squints to better hear a question amidst the boos

In an attempt to maintain competitive balance between its teams, the NHL uses a salary cap, limiting the amount of money a team can spend on its players. By lacerating his spleen, Mark Stone was eligible to be signed as a long term injured reserve (LTIR), a category that  allows a team to exceed the salary cap. 

Normally, this makes sense. If $5M of hockey player is injured and unable to play, a team gets to add $5M more of hockey player to stay competitive. But of course, as with any rule in a sporting context, someone found a loophole.

The loophole relies on the fact that there’s no salary cap in the playoffs (because of complications like the removal of roster limits and players not getting a salary during the postseason). In practice, it goes something like this: a player gets injured during the regular season, before the trade deadline. The GM of the team puts him on LTIR and uses that salary cap space to add another player. The injured player then returns for Game 1 of the playoffs, joining a team that wouldn’t be salary cap compliant in the regular season.

This loophole has been used before – the 2015 Chicago Blackhawks and 2021 Tampa Bay Lightning are two Stanley Cup-winning examples – but Mark Stone’s recent history speaks for itself.

From Defector

Do I think the injuries are faked? No. Do I think the recovery timelines were massaged? It just makes too much sense. But every playoff needs a good heel, and I enjoyed booing the Golden Knights from my couch – especially because they made me care about accounting. (SS)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Surjan (SS)

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