The Seattle Kraken have placed Philipp Grubauer on long-term injured reserve retroactively. This seems alarming on its face, but it doesn’t mean anything about the severity of Grubauer’s injury or his timeline to return.
In order to be eligible for LTIR, a player must miss at least 10 games and 24 days. Philipp Grubauer last played on December 9th against Tampa Bay, 16 games and 38 days ago. So that requirement’s been met. He has not played since this happened:
Cap management is king in the current NHL, especially with the cap staying flat as a second-order effect of COVID. This does not means that Grubauer has suffered a setback or that his injury is more severe than feared.
All this means is that the Kraken need a little bit of space, likely with the rash of injuries they’ve had recently. André Burakovsky, Matty Beniers, and Vince Dunn missed the last two games, and Pierre-Édouard Bellemare has missed the last eleven. Matty has been placed on injured reserve, so he will miss at least a week per the rules, necessitating a callup from Coachella Valley. The Kraken were up against the cap, and putting Grubauer on LTIR gives them enough cap room to fit Hayden under the cap.
This transaction frees up $5.9 million of cap space, plenty for any callups necessary.
This is just a paper move, which is not uncommon with the NHL salary cap. The most likely scenario is once Grubauer is healthy, they will send down Hayden, put Grubauer on the active roster, and life goes on. Maybe they’ll use that move to trade for someone, but overall? This is probably a nothingburger.
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