Deep Blue Sea: Injuries stacking up early

The Sharks dealt with their own injury news yesterday when Joe Thornton was placed on injured reserve with knee swelling, but they aren’t the only ones confronting injury early on this season.

The Los Angeles Kings announced yesterday that Jonathan Quick was injured during practice and would be placed on injured reserve. Which would all be well and good, except —

Except the Kings were too close to the cap to call up goaltender Peter Budaj.

So they had to do something a little bit complicated. First, Matt Luff was called up in a paper transaction, putting the Kings as close to the cap as they could get. Then Dustin Brown was put on long-term injured reserved (LTIR), as he was determined to be “out indefinitely” after teammate Anze Kopitar broke his finger with a puck in a preseason game against the Anaheim Ducks. The benefit of LTIR isn’t the player’s salary coming off the books, but instead allows the team to spend over the cap limit in the amount of the player’s cap hit minus the difference between the cap ceiling and the team’s total cap hit as of the time the player is placed on LTIR.

Once Brown was placed on LTIR, Luff was re-assigned back to the Ontario Reign and the Kings had enough cap space to recall Budaj. Make sense?

In other goaltenders-going-down news, our old pal James Reimer is getting an extended look with the Florida Panthers, as Roberto Luongo suffered a knee injury against the Tampa Bay Lightning in their season opener on Saturday. The injury occurred in the second period when teammate Frank Vatrano fell into Luongo.

Quick, Luongo and Thornton will all be eligible to play again next Sunday, but there’s not currently a timetable for any of them to return.

News & Notes

• QUICK TO IR; BROWN TO LTIR; BUDAJ RECALLED; JAD TO DEBUT; SCOUTING DETROIT
• Florida Panthers put Roberto Luongo on injured reserve
• Don’t you miss Team North America? Report: Next World Cup of Hockey could come in 2020
• A little bit of good dog content that we all need in our lives right now: The Capitals canine calendar photoshoot is finally here and OMG PUPPIES
• Don’t know who Miro Heiskanen is? You should. Playing like a vet, Heiskanen shows why he’s ‘whole package’ in NHL debut
• We love chaos on the power play: Powered up: Florida Panthers line up five forwards as potential top power-play unit
• The EIHL is wild: Debate rages on after ‘pants’ goal is disallowed
• As a Michigander, this makes me stupid happy:

• Finally, the Carolina Hurricanes are off to a good start, but more importantly, they’re having fun. This is awesome and I hope it continues:

Scores & Recaps

• Toronto Maple Leafs 7, Chicago Blackhawks 6 (OT) [Pension Plan Puppets recap, Second City Hockey recap]
• Detroit Red Wings 2, Los Angeles Kings 4 [Winging It In Motown recap, Jewels From The Crown]
• New York Rangers 5, Carolina Hurricanes 8 [Blueshirt Banter, Canes Country recap]