The Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins are among the NHL teams performing gymnastics to reach salary cap compliance for opening day.
We’ve finally arrived at the NHL's opening day in North America, which meant teams had to get their final rosters cap-compliant and submitted on Monday.
GMs made flurries of waiver moves in the past week, and some squads either used the long-term injury reserve or undermanned their opening night rosters to maneuver their way to agree with the cap.
Here are some NHL teams that performed gymnastics to get cap-compliant rosters. All figures are according to PuckPedia. Click on each team name in bold for their lineup, courtesy of The Hockey News' Lineups site.
Washington Capitals
After barely squeaking into the playoffs last season, the Capitals spent big in the off-season, acquiring Pierre-Luc Dubois, Logan Thompson, Jakob Chychrun, Andrew Mangiapane, Brandon Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh.
They even signed PTO signee Jakub Vrana to a one-year, $775,000 deal on Tuesday. They were a projected $9.03 million over the cap, but that's before factoring in two big moves.
Veterans Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie’s contracts – worth $9.2 million and $5.75 million per year, respectively – are now on LTIR, according to the Capitals' opening night roster list, and are expected to be there for the year. Their combined $14.95-million cap hit going into the LTIR pool gives the Capitals enough cap space as a result.
Toronto Maple Leafs
An annual tradition, the Leafs are once again one of the most cap-strapped clubs at a projected $4.34 million over the ceiling.
Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving sent Easton Cowan back to the OHL’s London Knights for one last junior season while placing Fraser Minten on season-opening injury reserve. Minten suffered a high-ankle sprain in September that allows his cap hit to be pro-rated to just $76,662.
Throw in Calle Jarnkrok, Jani Hakanpaa and Dakota Mermis on LTIR, and Toronto is compliant by $1 factoring in their long-term injury exemption. Unless they expect all those players to be injured for the year, which is unlikely, they'll have to make more transactions at some point and possibly a trade.
Pittsburgh Penguins
The Penguins were a projected $821,000 over the salary cap ceiling, but GM Kyle Dubas made a flurry of moves onto the injury reserve Monday. Blake Lizotte, Alex Nedeljkovic and Bryan Rust went to the IR, while Matt Nieto was moved to LTIR.
Vasily Ponomarev is on the season-opening injury reserve due to an injury sustained in the pre-season against the Detroit Red Wings.
Dubas also placed off-season signings Bokondji Imama and defenseman Sebastian Aho on waivers Sunday. Their season-opening roster has 22 of a possible 23 players.
It certainly isn’t the most ideal cap situation for a self-proclaimed playoff contender that hasn’t made the post-season in two years, but at least Sidney Crosby’s cap hit stays the same next year.
Carolina Hurricanes
Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky is rolling out a 22-man roster for opening night.
Carolina placed Jesper Fast, Riley Stillman and Joakim Ryan on the injured non-roster list on Monday. Fast is expected to miss the season with a neck injury, while Stillman and Ryan have unspecified injuries and timelines. They reportedly have $3 in cap space as a result, according to PuckPedia. When needed, they can put Fast's $2.4-million cap hit on LTIR.
The Hurricanes also assigned Josiah Slavin, Jackson Blake, Ty Smith and Ryan Suzuki to the AHL’s Chicago Wolves. However, Blake is waiver-exempt and could find his way back to the Canes lineup if they made a move to fit him in.
Colorado Avalanche
There are many LTIR implications for the Avalanche, and even more so after dealing Erik Brannstrom to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for the injured Tucker Poolman.
Gabriel Landeskog and Arturri Lekhonen reportedly start the season on the IR but could eventually go to the LTIR with Poolman if necessary. Valeri Nichushkin reportedly does not count on the cap hit while he's suspended without pay until at least mid-November in the third stage of the NHL and NHLPA Player Assistance Program.
The wise move was naming Chris Wagner to the opening night roster, as he makes the Avs compliant in order to later bring up Ivan Ivan and Nikolai Kovalenko, who had the inside track on NHL jobs but were assigned to the AHL’s Colorado Eagles.
Seattle Kraken
Of all the teams listed here, Seattle may have had the tidiest business. Their roster brings them almost right up to the cap ceiling without any players on injured reserve and no dead cap hits. Most of their cap gymnastics came earlier in the off-season when bringing on free agents and re-signing others. (Brandon Montour and Matty Beniers have new seven-year contracts worth $50 million in total, but the cap hit for each comes to $7,142,857. That's not exactly the prettiest number to work with. Give the team credit.)
With no LTIR needed to get under the cap in the foreseeable future, the Kraken are eligible to accrue cap space, which could be a major asset if they’re in a position to make a playoff push come the trade deadline.
However, Seattle only has 21 of a possible 23 players slotted in their lineup, so we should expect some shakeups to get more players under the cap.
New York Islanders
Putting Pierre Engvall through waivers serves its purpose here, but only minorly, as the Isles gain $1.15 million in cap relief from him clearing waivers.
There’s a decent chance he stays in the minors, as there wouldn't be enough space at the moment to bring him back up.
Aside from Engvall, everything else is looking pretty tidy for the underdog Isles.
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