The CapFriendly roster make it simple....we place players on LTIR. Technically a player isn't on LTIR (for cap reasons ) till after the team reaches the cap limit. It's a more complicated of course when a player is on LTIR for two months.. But Horton for example. Let's say the Leafs sign all their players active23 players and are at 81m cap hit, Horton LTIR would be just 4.8m. But that the reason a team often can't pay it's performance bonus in the same year. They are at the cap limit with LTIR player so they HAVE to carryover the PB to the following year.
There seems to be silly argument that teams are cap punished for having injured players, I have never seen it yet, and I follow the oft injured Leafs with Horton, Lupul and Robidas with season ending injuries. Fact is the only reason there was the initial trade between the Leafs and Columbus with Horton and Clarkson trade is that the Leafs got cap relief for Horton's LTIR. Columbus didn't want to pay the uninsured Horton 27.5m out of pocket for not playing despite the possible cap relief. CBJ were happy to pay Clarkson 5.25m X 5 even though he was a 2m player. Remember Clarkson was not injured at the time.

To answer you question. Generally players are not on LTIR (for cap reasons) during the summer because teams have not spend to the cap yet...and maybe they get that 10% break till opening day.

They do count against the salary cap.

LTIR can allow a team to exceed the upper limit, the maximum they can exceed is the contracts AAV, and is determined the day they are placed on LTIR.

Please review the LTIR FAQ

A team can only exceed the 81.5M by the AAV of that player IF they were at 81.5M when the player was placed on LTIR am I right? If Ottawa has a LTIR player of 5M happen during the season and their cap was exactly 70M. Do they get to spend an additional 5M plus the 11.5M they were already not spending, if they wanted to?

First question: yes that's right

Ottawa example: if they are at a projected cap hit of $70M, they would never place a player on LTIR, their new 'upper limit', or what is called the ACSL in the LTIR FAQ, would be $70M, which makes no sense to do, as they don't need any cap relief. If they made a bunch of trade and were later at 80M, then a few players had a minor injury, and they needed to call up a few players and exceed the upper limit, assuming they place the player on LTIR when they currently have a projected cap hit of $80M, they'd be able to exceed the upper limit by: 'players cap hit' - (upper limit - teams cap hit). If it was a player with a cap hit of $5m it would be $3.5M in cap relief

Amazing. That's what I thought but there are so many people throwing their two cents about LTIR that its hard not to be sure.

Ok while I got you, two questions regarding LTIR:

-If a player was on LTIR during last year and has never been taken off and remains on LTIR during the offseason, does that team still only get the LTIR cushion from the previous seasons cap of 79M? Would they have to take him off and then place him on again (At the teams new cap amount) in order to get the added cushion from 79 > 81.5M?

- Can you give some real life examples of how some teams could benefit from trading players with LTIR statuses? For example Vegas right now with Clarkson and Toronto with Horton assuming they sign Marner right now to a 10M contract.


Edit: Wow what a coincidence with Clarkson and the Leafs!!

Sorry, had to add that interesting Clarkson trade.

1. Nope, they need to be replaced at the start of the season, on July 1 they are essentially removed from LTIR and will need to be replaced on LTIR at the beginning of the season (or during the offseason, but if they are placed during the offseason it is the same thing, they will need to be placed on LTIR at the beginning of the new season)

2. If the team is going to use LTIR anyway, so they aren't worried about the performance bonus overages, they may have a underperforming player they don't want, but could benefit another team better than a LTIR player being paid but not playing, one team gets LTIR relief, the other gets an underperforming player (this is the exact scenario for the Horton Clarkson trade a few years ago)

Perfect, that's what I thought!

What a coincidence with Clarkson and the Leafs right now.........So the understanding here is that Dubas won't put Clarkson and Horton on LTIR until they are done adding all these extra players so that they can get as close to 81.5M as possible, so that when they do sign Marner to the approx 10M contract, they'll be able to exceed the cap enough to accommodate him and still be cap compliant correct?

So, does having an injured player become a problem for teams' cap? Because it sounds like you're saying it lets them go above the cap by that amount, but it still counts against the cap. Isn't that basically the same as saying it doesn't count against the cap? I'm sure i'm still missing something here.

If they are at 85M in cap, and they place a 5M player on LTIR and get 3.5M in cap relief, could they still sign a player for 1.5M or less after putting the player on LTIR?

