Pencils down, front offices.

The NHL’s roster deadline came and went on Monday at 3 p.m. MT, when all 32 teams needed to get their cap-compliant teams set. Fans, pundits and scribes, such as your deskman here, waited into the night for PuckPedia to send the telegram of who was in and who was out.

After all, who else is there to trust with such sensitive information? Nobody, of course.

Nonetheless, shortly before 10 p.m., the late edition hit the streets, and there it was declared: Five Edmonton Oilers will begin the season on injured reserve. Subheaders that followed: $303,334 in cap space; the ability to accrue up to $1.4 million by the trade deadline; $2.85 million in dead money.

Mattias Janmark, Alec Regula, Frederik Andersen, and Jason Dickinson, working their way back from various injuries suffered last season, were joined by Matt Savoie, injured during summer training, on the injured reserve. That will create some headaches down the road for the team, which could be tended to as simply as sending the waiver-exempt Owen Michaels down when Dickinson returns, and placing Max Jones on waivers when Savoie is healthy. All signs point to them being the first two to return.

Competition will remain fierce, as when Janmark, Regula, and Andersen return, those headaches will pound again.

For those asking about the status of Atro Leppänen, injured in the pre-season, PuckPedia confirmed to Daily Faceoff Edmonton that he will carry a cap hit of $0 while injured to start the year, and once healthy, will need to be placed on waivers and sent down, or he’ll begin counting against the salary cap.

The deadline cap space projection, mind you, will be impacted all along the way, updated daily on PuckPedia’s Oilers hub. The injured reserve placements impact that. For example, if Dickinson were to miss just the first two games of the season, and is activated ahead of next Saturday’s game against the Kraken and if Michaels is sent down, the deadline cap space soars to $5.61 million.

That will play.

Edmonton’s dead money comes by way of Jack Campbell’s buyout, and $250,000 in overages, the latter due to Matt Savoie earning such a bonus for hitting an ice-time threshold. Campbell’s buyout, meanwhile, will be through the worst at season’s end. While the cap hit was just $1.1 million in year one, it jumped to $2.3 million last year, and $2.6 million this year. Next season, and the two that follow, that number drops to $1.5 million.

Now, the games begin to matter, and the chase for Lord Stanley’s Mug begins.

Zach Laing is the managing editor at Daily Faceoff Edmonton and news director at The Nation Network. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.