It's probably better to think of LTIR as extending your cap. So the cap is not 81.5 million if you have an injured player but 81.5 million + that players cap hit. Of course if they come back your team could get into trouble and you lose that benefit. There are formulas involved for how much your cap is extended once you reach the league cap so it's not nearly this simple but roughly how it works.
Pretty much... from an article
Hockey 101: Long Term Injury Reserve (LTIR)
FTF Example: The salary cap Upper Limit is $60.0MM, and a team currently has a 20 man roster of $59.0MM. There is $1.0MM in cap room available to them. In the first day of the regular season, a player making $2.0MM is hit along the boards, injured, and subsequently placed on LTIR. The team now has that $2.0MM to use in order to bring in replacement player(s) to fill the hole left by that $2.0MM player-- that number is equal to the injured player's salary. They are able to spend up to $61.0MM (or, $1.0MM over the cap) to replace that player.
This is because, at the time of injury, the team had $1.0MM in cap space available to them. Since the injured player on LTIR had a salary of $2.0MM, $1.0MM of that goes towards getting the team to the Upper Limit of that year (which is $60.0MM), and then the remaining $1.0MM is used to allow the team to temporarily exceed the Upper Limit until the player on LTIR is able to return.
Think of it this way-- a $2.0MM player was injured on a team that had $1.0MM in cap room. The cap hit of the injured player ($2.0MM) minus the amount of salary cap space ($1.0MM) equals the amount that team can exceed the upper limit by ($1.0MM).
FTF Example Two: The salary cap Upper Limit is $60.0MM, and a team currently has a 20 man roster of $60.0MM. Right at the limit, absolutely no breathing room. In the first day of the regular season, a player making $2.0MM is hit along the boards, injured, and subsequently placed on LTIR. Using the formula in the last paragraph of example one, we know that the team now has $2.0MM to use to exceed the Upper Limit and bring up players.
However, as we've learned, the player on LTIR still counts against the team's year end cap when he's injured. By promoting a player, they will be over the year end cap and not compliant with the CBA. So what gives? Essentially, if this situation were to occur, a team would have to trade a player right before the injured player returns in order to become salary cap compliant.
Those are the basics of the LTIR, and covers most of what we'll see throughout the regular season. Let's review what we've learned:
- In order to qualify for the LTIR, a player must be deemed to be unavailable for 24 days and 10 NHL games after the time of injury.
- A team is allowed to exceed the salary cap Upper Limit by x amount after applying this formula: The cap hit of the injured player on LTIR minus the amount of salary cap space equals the amount that team can exceed the upper limit by.
- And most importantly, a player on LTIR does not generate any extra cap room for the team. He does not come off the books, and will be factored into the calculations of the year-end salary cap of the team.