What?

Can’t see the leafs running a 23 man roster to start the season. The rest looks good though.

Y not

This is exactly what they’re going to do and maybe even pick up Clarkson in Vegas. That’s optimization

This is only how they could break camp potentially. Gives them as close to the full 5.3 of Horton's LTIR as possible. From that point, they have it for the rest of the season, then they can trim down to 21 or so for a few days into the season. In that sense, they can have about 1 mil in flexibility to make the roster moves they need to make. Also doesn't account for Dermott (and maybe Hyman) being out to start, who can also be put on LTIR if need be.

IMO the lineup is going to close to that. But why do folks keep on mentioning Horton and his LTIR. He's on LTIR for the season. Period. Has nothing to do with optimizing the cap. Horton doesn't hurt or help the Leafs cap. Just like Clarkson. He's on permanent LTIR. He doesn't hurt or help Vegas's cap at all.

It's understood that Horton will be on LTIR, that's not up for debate. He hasn't been placed yet, because it doesn't make sense to. I mention him to clarify that you don't just get 5.3 in extra cap - you can go up to 5.3 over the cap after you place him on LTIR. So if the Leafs are only 4.5 mil over at the time he goes on there, that's the extra cap they have to deal with for the season. They can't then go later and use the extra $800k. They need to get as close to 5.3 over as possible if they want to maximize their flexibility.

Pridham wrote the cba. Leafs will have no issue getting full Relief. In fact I haven’t seen any team not work the contracts right to get full relief.

Oh and your calculations are wrong. That is not how ACSL is determined.