Rejoint: mai 2016
Messages: 14,494
Mentions "j'aime": 6,118
It's not as simple as that. The cap doesn't change, and Toronto would be allowed some relief, but they're not just allowed to go over the cap by Kesler's contract value.
Toronto is allowed to replace the injured player on LTIR with another contract and receive cap relief. The cap relief is calculated each day. So let's say on day 1 of the season, Toronto was $2M over the cap with Kesler's contract on the books. So they divide that $2M by 186 days (or however many days there are in that particular season). In this example, the Leafs would receive $10,752 in cap relief for that day that they could bank and use later in the season.
As the season progresses, the amount of daily LTIR relief earned increases, adding usable cap space to the team's allowance. Halfway through the season, the team would have received $1M of cap relief. For this reason, it's preferable for teams to be as close to the cap as possible before they place a player on LTIR. That's why the team traded for David Clarkson's contract last summer when it was apparent that they might have to deal with a Marner holdout. They expected to be able to fit his new AAV under the cap using LTIR, but they weren't going to be able to afford a pro-rated cap hit for players that hold out into the season (like the situation was with Nylander). By adding Horton, they maximized the amount of LTIR relief they received, even without Marner's hefty contracts on the books.
A lot of people think that LTIR is just free cap space. It's not. It's much more complex than that and can cause issues if you don't fully understand how it works.