The NHL on Monday moved to close a loophole left in the allegedly airtight collective bargaining agreement by notifying general managers the league would deem re-signing a player following a trade and a subsequent amnesty buyout as circumvention, and thus would not register the contract, The Post has learned.

It is believed the Lightning and Maple Leafs had discussed such a maneuver regarding Vincent Lecavalier, who has seven years and $45 million remaining on his contract, with the buyout thus worth slightly more than $30 million.

The amnesty buyout period begins Wednesday night at 11:00, and lasts through July 4, one day before the opening of this year’s free agent market.

The clubs theoretically would have concocted a swap in which Tampa Bay would have sent an asset — perhaps a draft pick — to rolling-in-dough Toronto along with Lecavalier, who would have re-signed a more modest deal with the Lightning after being bought out by the Leafs.

Such a scheme would have saved Tampa Bay’s ownership a substantial sum while easing a cap squeeze for general manager Steve Yzerman, whose club currently faces a charge of $7.727 million per for Lecavalier through 2019-20 and the danger of significant cap-recapture penalties should No. 4 retire while still under contract.

The Leafs would have received an asset while the 33-year-old Lecavalier would at least have been made whole. It would have been a win-win-win situation … but the NHL obviously perceived this — or any similar scheme — as a loss for the integrity of the labor agreement spawned by Owners’ Lockout III.

It is unknown whether the Lightning will amnesty Lecavalier on their own. Players who are bought out cannot be re-signed by their original clubs for one year. That is part of the CBA.

* Anyone and everyone marveled at how the Blackhawks and Bruins went above and beyond the call of duty in the Blood ’n Guts Stanley Cup Final that did the athletes proud.

This was great theatre, if not always great hockey, that culminated in Boston on Monday with the jaw-dropping finish — in which Chicago struck twice within 17 seconds in the final 1:16 to turn a 2-1 deficit and a looming trip back home for Game 7 into a 3-2 clinching victory and a second championship celebration in four years.

But while appreciating the profiles in courage cast by the players onto the North American consciousness, the physical toll extracted by the demands of the tournament — and the NHL’s failure to apply the rule book — wreaked havoc on the product.

But the casualties of what the league loves to promote as a “war of attrition” were manifest. Patrice Bergeron played the final game with a broken rib, torn cartilage and a separated shoulder. Marian Hossa, who missed Game 3, played through a bulging disc that caused numbness in one leg. Bryan Bickell, who scored the tying goal with 1:16 to play on Monday, sustained a Grade 2 knee sprain in the conference finals against the Kings.

Zdeno Chara played through an unidentified injury that rendered him ineffective by the end of the series, for which he was on the ice for nine of Chicago’s final 12 goals. Jaromir Jagr was compromised by an undisclosed injury that limited No. 68 to 6:27 of ice on Monday. Michal Handzus is believed to have played with a broken wrist. Nathan Horton likely had a separated shoulder.

It’s the nature of the beast that features four best-of-sevens, but it’s also a by-product of unstated league playoff policy that allows, and thus encourages, physical beat-downs at every goalmouth scrum, cross-checks all over the ice, wrestling after every whistle and blows to the head that go unpunished.

It takes its toll, and the toll is on the level of artistry — a term that somehow has become a pejorative in hockey circles — that’s presented as the playoffs evolve.

* Finally, you have to have elevating talent such as that owned by Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane to win the Cup, but you also have to have size, and plenty of it.

Which is to say the Rangers aren’t as close as they think.