I don’t see how a 20 man roster with 200k cap space is going to work

Nice 20 man roster.

First off it's a league minimum 22 man roster, Or a league maximum 23 man roster.

You've 0 cap space in case of injuries. Yeah this should go over well.

Easy, turn off injury’s and we’re chilling.

Emergency call up exists I believe so just play a game with 19 skaters.

Also I believe it’s a 20 man minimum. Did they change the rules recently because last year teams went into the year with 20 men rosters and before the taxi squad existed, teams also ran 20 man rosters.

Sorry man that's not how it works, You still have to have a minimum of 22 skaters at the very least. Emergency call ups do no good if you don't have the money back for the players you're calling up. You just can't use an emergency call up if you don't have the money to pay those players.

No teams have to have scratches for injury replacement, How can you go into the season with a 20 man roster then all of a sudden get multiple injuries? Teams at the beginning of the season have to have a 23 man roster and be cap compliant. After the season begins then yeah you can go with a 20 man roster if you want.

This is blatantly false

There were more than a couple teams who started last year with 21 man rosters.

Can you please give me a source for the 22 man roster. I have never seen anything about that. And as for the emergency call up system, here is a description from what the penguins did in 2019:
“Emergency conditions apply when a team “is reduced below the level of two goalkeepers, six defensemen and 12 forwards,” per the CBA.

A team must be able to provide proof of their emergency situation to the league when requested.

This means that even if a team has enough players to dress, say, seven defenseman and 11 forwards, as teams sometimes do by choice with a healthy roster during the season, it's still considered an emergency situation. If a team doesn't have enough players for four forward lines and three defense pairings, even if they have 18 total healthy skaters otherwise, it's an emergency situation.

Example: The Penguins used three emergency recalls on forwards because they did not have 12 healthy forwards, even though they were carrying extra defensemen.”

It does not count against the cap even though they are playing in tbh NHL. It’s something teams can do and the penguins at one point had 3 players recalled on emergency basis. This is very possible and playing a game one man short is a very plausible way to stay under the cap.

JESUS CHRIST WHAT ARE THE DAMN RULES!?!?

I believe I am right and you all also probably believe you are right as well but this is becoming a headache. Teams have entered the season with 20 man rosters before without anybody on IR so I don’t even know what is the actual rule.

The actual rules are that teams need to enter the season cap compliant. That means a minimum roster of 20 players, a maximum roster of 23.

The quote straight from the source:

'23-man Roster
There may be a maximum of 23 players on each Club's playing roster at any one time from the commencement of the NHL regular season through the trade deadline. Prior to the start of the season, each Club must submit to the NHL its "Opening Day Playing Roster" which shall be comprised of not more than 23 players. Each Club must have a roster of at least 20 players, composed of 18 skaters and two goaltenders. Players on Injured Reserve do not count in the 23-man limit.'
http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=26377

You can go with a 21 man roster, But you still need a decent amount of salary cap in case of injuries.

And with the emergency call up rule as well, it is very possible to run a 20 man roster the entire season

It's possible but it's more likely you'll end up playing games with 19 skaters, which is why no NHL team has tried to do it before. You are 1 bad case of the flu, 1 injury in the morning skate, etc, away from playing a game with 11 forwards or 5 defensemen. 21 has been the lowest teams are willing to operate with to give themselves that breathing room.

Emergency call ups are used frequently through the season but they are very rigid. They can't be travelling with the team at all since they aren't on the NHL roster so they will need to get from the AHL city to wherever the NHL team is in the same day, travelling with all their gear, etc. Doing that with as little as a few hours notice would be impossible in a lot of cases.

Dude you've a 20 man roster with 0 cap space for injuries. If yeah you can go with a 20 man roster but not with 0 cap space for injury purposes. In this case you can't use an emergency call up because you're too lazy to make sure that your team still had plenty of cap space to cover injury concerns.

Then again is that such a bad thing though? Players get injured at the start of games or mid game all the time. Say slavin gets injured, the canes leader in TOI last season, that’s 23 and a half minutes that have to get made up between 5 other d men. Burns logged 26+ minutes a game last season and he will be filling deangelos role on the team and tony averaged under 20 last season. So assuming burns plays a game that was average for him last season, there is now 16 minutes between the other 4 d men to cover. Peace and Skjei can easily cover 4 each as they’re the best shutdown pair and Skjei is described by teammates as “the iron lung”. He gets that nickname because he never gets tired so he could cover his 4. Pesce has averaged nearly 23 in seasons prior so one game at 25 isn’t nearly that bad for him as he has played games with 27+ minute games. That leaves bear and gardiner. Bear had a season where in Edmonton he averaged nearly 21:58 a game and gardiner had a season in Toronto where he averaged 22:32 a game. Every canes D man is able to pull their weight if one where to go down needing to have the 5 remaining d men average 24 mins. If you want to go forwards, aho averaged 19 mins a game. That means every other forward would just have to play an extra 1:45 a game which is not bad at all. The only problem that the canes would have would be a goalie injury and given freddie and Raantas history, I could see that being a real issue. That being said, the canes have carried pro level goalies as EBUGs before. They had lafontaine as an EBUG last season during the playoffs and even though he technically wasn’t on the roster, he was there in case of an EBUG situation. Could be a lot that goes wrong with a 20 man roster but the concept of the team is that it is possible to have a roster without doing anything with gards.

You’re just flat out wrong again. Please reconsider your choices and think before you speak next time. You have repeatedly spread false information and are clearly talking out of ur ass here.

It's more is it good for the team? Players get tired the more they play, they play worse, they are more prone to injuries the more they've played, etc. There are a lot of side effects from increased playing time.