I'm confused now.
I thought that the difference between actual cap and ACSL gets built into accumulated cap space over the season, and that accumulated cap space can then go to performance bonuses.
AFAIC, there's no benefit to building cap space for taking on contracts because we're not going to be able to take on any contracts in the first place, since we're not going to have cap space going forward to hold the AAV. Honestly, I'm not even sure how building cap space helps take on contracts down the line in the first place, since you're not accumulating cap space over the cap limit, since having over the 81.5M cap in AAV is not allowed...
Check capfriendly's FAQ on LTIR. I found it very helpful.
The ACSL is an equation to set what a team's cap ceiling will be (Upper Limit of cap - team cap space).
In the current scenario that is 81.5-0.1 so the ACSL = 81.4 (Leafs Salary Cap)
The ACSL is only calculated when a team first enters LTIR, if a player is placed on LTIR while another player is already on LTIR, the ACSL is not recalculated. In the event that a team stops using LTIR, their ACSL resets to the default upper limit of the active season, upon reentering LTIR, the ACSL is again recalculated.
So the Leafs salary cap when using LTIR will be 81.4 million, not 81.5.
This is why they need to maximize non LTIR contracts as close as possible to the upper limit of 81.5 as soon as they place their first player on LTIR.
For example when Horton is placed on LTIR the Leafs will receive a 5.3 mil salary pool that they can use after they go past their 81.4 mill salary cap (5.3 mil over the 81.5 cap).
They can now afford a player worth 5.2 million.
LTIR allows the team to go over the cap. It creates 2 "pools" of money, 1 being a performance bonus pool (LTIR contract's performance bonus amount), the other being a salary pool (LTIR contract's salary amount). In the Leafs situation both of their large LTIR players (Horton, Clarkson) don't have performance bonus.
Leafs can only use the extra pool of money on salary, not performance bonuses.
If I'm wrong on this please someone correct me. This is what I gather from the capfriendly FAQ