October 9, 2022 by Ryan Lotsberg

Friday started with Mattias Janmark and Dmitri Samorukov being waived for the purpose of being reassigned to Bakersfield. The Edmonton Oilers then placed Brad Malone on waivers and sent Markus Niemelainen to Bakersfield on Saturday.

There’s one key difference between these moves and the potential opening night roster scenario that would put the Oilers $167 under their maximum possible salary cap. Malone needed to be on the roster for that math to work, but there seems to be another plan since Malone was waived.

There’s some important language that I need to clear up for everyone here. The following bullet points are taken directly from PuckPedia’s Long Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) – High Level Overview page.

• 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.

This means that Oscar Klefbom and Mike Smith will still count towards the cap even though they will be on LTIR for the year.

The following bullet point would apply to a team that might need to use LTIR in a normal scenario:

• 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.

This bullet point is why you’re hearing the Edmonton media talk about needing to be as close to the $82.5 million cap as possible to maximize the LTIR pool. However, my understanding is that they aren’t factoring in the cap hits of Klefbom and Smith.

As of Saturday night, the total cap hit for the 24 players remaining at Oilers camp was $91,274,333 based on the cap hit values for the players as found on CapFriendly’s Oilers page. That includes Malone because he technically hasn’t been sent down yet.

PuckPedia has the values of Evan Bouchard and Philip Broberg being $1 higher than CapFriendly has them, so the total using PuckPedia’s numbers would be $91,274,335. That’s why you’ve seen the $165 number floating around the media recently. I used CapFriendly’s numbers to arrive at $167. 

Regardless, there’s no way on God’s green Earth that the Oilers will be anywhere near the $82.5 million cap by Monday. That’s why this next bullet point from PuckPedia is important:

• 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.

This means that the team’s total cap hit on their opening roster submission is their new salary cap. If you take the cap hits for Klefbom and Smith and add them to the $82.5 million salary cap, then you get $88,867,000. That’s the highest possible salary cap that the Oilers could have. The Oilers need to bring that $91,274,333 number down to $88,867,000 or less, which means that they need to shed at least $2,407,333.

It’s important to note that the $167 value (or $165 if you’re using PuckPedia’s numbers) would not be cap space. That value means that the maximum potential salary cap that the Oilers could have this season based on the players available is $167 less than $88,867,000 ($88,866,833). Sending Malone to Bakersfield would mean that the Oilers’ cap after placing Klefbom and Smith on LTIR would be lower than that number.

They would be wise to be as close to $88,867,000 as possible to set their cap as high as possible. This is the same concept noted in the first bullet point, but the rationale is to set the cap as high as possible rather than to create as much cap space as possible.

Tyler Benson could also be placed on LTIR to start the season. Doing that would increase the maximum possible salary cap for the Oilers from $88,867,000 to $89,617,000. That would mean that the Oilers would only need to shed $1,657,333.

If they don’t put Benson on LTIR, then they would need to shed at least $2,407,333. They could opt to cut Benson. They would still need to cut $1,657,333 then. It makes no difference to the immediate cap situation whether they cut Benson or put him on LTIR.

Here’s the kicker though. Coach Jay Woodcroft said that Benson is “week to week”. He’ll return this season. Remember that his cap hit counts towards the cap even when he’s on LTIR. Once he’s removed from LTIR, then the Oilers’ salary cap would be reduced by Benson’s $750,000 cap hit.

Placing Benson on LTIR would simply temporarily increase the Oilers’ salary cap. Once Benson returns, they would need to have removed at least $2,407,333 from the total cap spending as of Saturday night.

There are three players whose cap hits add up to $2,420,000. Cutting those three players would put them $12,667 under that $88,867,000 maximum possible cap. Those three players are Malone, Devin Shore, and James Hamblin. This is the second highest salary cap that the Oilers could have. I believe that this will happen.

The active roster is currently at fifteen forwards, seven defencemen, and two goalies. Any remaining cuts will be forwards. Benson, Malone, Shore, and Hamblin are the four forwards at the bottom of the current group of fifteen left at camp. Only one of them can be on the roster once Benson is healthy. 

The combination where Hamblin stays with the team wouldn’t be cap compliant, and he’s exempt from waivers, so he will start the season in Bakersfield. The combination where Shore makes the team also wouldn’t be cap compliant, so expect to see his name on the waiver wire on Sunday at noon.

The combinations where either Benson or Malone make the team would be cap compliant. Malone has already been placed on waivers for the purpose of reassignment to Bakersfield. That tells me that the Oilers have chosen Benson to make the team over Malone. They have chosen to set their cap $12,500 lower to keep Benson over Malone.

Malone could be sent to Bakersfield right away should he clear waivers at noon on Sunday, but the Oilers don’t have to send him down right away. They could send him down without waivers at any point in the next thirty days. Benson should be back by that time.

If they cut three forwards and put Benson on LTIR, then they will open the season with eleven healthy forwards, which will force Woodcroft to dress eleven forwards and seven defencemen until Benson returns. He’s comfortable doing that, but he could also have Malone on the roster until Benson returns. That would give him more roster flexibility.

Benson will have mostly made the team for cap reasons, but his play in camp merited the opportunity.

Of course, things can always change throughout the season. For example, Philip Broberg could be sent to Bakersfield on Tuesday to make room for Hamblin, Shore, or Niemelainen if the Oilers felt so inclined.