?Fred wrote:This rule ie call ups being returned immediately doesn't really matter in the East, most teams have their farms teams either close by or in the case of TO in the same city. But in the West it's a huge obstacle. The assignment should be the factor not the travel required. The rule is from the last century
The rule is fairly new and is supposed to stop teams from placing all their players on the farm for the playoffs once the NHL team is out.
No matter what the rule, Edmonton management is unable to figure it out while the 29 other teams can.
Now, it’s not clear what, exactly, Lowe is talking about. It sounds like he’s talking about the clear day roster rule in the AHL – that’s the rule that prevents teams from sending six or eight players down at the end of the season. If you aren’t on the clear day roster, you can’t play. But that’s not really the issue here – the issue here is the fact that the Oilers are limited to four recalls post trade deadline. That’s why MPS wasn’t allowed to play. I think that’s the rule that GMs are up in arms about – Brian Burke was all upset about that immediately post trade deadline.
Of course, the Oilers burned one of those recalls doing a paper recall with MPS, in which they were effectively trying to game the AHL rules and do what the clear day rule is designed to prevent. So I’ve literally no idea what Lowe’s point is here. The AHL rules are intended to try and make sure that AHLers are the ones play in the AHL playoffs by limiting eligibility to those who were on AHL rosters towards the end of the year. There’s a dodge, the paper demotion/recall, which comes with a cost of burning one of the recalls that the NHL CBA permits you. The Oilers incurred this cost with MPS and then, apparently, were stunned when the bill came due.
It’s hard to overstate how stupid this defence is. It’s tantamount to saying “Well, we were totally aware of the rules, we just thought that they were stupid and therefore inapplicable.” This is the dumbest defence possible. “We had no idea that there were any rules whatsoever and it never occurred to us to ask” would be a better defence. I don’t understand how the Oilers could possibly have thought that this recall was permissible, based on what Lowe’s said.