Mouser, you seem to have some knowledge that most don't. My, uninformed, understanding was that because Franzen did not play any games in the preceding season (for this year's cap and next) his cap amount didn't need to be figured into the team's cap number during the offseason, or for first day of the season, or during the year. (Capfriendly.com rookie mode LTIR if that helps explain things).
There was a misunderstanding on SOIR that ran around the forums this summer, especially involving Toronto and Lupul/Horton. Injured players always need to be factored in during the season and off-season. There's a special rule called SOIR that applies to players on 2-way contracts where their cap hit (and salary) are based on the % of days they were on the NHL roster the previous season. So for example if a player on a 2-way contract was injured in training camp and had to go on LTIR their cap hit could be reduced (as low as zero) if they weren't a full-time NHL player the previous season.
CF's rookie mode LTIR is useful, but it's different from the real world pro-mode in that the cap relief gained when a player is placed on LTIR Exception depends on what the team salary cap is on the day that LTIR is exercised. Rookie mode assumes you can get 100% cap relief on the LTIR. The more realistic pro-mode will give 0-100% relief depending on team payroll and any other LTIR's.
If that's incorrect, can you help us understand the real impact?
Let's say that the cap next year is 80 mil. Let's pretend Zetterberg goes the LTIRetire route in the offseason. For easy numbers let's use 4 mil for franzen and 6 for Zetterberg.
What's the impact? Can that 10 million be put on LTIR? Could we only stash 8 mil (10% of cap) of it in the offseason? Does that mean we would actually be using a cap number of $78 mil during the season.
As you can see I'm confused. I'm not thinking that Z definitely goes LTIR but just to properly understand how LTIR might affect us going forward. Kronwall is more likely to go that route.
Using your example of $80m, during the offseason the Wings could have a total payroll 110% of $80m = $88m. Franzen and Z's contracts would count against that, leaving $78m for other players. Another thing to keep in mind is that during the offseason you don't count the 23 or so players you expect to have on the opening day roster. You count all players on 1-way contracts. Plus all players on 2-way contracts at a % equal of the % of days they spend on the NHL roster the prior season. So for example, players on 1-way deals like Puempel, Street and Coreau would have all counted fully against the cap this past offseason. Players on 2-way deals like Russo and Bertuzzi would have had a portion of their contracts count towards the offseason cap. Because of the inevitable injury callups the prior season, usually a team's offseason cap total will be higher then the opening day cap total due to those contracts that have to be factored into the offseason cap.
There is such a thing as offseason usage of LTIR, but so far to my knowledge it has never happened except on the last day of training camp--this is what the Wings did this season with Franzen. There were rumblings this summer that the Leafs might use some odd form of offseason LTIR, however they never ended up doing so. So we don't have any real world examples of if its really possible and if so would it differ from using LTIR on the last day of training camp (my personal guess is it would be the same).
If a team reaches the last day of training camp and their total payroll is over the cap with no way to make any short term moves to become cap compliant then they can exercise an LTIR exception on that last day to become compliant (assuming the team has an LTIR eligible player). Again, this is what the Wings did with Franzen this season. The amount of relief received depends on what the payroll is on the final day of training camp. Let's say using your figures that Z is health and the wings offseason cap is at $83m with no way to get below $80m before opening day, then on the last day of training camp they could using the LTIR on Franzen. When you LTIR in training camp the team receives relief equal to the amount they're over the cap. So in this example of $83m payroll, LTIRing Franzen would give $3m of relief, and the team could run a $83m payroll during the season.**
It gets more complicated when multiple players can go on LTIR. Let's say both Z and Franzen are going on LTIR, and the Wings end training camp with the following payroll totals:
a) $82m. The Wings LTIR Franzen in TC, then Z on day 1 of the season. Franzen takes the cap to $82m, then Z takes it to $88m as they get 100% from Z already being at the cap limit. Total of 80% relief on the $10m in LTIR contracts.
b) $83m. The Wings LTIR Franzen in TC, then Z on day 1 of the season. Franzen takes the cap to $83m, then Z takes it to $89m. Total of 90% relief.
c) $85m. The Wings LTIR Z in TC, then Franzen on day 1. Z takes the cap to $85m, then Franzen takes it to $89m. Total of 90% relief.
d) $87m. The Wings LTIR Z and Franzen in TC. Combined they take the cap to $87m. Total of 70% relief.
I hope that makes sense, I know my reply was a bit long winded. The greatest possible relief would be to end TC with a payroll of $80m, $84m, or $86m. In those cases Franzen and Z could both be LTIRed to get 100% relief.
**CF shows the Wings as receiving 100% of relief on Franzen's TC LTIR this season. Normally it would be next to impossible to get 100%. I haven't tried crunching the numbers, but it may have been possible to get the 100% here due to Bertuzzi, Lorito and Svechnikov being on SOIR. They all had small cap hits due to time on the roster in 2016-17 that could have allowed some machinations of the SOIR cap hits to reach 100% on Franzen's LTIR.