Go Habs Go
Rejoint: mars 2017
Messages: 10,667
Mentions "j'aime": 4,091
You can simply scratch a player rather than place them on the season opening injured reserve list, then move them to IR or LTIR later if they qualify. Being injured doesn't disqualify you from taking a roster spot. You are free to evaluate and manage your players as you choose so long as you are following the rules and I'm not aware of one that prevents you from activating an injured player (otherwise players playing through injuries wouldn't exist).
Pretty sure we're just looking at paper transactions that still make this roster work legitimately.
Now a team may not want to do this with a LTIR player or for other reasons, as it may not be as simple or beneficial to manage, but I don't believe it is explicitly forbidden in any way.