While only a handful of teams project to need cap relief via long-term injured reserve to open the season, multiple candidates across the league might technically qualify for a placement. Doing so would bar the player from returning until Oct. 31 at the earliest – 24 days from the season start date of Oct. 7.
Avalanche: Logan O’Connor
O’Connor underwent hip surgery in early June. Given the five-to-six-month projected recovery window, he won’t be available until early November at best, putting him past the 10-game/24-day threshold required for LTIR. Colorado, which has $2.10MM in current cap space, will likely place O’Connor on standard IR if they don’t make any other cap-affecting moves between now and October. If they need the relief, though, they could create up to O’Connor’s $2.5MM cap hit in cushion for the first few weeks of the season if they need it.
Blues: Torey Krug
St. Louis general manager Doug Armstrong announced in May that Krug’s career is done because of pre-arthritic conditions in his left ankle that surgical intervention only slowly corrected. Since the Blues only have around $625K in cap space, Krug and his $6.5MM cap hit will be going on LTIR as soon as they need the flexibility for a call-up.
Canadiens: Carey Price
What’s certain is that Price won’t play this season or ever again. He’s entering the final season of his contract at a $10.5MM cap hit after confirming nearly two years ago that his knee injury would prohibit him from suiting up again. What’s uncertain is whether or not he’ll begin the season on LTIR. Montreal isn’t in a great position to optimize its LTIR relief, either by matching his cap hit in excess or getting down to $0 in space before placing him on the list. That’s made his contract a trade chip for teams who might need the relief more.
Devils: Johnathan Kovacevic
Kovacevic underwent knee surgery in early May and won’t be ready for training camp and likely opening night as well. Whether that stretches past Oct. 31 and makes him eligible for an LTIR placement if New Jersey needs cap relief early on remains to be seen.
Flyers: Ryan Ellis, Rasmus Ristolainen
Ellis’ career is over after sustaining a wide-ranging muscular injury in his pelvis just four games into his Flyers tenure in 2021. Ristolainen underwent a procedure on his right triceps tendon on March 26 with a six-month recovery time, putting him right on the edge of potential LTIR eligibility. Philly will have a better idea of the latter’s LTIR deployment potential after he undergoes his training camp physical. With $370K in cap space, they’re in a good position for near-max LTIR capture and will almost certainly at least place Ellis there to begin the year to give them call-up flexibility.
Golden Knights: Alex Pietrangelo
Pietrangelo is already on offseason LTIR, meaning the Knights actually still have to add an additional $1.2MM to their roster before opening night to optimize his capture and unlock his full $8.8MM cap hit’s worth of relief for this season. The team confirmed he requires multiple undisclosed but significant surgeries that will likely mark the end of his playing career, but it’s unclear if he’s actually had them done yet.
Jets: Adam Lowry
Lowry underwent hip surgery in late May and won’t be available until after Thanksgiving at the earliest. Winnipeg likely won’t be formalizing an LTIR placement with nearly $4MM in cap space, though.
Mammoth: Juuso Välimäki
Välimäki underwent ACL surgery in early March. He likely won’t end up on LTIR given Utah’s current cap flexibility ($6.68MM), but he’ll be out until at least early November so he’ll be there as an early-season option in case they need relief for whatever reason.
Oilers: Zach Hyman
Hyman’s inclusion here is on the speculative side. The winger could very well be ready for the start of the season. However, there hasn’t been much clarity on how much recovery he still needs after undergoing surgery to repair a severe wrist injury that kept him out of the Stanley Cup Final. A report in early June indicated there was uncertainty about his status for training camp, with no meaningful updates since then.
Panthers: Matthew Tkachuk
Tkachuk told ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski earlier this month that he’s still deciding whether he wants to undergo surgery to address the adductor issue that hampered him down the stretch and in the playoffs after sustaining it at the 4 Nations Face-Off. All signs point to him opting for it and spending the next two to three months on the shelf as a result, though. Placing him on LTIR is the only way the Panthers, who currently have a cap exceedance of $3.725MM, can be compliant to start the season without shedding a significant contract, something they aren’t keen to do.
Wild: Jonas Brodin
Minnesota has $9.41MM in cap space, but that number will shrink once they re-sign restricted free agent Marco Rossi (or add salary while trading his signing rights). Neither scenario will likely push them into a situation where they need to use LTIR relief, but they might have Brodin and his $6MM cap hit as an option for some short-term flexibility if required. He underwent an upper-body procedure in early June and is questionable for the beginning of the season, so it’s not yet clear if he’ll miss enough time to qualify.
So all of these injuries help teams get below the cap to start the season or reduce their cap hit to start the season. Are they eligible for reducing those caps without a day 1 drop below the cap or do they have to find another way to dip below for 5 minutes as the league registers their lineups, or do they need to find another way?
Depends. There are two ways to use LTIR. You can do as you mentioned, get below the cap (as close to $0) as possible. Then, after submitting opening night roster, place the player on LTIR and you get a relief amount equal to the player’s cap hit minus available cap space.
Second is you use offseason LTIR – what Vegas is doing with Pietrangelo – and submit your opening night roster so that it exceeds the cap as close as possible to the total LTIR cap hit but not more than it.