Leave it to Toronto. The Maple Leafs have been the hairy asshole of the NHL for the better part of a century now, yet they continue to claim themselves as some kind of important, historic NHL organization. The media that covers the team has ruined hockey coverage. Their fans ruined hockey Twitter. And now, after years of exploiting the ever-living shit of the LTIR cap exception, the team may have just managed to screw things up for the whole league in that regard.

The Leafs are hardly the only team to have circumvented the salary cap with the LTIR exception, but they’re without a doubt the worst offender. Because Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment essentially prints Loonies (which is probably a down market at this point in and of itself), they’ve been unafraid to write checks to players that they have no intent on playing. Hell, they traded for Nathan Horton for the sole purpose of getting LTIR relief, and more recently have been keeping an apparently entirely healthy Joffrey Lupul off the ice for the cap relief and to make room for the New Kids From The Block cover band that makes up their forward group.