Goaltender Robin Lehner will carry a $0 cap hit for the Golden Knights this season, reports Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. They’d reportedly been exploring options to terminate his contract after he failed to report for his pre-training camp physical, which Lehner said was pre-planned.
The 33-year-old is entering the final season of a five-year, $25MM contract, but he’s missed all of the last two seasons after undergoing double hip surgery. He was expected to remain on long-term injured reserve for all of the 2024-25 campaign as well, but Vegas couldn’t have placed him there without him failing a physical.
Since he didn’t report, Vegas was in a tricky situation, requiring the league and NHLPA to step in. They’ve now reached a resolution that will still involve Lehner receiving his $4.4MM salary for this season, per Seravalli, but he’ll effectively be suspended without pay as it relates to Vegas’ salary cap picture.
That takes a ton of workload off general manager Kelly McCrimmon’s plate. The Golden Knights would have had no issues starting the season with a cap-compliant roster with Lehner on LTIR, but that wouldn’t have allowed them to accrue cap space throughout the year. They’ll now be able to accrue space by operating without LTIR. It’ll be a significant amount of flexibility, too – with a full roster, they’ll have $1.36MM in projected space on opening night with Lehner essentially off the books, per PuckPedia.
At this stage, if it wasn’t already, Lehner’s NHL career should be considered over. The Swedish netminder made 364 appearances in parts of 12 seasons with the Senators, Sabres, Knights, Islanders, and Blackhawks, posting a strong .917 career SV% and 2.71 GAA with a 152-141-49 record and 17 shutouts.