I’m pretty confident he will go on the LTIR.
Firstly because he gets his money and gets insurance protection.
It's some money, but not a ton relative to what he's made previously. And Florida has to want to do it. They could easily strong-arm him and waive him to force him to either accept a trade or retire. Particularly if the rumours of them pushing for Bobrovsky and Panarin are true. Florida's cap recapture penalty if he retires isn't that significant, and they get out of actually paying his salary.
Secondly because the NHL has shown to not look too much into these things and just let these contracts die out.
I'd like to believe this, but the teams that have done it are Detroit and Chicago, and to a lesser extent the Flyers with Pronger. The league's big powerbrokers. Would it be beyond the NHL to enforce the rules only after getting gamed a few times, then finally enforcing the more flagrant one? The NHL warned, but allowed the Zetterberg, Hossa and Luongo contracts, but drew the line at the more flagrant abuse in the Kovalchuk contract. What happens if they try to say its a hip issue, then the following year he gets a physical and his hip is fine? What if Luongo says something on twitter that tips them off? If they rub it in their face that they're abusing the LTIR to escape this penalty that the league was salivating over implementing, perhaps thats the final straw.
Thirdly because Florida can do the Canucks a favor without costing them any assets. They will gain good will with the organization which they can use in the future.
Or Florida can use this as leverage in a trade negotiation.