Head coach Jared Bednar said his opening roster is set and the team will go with 21 active players.
Brad Hunt and Jack Ahcan were put on waivers Saturday, cleared Sunday and have been reassigned to the Colorado Eagles. Ben Meyers and Sam Malinski have also been reassigned to the AHL team, while Riley Tufte has been placed on waivers.
Head coach Jared Bednar said Fredrik Olofsson will be in the fourth-line center spot and the roster is at 28 players as of Sunday afternoon. However, there are seven players currently injured, making it a 21-active-player roster.
"We brought him in because that's where the hole is — fourth-line center spot. We want that player to be responsible checker, someone that fits in with Cogs (Andrew Cogliano) and LOC (Logan O'Connor)," Bednar said after practice at Ball Arena on Sunday. "Also penalty killing aspect ... we want those guys to be able to get extra minutes on the penalty kill and he's looked really good."
Gabriel Landeskog announced in the offseason that he would miss the entire 2023-24 regular season. That qualifies him and his salary to be on long-term injured reserve, or LTIR, which means management has some wiggle room with player signings.
What exactly is LTIR?
According to PuckPedia, long-term injured reserve is:
When a player is injured and expected to miss at least 10 NHL games AND 24 days of the NHL regular season, they are eligible for placement on LTIR. While a player is on LTIR, their team may exceed the salary cap.
Despite the common misconception, a player on LTIR does not have their cap hit removed from the team’s cap total. LTIR allows the team to potentially exceed the cap by an amount commonly referred to as the 'LTIR Pool.'
With Landeskog's situation, that means if the team is under the cap prior to placing him on LTIR, then the LTIR pool is Landeskog’s cap hit minus the team cap space available at the time.
Pavel Francouz is another possible candidate for the LTIR pool. His $2 million and Landeskog's $7 million would free up $9 million total. According to PuckPedia, Colorado could have built a roster of 23 healthy players that would've been $8.9 million over the cap, but would have included Riley Tufte and Sam Malinski, and either Andrew Cogliano or Ben Meyers beginning the season on injured reserve.
Since Meyers and Malinski have been sent to the Eagles, the active-player roster comes in under the salary cap even without Landeskog and Francouz on LTIR yet.
While Bednar said he is confident with Justus Annunen as his backup goalie, there is some room for the team to pick up another veteran goaltender if Francouz remains out for an extended period of time.