from Michael Traikos of the National Post,

Julien BriseBois knows how it looks, knows what people are saying.

How the Tampa Bay Lightning are exploiting the system. How they are going against the spirit of the salary cap. How they got to the Stanley Cup semifinal by basically cheating.

It all stems from the curious timing of Nikita Kucherov’s return from off-season surgery — and how Tampa Bay’s GM used the season-long absence of his superstar player to bolster an already star-studded roster. By placing Kucherov on long-term injury, the team did not have put his $9.5-million cap hit on the books. That not only allowed the Lightning to keep last year’s championship roster mostly intact, but also provided them the space to acquire defenceman David Savard at the trade deadline.

“Sometimes the stars align for you,” BriseBois said of Kucherov, who since returning from injury leads the playoffs with 18 points in 11 games.

Others, however, are not so sure everything is on the up and up. Some have accused the Tampa Bay of holding back Kucherov for the start of the playoffs, where his cap doesn’t count. Some have insinuated that the Lightning, which has long benefitted from Florida’s tax breaks, of playing by a different set of rules.

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