Uggh, was afraid of that. The NHL CBA is tricky with tbst stuff. Doesn't really provide CAP relief does it?
This best explains it, as i understand it.
""""Basically, the salary for a player on LTIR still counts against the cap, but if the team reaches the cap ceiling, they are permitted to go above the cap. This over cap relief is limited to the size of the LTIR'd contract(s) cap hit(s), and the "extra" cap space can't be used to pay out bonuses. This means teams who are using LTIR relief cap space and have to pay performance bonuses have to carry those bonus overages into the next season, essentially using next year's cap space to pay them.
As an example, say a player with a yearly cap hit of $3.2 million is placed on LTIR. If the team they're with is $10 million under the cap before the LTIR, they remain $10 million under the cap after. If, however, they picked up some players that came to a total cap hit of $12 million, they would still be cap compliant despite being $2 million over the cap, as the extra $2 million would be counted against the $3.2 million in LTIR relief.""""""