Man for all of Tampa's "Gaming the system" they sure did it poorly, they had over 5mil in LTIR they could have used on yet another player.
Lousy cheaters are even lousy at cheating....
Get over it.
It isn't a problem, the roster they actually ice, isn't 18million over the cap.
They have
24.737 to their 6 dressed defensemen
10.8 to Goalies
53.791 to their 12 forwards.
which
Totals out at 89.328 mil for their 20man dress roster.
They are 7.28mil over the "cap" with the roster they are actually using.
For the Cap should count in the PO Crowd.
They have 7.475 of LTIR space from the Gaborik and Nilsson contracts, so the roster they are dressing would even cap compliant in those circumstances.
And if you want to get even more technical, they have 5.736mil in their LTIR relief pool that is unused, so, Yes they would technically have to sit 1.5mil in cap hits out of the lineup to be "compliant" but again, it isn't some extreme number for them to be compliant.
That's basically swapping McElhinney for one of their 700k ahl goalies, and swapping Rutta with Cleasson.