Long Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) - High Level Overview

To qualify for LTIR, a player must be expected to miss at least 10 NHL Games AND 24 days of the NHL season
When a player is on LTIR, a team may exceed the salary cap. Despite the common misconception, LTIR does not remove a Cap Hit from a team’s overall Cap Hit, it just potentially allows the team to exceed the salary cap.
The amount that a team may exceed the salary cap due to LTIR is commonly referred to as the “LTIR Pool”
If a team is cap compliant on opening day without using LTIR, or uses LTIR at any point during the season, the LTIR Pool is the Cap Hit of the LTIR player less the team’s cap space when the player goes on LTIR. For example, if a player with a $4M Cap Hit goes on LTIR when the team has $100K of Cap Space, the LTIR pool is $3.9M ($4M-$0.1M). Because of this, team’s often make several roster moves right before a player goes on LTIR in order to be as close to the cap as possible, in order to maximize the LTIR Pool
If a team cannot be cap compliant on opening day without using LTIR, the LTIR Pool is the amount the team exceeds the Cap. For example, if a team is $3M over the Cap and places a player on LTIR with a $4M Cap Hit for the opening roster submission, the LTIR Pool is the $3M that the team exceeded the cap
While on LTIR, Cap Space is no longer accrued, meaning any portion of the LTIR pool not used cannot be used later.
When a player comes off LTIR, the team’s annual cap hit for that day must be under the Cap

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