The Nuge
Some say…
I didn’t say extra cap space, I said this was potentially an avenue to increase LTIR overages, and if that amounted to potentially more LTIR cushion than accruing cap space for the deadline.
But you’re not gaining anything. We currently have 945k in capspace with a 22 man roster. At the deadline that’s more like 4 million. If you add Fast, you’re now 1.454 over the cap and start the year on LTIR meaning you no longer accrue capspace. You therefore want to be as close to 2.4 million (Fast’s caphit) over the cap as you can, because any excess is simply lost. So you call up Jarventie, and get to 2.348 over the cap. You now have 52k less capspace (the amount you came up short of 2.4) to operate with than the rest of the league. And after you send down Jarventie, you now only have 894k in capspace, and you’ll have that same 894k whether it’s day one, or trade deadline. So now instead of being able to add Provorov, Chychrun, Larsson, etc at the deadline, the best you can hope for is a guy like Mike Reilly or Erik Johnson. And even those require the other team to retain.
The only way it makes sense to acquire a LTIR player is if you’re out of cap but can dump an overpaid healthy player for an LTIR player, like Vegas did with the Dadonov for Weber trade. Weber goes to LTIR, and you can now pick up another 5 million dollar player, equivalent to Dadonov’s cap. You don’t just gain extra headroom. If you did, we would have signed Oscar Klefbom to a league max contract.