It depends on the teams mentallity and their cap room on how it becomes a problem. Think about it this way: if you are ottawa and have ample cap space, you just absorb the cap hit, you dont place the player on ltir because it hinders your cap room more to do so (See ACSL in LTIR FAQ). If you are Toronto: you want as little cap space as possible. get as close to the upper limit as possible before placing players on LTIR. LTIR is only relief, it isnt taking the players contract off the books, it just helps you be able to replace the player on your team. In many cases, teams dont spend up to the full relief amount, it just gives them more wiggle room to bring in better quality players. or more players if other players get banged up. For Toronto, they now can package horton and clarkson together for LTIR and spend 10+m over the 81.5 cap hit ONCE they have been placed on LTIR, this usually doesnt happen until the roster is essentially set to be able to maximize the amount of relief you can take advantage of. But again, referring back to banks statement about ACSL, the amount of actual relief and where you can spend to depends on what toronto's final cap space is. If toronto ends at 1m in cap space so they have 80.5 m. they can only get relief on the 10+ mill above this point. Since they have 1m in space they dont need relief from that amount.

the team cannot be at 85m in cap. they have to be at or under 81.5m in cap before being able to place the injured player on LTIR. You are allowed to be 10% over in the offseason but you cannot carry that 10% to the regular season.

So, are you saying that the whole thing about needing to place a player on LTIR after the season has started means you have to be under the cap when the season starts? I thought they could have put Horton and Clarkson on LTIR right when the season starts and then everything works out. But if they have to wait, then why did they make this deal? If Clarkson counts against the cap and they can't go over the cap until they're on LTIR, and they can't place them on LTIR before the start of the season, does that mean they have to make more trades? That's what i'm confused about.

Dont quote me here i may be wrong, as i read it, If you arent cap compliant on the first day of the league year. when you use the ltir for one of the players that players salary becomes fully utilized even if they dont spend to the entire amount. For toronto, the answer is no at this point A) because they can be cap compliant and sign marner after october 1st (might have actually been their plan all along who the hell knows). B) since their farm team is in toronto. they can leave hyman and dermott on the active roster until they place everyone on ltir and then can call up players to replace them BUT if you do that you still cant exceed that cap hit, its more likely that one more move is made but it is doable. just going to be interesting to see how they fit everyone in if marner does get his 10.5m deal. if its 8 they have plenty of room.

Its all a timing thing. Teams regardless of LTIR are given an extra 10% more cap to be able to make trades and sign players, etc during the offseason only. Once the season starts they'll need to be back at the 81.5M as the 10% cushion will be removed.

You can use LTIR in the offseason too, it doesn't only have to be used as soon as the season starts. So if they are at 81.5M right now exactly with Clarkson and Horton not on LTIR, then they'd just need to put those two guys on LTIR and they'd be able to go above the 81.5M cap by the amount of those two contracts. 5.25M+5.3M = 10.55M. Meaning if they were to sign Marner now for 10M for example, they'd be cap compliant for when the season starts.

There are other factors from all of this, i'm only generalizing for simplicity because getting any more into detail starts to be confusing even people who really into cap stuff. The main point is IF Marner signs right now for less than 10.55M they should be ok in terms of being cap complaint to start the year, when the 10% extra cap cushion is removed and teams have to be at 81.5M or less.

So, what was the point of the Clarkson trade for Toronto? Was it just to get that 4th round pick?

clarksons deal adds 5.25m to the ltir relief. also he is only getting 1m actual cash from toronto. so they are paying 1m cash and garret sparks for a 4th round pick and 5.25m in ltir cap flexibility.

So, does Toronto basically save cap space doing this?

depends on your definition of saving space. its more stretching the space than saving. IF marner signs, whatever he signs for will likely be the overage they have on their cap that will get mitigated by ltir. Really it saves space on sparks contract and allows them to bring in neuvirth.

Easy answer:

Without this trade, there was no way to sign Marner at anywhere between approx 5.5-10.5M. (Without trading other players to make it work.)
With this trade, Leafs can at least sign Marner to max 10.5M and be cap complaint dor the start of the year. (They don't have to trade anyone else)

They still do have to sign Marner though so it doesn't solve anything there and if it drags on into the season, his cap gets harder to fit in. (The same reason Nylander had a cap hit of 10M last year when he finally signed instead of the actual 6.9 he signed for)

Another Question: Does TOR need to place both Horton and Clarkson on LTIR before signing Marner? Obviously, Marner's new cap hit will result in an overall team cap hit in excess of 10% of the upper limit.

It would need to be a corresponding move, if they didnt put them on ltir before signing him. if they signed him they would also immediately have to move those players to ltir so it sort of goes hand in hand.

Thx. This brings up an excellent point that they essentially have to sign Marner before the season starts. With their projected cap hit they can't afford a repeat of what happened last season w/ Nylander. I just don't understand what Marner is holding out for at this point. How much is he really after? How many years? The next CBA should just allow salary arbitration for all RFA's to avoid these ridiculous holdouts. I wouldn't be surprised if Marner was looking for at least Panarin money, possibly even on a shorter deal.

There's this whole thing about ACSL and maximizing cap which frankly is what confuses people the most and rightfully so. Lets just keep things simple for us simple folk. They want to Marner to sign as soon as a possible at the expected 10-10.5M cap hit. The longer it takes and higher that number ends up being the harder it is for the Leafs. (Sort of)

Aho got 8.5M-ish ... does that mean Marner's worth 8M? But he still thinks he's as good as Matthews.

So, what are the basics of LTIR? I've tried reading the LTIR FAQ page on CF many times but i'm so confused still.