Can you clarify what you mean by this? Can a team really keep a player on LTIR based on how the team is going? (performing?). The flip side of what I think you're suggesting is that teams can pressure players to return from injury before they are ready for cap reasons, which is wrong in many different ways. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you are saying though.
I'm not an expert on the CBA between owners and players, but my sense has always been that LTIR was never intended to make it easier for teams to find loopholes to circumvent the cap.
Right now it doesn't appear to me that the Canucks get any benefit if they get relief from the league for Roussel's long-term injury.
Technically there's no LTIR list. People use it as an easy way to refer to a situation where a player is on injured reserve for a long term and the team requests cap relief from the league.
There is no separate list that players who are injured long-term are put on and there is no cap relief unless the team requests it. When requested and granted, the injured player's cap hit still counts against the cap but the team is permitted to exceed the cap.
The following is my understanding of how the relief calculation works, set out in simplified terms. I'll ask if someone who knows the ins and outs of the CBA can show me where I'm mistaken if that is the case.
Perhaps an easy way to think about how much the team can exceed the cap is to start with the cap hits of the injured and replacement players. Take the lower one-the team can't get a benefit more than the cap hit of the replacement player nor more than the cap hit of the injured player.
Then take that figure and assume the team has to use all of it's available cap space first, so subtract the amount of cap space from the cap hit of the injured or replacement player.
Now since it's all done daily it all gets divided by 186, the number of days in the season.
Because it's done that way, there's no accrual of any extra space. The team will be at it's new cap hit for the entire period the player is on injured reserve, with no amount being accrued to take care of later injuries.
For example, let's say that the Canucks, to get cap compliant and reduce the roster to 23 players, temporarily loaned a player, let's say Gaudette, to Utica. That would get them to 23 players including Roussel but not Gaudette and a total cap hit of about $80.417 million, about $1.083 million.
Now if the Canucks put Roussel on injured reserve and get relief from the league, they'd first have to use up their available space. Since Gaudette's cap hit of $916,667 is less than the $1.083 million they have in available cap space, they have to use that up first. That means, essentially, that they're left with a cushion of only about $167K to cover short term injuries, such as they currently have with Motte and Fantenberg (at least we hope they're short-term.)
As it appears to me right now the Canucks have no benefit from relief from Roussel's injury and a of $167 K to cover short term injuries AND any performance bonuses that may be earned by Pettersson, Hughes and Gaudette, all of whom have made the team. The performance bonuses can be deferred to next season but that would leave the team with little flexibility next season. Consider that Pettersson's performance could be as much as $2.85 million (and he maxed it out last season), Hughes and Gaudette each could be as much as $850K, that leaves a maximum in performance bonuses that might have to be almost entirely deferred to next season of over $4.5 million. It's likely to be less of course, but also likely to be substantial.
That may be why the Canucks are leaving Motte and Fantenberg on the roster at present, avoiding using up some of that precious $167 K cushion until they are sure they need to.
Of course, circumstances could change so that there are additional injuries resulting in the team getting some long-term relief, but at present unless I'm mistaken they're stuck using up most of their available cap space leaving very little cusion.
