Folks, the Calgary Flames have made a few transactions today. There’s some math involved, but let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first: Derek Ryan has been placed on the long-term injury reserve (retroactive to Feb. 4), while club has officially recalled Connor Mackey and forwards Zac Rinaldo and Byron Froese.

Via PuckPedia, here’s the gist of things:

Ryan suffered a broken finger on Thursday. With Ryan on LTIR, the Flames are allowed to exceed the salary cap by $2,815,657 – that’s Ryan’s $3.125 million cap hit, less the $312,343 of cap space the Flames had available for the rest of the season as of when he was placed on LTIR. Ryan being on the LTIR also opens up a roster spot.

In other words: until Ryan is back, the Flames’ daily cap limit becomes $84,312,657. But, the Flames no longer accumulate any cap savings while Ryan’s on LTIR. Even if the Flames are below the actual cap ceiling of $81.5 million (and they’re not using the LTIR space), they accumulate no savings while Ryan is out.

Ryan must remain on the LTIR until the 24 days have passed and the Flames have played 10 games, so he cannot be activated until Mar. 1 at the earliest.

The Flames gain some cap flexibility for the short term, but it hinders their ability to stockpile cap space for the remainder of the season.