Carl Dahlström is currently on Season Opening Injured Reserve (SOIR). This is kind of IR that is a bit like LTIR, but some of the player’s cap hit counts if they were in the NHL the prior year. Dahlström costs $78,750 and is the reason your cap calculations are usually not quite the same as what’s on Cap Friendly.

His actual cap hit is $750,000, and as the name implies, SOIR applies only to players injured in training camp or in training prior to camp. If that player is not waivers exempt, they require waivers to be sent to the AHL once they are healthy. For players who get healthy before the deadline, that’s a risk of a loss of a player who would have gone through in the big opening day waiver groups.

The Leafs lost Petter Granberg to the Nashville Predators that way back in 2017.

Dahlström is in no danger of being claimed because he cannot play on any claiming team in the NHL even in the regular season. And he could not be sent to the AHL by the claiming team. This is a formality. When he clears tomorrow, he can be sent to the AHL, freeing up a little extra scrap of LITR room for a certain forward who is going to sign sometime in the next few weeks.

Note: CapFriendly lists Dahlström as on SOIR and not part of the LTIR total. Rival Puckpedia believes the $78,750 is part of the Leafs LTIR pool. In their scenario, removing Dahlström will have a net zero effect on the LTIR pool — which they currently list at a higher number since it contains Dahlström’s partial cap hit. I don’t know who is right but this time tomorrow, their numbers will match either way.

Next up to go through this process is Victor Mete, who is just straight up on LTIR and if he gets healthy enough to go to the AHL, no change in the overall cap picture will result.

Both of these players can be sent down, even though it’s after the deadline due to their injured status on deadline day. I believe they would be AHL playoff eligible, but I’ll wait for expert confirmation on that wrinkle.