The Joffrey Lupul allegations could have serious ramifications, and not only for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Just three days after the NHL team announced that Lupul had failed his training camp physical for the second year in a row, Lupul posted a photo of himself snowboarding to his verified Instagram account.
One of his followers asked about his failed physical, to which the 33-year-old Lupul responded, “Haha failed physical? They (Leafs) cheat, everyone lets them.”
Later Sunday night, Lupul’s cheating comment was deleted.
Lupul is entering the final season of a five-year, $26.25-million contract with Toronto and has said in the past that he’d like to keep playing.
But the oft-injured winger hasn’t played for Toronto since Feb. 6, 2016 and is currently on the team’s long-term injured reserve list.
That list allows the Leafs and every other NHL team to continue to pay their injured players but not have their contracts count against the salary cap.
However, if a player on that list isn’t injured then we have an issue.
It could force the NHL to look at the Leafs’ LTIR list and that of every other team, and perhaps hire a team of independent doctors to examine every player.
That’s a costly venture, but it may be the only way to stop any possibility of cheating.
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