Anaheim Ducks: What Happens to if Ryan Kesler Misses the 2018-19 NHL Season?
By Greg Johnson
Does Kesler Qualify for Long-Term Injured Reserve?
We’ll know the answer to this question soon enough. There are two qualifications a player must have in order to qualify for LTIR. CapFriendly.com does a great job giving details of LTIR. Suffice it to say the qualifications are: Kesler must be unavailable for 24 days and 10 games. It sounds like this will be almost automatic once he receives his physical.
How Does Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) Affect the Kesler Situation?
Oh boy, now it’s going to get tricky. Most people think (LTIR) works just like sending someone back to the minor leagues does. We all remember the frequent driver miles logged by many of the San Diego Gulls/Anaheim Ducks last season as they were sent to San Diego for a day just to be recalled the following day.
Ducks general manager Bob Murray did that to ensure he had as much salary cap space as possible. And he received salary cap relief equal to the player salary for each day they “spent” in the AHL. But putting a player on LTIR doesn’t necessarily buy a team dollar for dollar relief.
If the Ducks are at the cap when the season starts, and Kesler is eligible, he may be placed on LTIR. This means the Ducks may exceed the salary cap on any given day by Kesler’s $6.875 million salary. Assuming he does not return during the season, the team can replace Kesler with a player or a collection of players with cap hits combined up to $6.875 million.
If the hard-headed center comes back during the season, he will complicate Anaheim’s situation. Let’s hope Murray has a good read on Kesler’s situation. If the Ducks are below the cap when they place Kesler on LTIR, they may only exceed the cap by the amount of Kesler’s cap hit minus the available cap space. We’ll see if Murray tries to bump right up against the cap to start the season before placing Kesler on LTIR.