Maple Leafs Place 3 on LTIR, Send Down Easton Cowan As Roster Is Set

The Toronto Maple Leafs had some salary cap calisthenics to work out before finalizing their opening night roster, and they did that by placing Jani Hakanpaa, Calle Jarnkrok, and Dakota Mermis on LTIR (long-term injured reserve), while Connor Dewar and Fraser Minten will begin the season on injured reserve. In addition, they've sent top prospect Easton Cowan back to juniors.

Leafs are cap compliant by $1 with these moves after signing Pacioretty and Lorentz:

• Send down Cowan
• SOIR Minten ($76,562 against the cap)
• IR Dewar
• LTIR Jarnkrok, Hakanpaa, Mermis
— Kyle Cushman (@Kyle_Cush) October 7, 2024

The LTIR stashes save them a total of $4.245 million in cap space (for the time being, at least), and leaves Toronto cap-compliant by a whopping $1.

The transactions were needed after the other key moves on Monday, which included the official signings of their two key players on PTOs during the preseason.

OFFICIAL 💙🚨: Maple Leafs 2024-2025 Opening night Roster.

— @MapleLeafs #LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/Hc2EjVGq6U
— Leafslatest (@Leafslatest) October 7, 2024

Both Hakanpaa and Dewar have been regulars at practice for the past week or so, but they'll take some extra time to get back to full steam.

Another notable move was the loan of top prospect Easton Cowan back to his junior team, the London Knights.

The #leafs have officially sent Easton Cowan back to the OHL's London Knights.
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) October 7, 2024

It's a tough break for the 19-year-old former first-round selection (2023 Draft, #28 overall), but he'll get to go back to London and dominate the OHL once again as he did last year when he registered 96 points in 54 games.

In other intriguing news, both Bobby McMann and Timothy Liljegren are likely to be healthy scratches for Wednesday's season opener. That's a tough start to the season for both.