Who needs draft capital when you have 9 pending UFA's on the NHL roster?

Wait...

Hirvonen and a 3rd for the Muzzin contract that's on LTIR? What are we doing here?

Yes his contract is on LTIR, but he cannot go on LTIR until after game 1, I believe. So his salary would still count until after game 1. So to clear the cap, you trade him so you can spend the money in the summer

"LTIR can be used in the off-season while the 10% off-season cushion is active. LTIR in the off-season is calculated using the basic equation outlined above, which permits a team to exceed the off-season salary cap. To use off-season LTIR the team must provide doctors proof that the player in question will continue to be injured at the beginning of the regular season for 10 NHL games and 24 calendar days.

At the start of the season the teams LTIR relief & ACSL is recalculated when the 10% cushion is removed."

If I’m not mistaken, that last sentence states that with Muzzin still in Toronto, at the start of the season, his 5.5m will count towards the cap… hence why teams trade players that are on LTIR (Weber, Datsyuk, Seabrook, Clarkson, etc.)

Teams that have a lot of cap room trade for those contracts because they will count against the cap for low or no real dollars. No contract will provide LTIR relief unless you are at the cap ceiling, then, any contracts on LTIR kick in.

I don't see where it says that he will not be LTIR eligible in the offseason. The rule I quoted doesn't state that it will at all. Unless there is different language in the CBA you can find then he will not count against the cap. Muzzin is injured indefinitely and I don't think they will have trouble proving that.

He doesn’t count towards the cap right now, but at the start of the season, he gets taken off the LTIR and has to be placed back on. Hence why I said he will count towards the cap for the start of the season. Unless Toronto is going to save 5.5m in salary space, he should be traded

Also, look at Arizona. They have 28m in cap space, but have to put Weber, Voracek and Little on LTIR at the start of the year. But if they traded them, they will have 49m in cap space. But instead they wait until the start of the year to place them on LTIR and will then have 21m in cap space when the season starts