The Toronto Maple Leafs will have been told today, a few hours before their final roster is due, that Joffrey Lupul can be placed on LTIR for the final year of his contract.

If you believe the league is corrupt, doctors lie, and this is all a conspiracy to help a rich team cheat, you can still believe that. You just need to assume a few more people are in on it.

If you believe that Lupul is physically unfit to play, you have more people agreeing with you.

For me, now as always, I think it’s a grey area, not a clean line, and it’s a hard call to make.  Is he fit to play at all? Maybe. At NHL level? How would I know? And how do you decide that?

The end result is that the Leafs now have the opportunity to use his $5,250,000 in cap space to add a player.  That’s the simplistic view of LTIR; if you want more detail, CapFriendly released some today.  They have updated their LTIR FAQ, and I’ve read it, but only once.  I’ll try to digest it later.


In other news today, word is that Timothy Liljegren will be playing on the Marlies.


All Leafs players placed on waivers yesterday cleared, including Garret Sparks and Kerby Rychel.  No one was waived today, and the Leafs have to make one cut by 5 p.m.

Logic says that’s either Andreas Borgman or Calle Rosen, who are both waiver exempt, but Mike Babcock is again telling everyone, and I assume that includes Lou Lamoriello, that he wants them both on the roster.  There are ways to do that, and the legit ones involve a trade in the next four hours.  Not impossible.

Once we know that decision, we will post the final Leafs roster with a breakdown on the cap situation.