If he is expected to miss some time, the Leafs could place him and his $2.25M cap hit on LTIR, which would bring the Leafs under the $82.5M cap limit by $757K. Now that doesn't free enough room to sign
Rasmus Sandin, and it just buys the Buds a little time until Engvall returns, so Dubas has a little bit of breathing room to see how the roster shapes up during camp before making any decisions.