Vancouver Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin is hard to read sometimes.

At times, he plays his cards incredibly close to the vest. At other times, he’s perfectly transparent about his intentions.

And at some times, he’s intentionally cryptic. That seemed to be the case as Allvin discussed his club’s attempts to stay under the cap ceiling in 2024/25, thus allowing them to accrue cap space throughout the year.

Prior to these comments, Allvin had seemed determined to keep the Canucks out of their LTIR relief pool and in accrual mode, but then he had this to say to The Athletic:

“Yeah, obviously it’s a challenge once you’re in LTIR. And we believe that we have different scenarios to not have to utilize LTI money prior to roster setting…I wouldn’t say that it would be easier, but it would give us more options as we go along. I would prefer to be totally out of it, but that’s not going to be the case here…We have some internal discussions about options to make it work the best and hopefully accrue some cap space (throughout the year).”

…which is a little confusing.

In this interview, Allvin said the Canucks have ways to avoid using LTIR space and stay under the cap – at least at the start of the year. But that they also will inevitably use LTIR relief space at other points in the year, and that the overall goal remains accruing as much space as possible.

So what does all that mean?

We think we know, and to explain, we’ve got to run through a few scenarios.

It is true that if the Canucks are healthy to start the season – not a guarantee due to the status of Thatcher Demko and Dakota Joshua, but more on that later – they would be set up to start accruing cap space right away. Even with Tucker Poolman and his full $2.5 million cap hit counting against the books on regular injured reserve (IR), the Canucks can ice an opening day roster of 23 other players and wind up about $190,000 under the cap. That amount begins to accrue on a daily basis but at a very slow rate.

Were the Canucks to stay that far under the cap for the entirety of the season up to the Trade Deadline, they’d accrue about $870,000 in total cap space – not a huge amount, but enough to accommodate an extra minimum contract on the roster.

We talked previously about the possibility of the Canucks rolling with a shortened roster in order to accumulate even more space. Drop a $775,000 contract from the roster, roll with 22 healthy players until the Trade Deadline, and the roughly $965,000 they are under the cap would balloon to about $4.4 million by then.

But these are all scenarios in which the Canucks remain completely healthy…which means they’re not realistic scenarios at all. Injuries will inevitably occur – some already have. And that can’t help but hinder the Canucks attempts to accrue cap.

We don’t even need to get into hypotheticals here. Let’s instead imagine the very real possibility that Demko is not ready to start the season. And let’s assume that the Canucks would still like to avoid using LTIR relief space to start the year – or until absolutely necessary.

So, Demko has to go to regular IR, and another goalie needs to be called up to take his place. That requires cap space. If it’s Jiri Patera, for example, it requires $775,000 in cap space. The Canucks can accomplish this by cutting an extra skater and using their cap space to fit in Patera.

To illustrate, that would look like this: Demko and Poolman on IR, Patera and 21 other healthy skaters on the opening day roster (as opposed to the 23 healthy skaters outlined in our previous scenario.)

The team still remains about $190,000 under the cap and can still accrue space. They just have to operate with one fewer extra skater for a while (and risk an additional player to waivers).

Seems simple enough, right?

But what if it’s multiple injuries? Let’s next imagine that Joshua’s recovery from testicular cancer does not allow him to be ready to start the season, on top of Demko not being ready.

Here, the Canucks could still get by, but it’s starting to get tight. They could, for example, just stick with the roster we outlined above.

Now it’s Joshua, Demko, and Poolman on IR and 21 total healthy skaters on the roster. The team is still $190,000ish under the cap, and now they’re operating with just one healthy skater.

It might be helpful to include names at this point. This hypothetical roster probably looks like this: Elias Pettersson, JT Miller, Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk, Conor Garland, Dakota Joshua, Danton Heinen, Teddy Blueger, Pius Suter, Kiefer Sherwood, Nils Höglander, Daniel Sprong up front (12 forwards), Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Carson Soucy, Tyler Myers, Vincent Desharnais, Derek Forbort, and Noah Juulsen on the backend (7 defenders), and Arturs Silovs and Jiri Patera in net.

That’s a thin roster, but it is doable.

But what, then, if there’s a third injury? Rinse and repeat…place that player on IR, don’t replace them with a call-up, and run with a roster of just 20 healthy players, the absolute minimum, maintaining that $190,000 in space.

And then, if there’s a fourth injury? Now we’re officially in trouble. The issue is that $190,000 of cap space isn’t enough to call up even a single player from Abbotsford. As it stands, the Canucks will need to use their own extras for injury coverage and avoid using call-ups until absolutely necessary.

But even in this, they’ve got options. One option, since cap is accrued daily, is to at times operate with a shortened roster, even when everyone is healthy. If the team were to waive one or two of their extras for a period of time, they’d accrue more space on those days. Say the team is on an extended homestand, and so too are the Abbotsford Canucks. The team could send an extra forward or defender down (say, Nils Åman and Mark Friedman), run with a shortened roster for a bit, and bank more accrued cap space.

Do this enough times and for long enough, and the team might be able to build up enough space to at least accommodate a call-up, easing the pressure on roster maneuverability.

Do this successfully for extended periods, and the team might be able to build up enough space to actually use on a significant upgrade at the deadline.

The other option that is important to note is the option to only temporarily use LTIR space.

Let’s go further down the hypothetical road. Let’s imagine that, at some point a month or two into the season, four different Canucks are injured at the same time, a scenario that essentially demands a call-up. (Or alternatively, fewer players are injured, but the Canucks are on a road trip and want to carry their extras.)

Garland, Suter, Myers, and Forbort all go down with injuries, and the Canucks gotta call up someone like Arshdeep Bains to fill out the roster – but they’ve still only got $190,000 in cap space, or whatever measly amount that has accrued to. It’s still not enough to accommodate even a minimum contract.

In that case, the Canucks are still free to use their LTIR relief space. They can pop Poolman onto LTIR, gain up to $2.5 million in relief space, and use that space to call up a player or two.

At which point, they’re technically over the cap ceiling and no longer able to accrue cap space. But here’s the neat thing – cap accrual is counted daily. There’s a myth floating around that once a team goes over the cap via LTIR relief, they can no longer accrue cap space in that same season, even if they go back down under the cap later.

But that myth is not true! We asked around with some of our favourite cap experts, like Jean-Francois C., and discovered that teams can and do accrue cap space on any days when they are under the cap, even if they previously were not.

It happens!

Therefore, the Canucks could cover necessary call-ups on a temporary basis by placing Poolman on LTIR, using that space for the call-ups, then sending them back down when everyone returns to health, and switching Poolman back from LTIR to regular IR. The Canucks go back down under the cap, and they begin to accrue cap space again.

So, in the end, it’s not all that realistic for the Canucks to stay under the cap ceiling for the entire season. That seems to be what Allvin was hinting at in his comments. However, they should still be able to stay under the cap ceiling on enough individual days to accrue meaningful cap space by the trade deadline. And they should still be able to handle all their required injury coverage. They just might not be able to do both things simultaneously – and that’s okay.