Through some serious salary cap gymnastics, the Philadelphia Flyers filed a cap-compliant "opening-night" roster with the National Hockey League by the 5:00 p.m. deadline earlier today. The moves were as follows, per Capfriendly:
* Ryan Ellis and Sean Couturier were placed on injured reserve (IR). * Patrick Brown was placed on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) * Felix Sandström and Bobby Brink were placed on season-opening injured reserve (SOIR). * Waiver-exempt players Wade Allison, Tanner Laczynski and Egor Zamula were "loaned" the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
The last set of moves was largely on-paper transactions. The combination of removing the prorated cap hits for Allison ($785,000), Laczynski ($782,500) and Zamula ($756,667) moved the Flyers roughly $2.32 million closer to cap ceiling. The SOIR designations significantly reduce -- but do not eliminate -- the cap burdens while Sandström and Brink are out. Placing Brown ($750,000 cap hit) on LTIR gained an allowance to cover the additional $695,691 they needed toward getting below the cap ceiling and make the roster acceptable to the NHL within the salary cap.
Again, some of these are just temporary designations. The Flyers are expected to recall at least Allison and Laczynski. Correspondingly, they could move Ellis from regular IR to LTIR and get nearly the maximum allowance permitted on the cap to replace his $6.25 million cap hit. Ellis appears likely to spend the entire season on LTIR.
Cam Atkinson is on the active roster despite not playing at all in the preseason and not practicing or skating with the team or rehab group in recent days. John Tortorella said after Monday's practice that Atkinson was returning from Columbus where he had a family matter to tend to as well as meeting with a personal trainer with whom he's worked in the past. Tortorella said he is confident that Atkinson will practice on Wednesday and play on opening night come te next evening.
Prior to upcoming recalls of Allison and Laczynski, this is the current active roster:
FORWARDS (11): Cam Atkinson, Noah Cates, Nic Deslauriers, Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, Kevin Hayes, Hayden Hodgson, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Owen Tippet, James van Riemsdyk.
DEFENSEMEN (7): Ronnie Attard, Justin Braun, Tony DeAngelo, Ivan Provorov, Rasmus Ristolainen, Travis Sanheim, Nick Seeler.
GOALIES (2): Samuel Ersson, Carter Hart.
Earlier in the day, the Flyers assigned Jackson Cates (waiver-exempt) to the Phantoms. Later, both Zack MacEwen and Cooper Marody were assigned to Lehigh Valley after clearing waivers at 2 p.m. ET.