Can you have no scratches and all taxi squad like that? Is the Taxi Squad exempt from waivers? There's got to be a reason that this setup won't work, right?

I think realistically Johnson or Killorn will still need to be moved

Tampa Bay’s still going to finish 1st in their division, and they’re able to bring everyone back from the cup winning team last year. If there aren’t any long term effects of Kucherov’s injury and if he’s back by the conference finals, this could easily propel the Lightning to another Stanley Cup.

They would have to pass waivers. I doubt Cobourn would get claimed as similarly with Rutta as they are more fringe NHL defensemen making more than a million. I don’t know about the scratches I’ve heard Dubas talking about running a 20 man roster this season

Dubas had mentioned that before taxi squad was announced. They do have the room and players to run a 20 man roster and accrue space.

The issue I see with this setup is any sort of short term injury means you can moult afford to bring anyone up from the taxi squad. Also anyone brought up to play would have to be within 500k of the player being moved out and they would need to clear waivers and be sent to the taxi squad.

This is bad planning as if say someone like Point/Stamkos could a little damaged and need to miss a game or two but not bad enough to miss 5 games required to go onto IR, you don't have the ability to bring someone up to cover their spot. You need to be able to carry atleast 21 players (cap wise).... then you can run a 20 man roster accrue capspace and move a player up as needed and pray that you never have more than one player banged up at a time. Of course this also locks you into playing the same players night in night out and in a shortened season that isn't optimal.

Exactly! In a shortened season of 3-4 games a week, EVERY week, there will be tons of small injuries, say 1-5 game injuries, bruises, strains, etc... (2 days to less than 2 weeks), to not even have enough space to carry a 19th skater, or the ability to call up an 18th skater is a disaster waiting to happen.