The Washington Capitals will be placing John Carlson on long-term injured reserve this weekend to accommodate the cap hits of Nicklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson back to the active roster.

The move means Carlson will be out for at least 10 games and 24 days of the regular season since initially being placed on IR on December 27.

The Capitals have the day off on Saturday. The Capitals nor CapFriendly have reported the news yet suggesting the transaction may not be official until Sunday for cap purposes.

Carlson has been out since taking a slapshot to the side of the head on December 23. He has not played or practiced since. The Caps announced on December 27 that the veteran blueliner would be out longterm.

With Carlson on LTIR, his $8 million cap hit is essentially off the books of the active roster. That extra salary cap flexibility was needed to activate Backstrom and his $9.2 million cap hit from long-term injured reserve. The Swedish center will make his season debut against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday along with Capitals winger Tom Wilson. If Carlson was not placed on LTIR, the team would need to clear a little over $4.5 million in cap space to activate Backstrom.

Depending on when Carlson returns, this could be a problem the Capitals need to revisit once Carlson is deemed healthy enough to come off LTIR. The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir reported that Carlson will be out months due to his injury. Though the team does expect he’ll be back sometime before the regular season ends.

Caps head coach Peter Laviolette revealed that Carlson attended the Tuesday, January 3 game between the Washington Capitals and Buffalo Sabres. It was presumably the first time Carly’s been back at Capital One Arena since initially suffering the upper-body injury.

“I saw him last night,” Laviolette said then. “He actually feels good. It still is a long road for him.

“He feels good, a little bit more back to normal which was really good. He looked good to me (as compared to) you know when we saw him the next day or the day after. And now he looked good last night. He sounded good and he looked good. It was really positive for us to see as a team.”

Gina, John’s wife, published a photo of the defenseman with his three sons on Christmas Day. Carlson had no stitches and smiled for the camera.

“A huge thank you for the prayers & thoughts sent to John, I could write a book on what a warrior he is,” Gina wrote. “We’ve both felt so touched by the immense amount of kindness & thoughtful messages and calls. John is lucky to have such an incredible community of people who have showed genuine care for him in the last few days.”

This will be the first time since really the 2015-16 campaign that Carlson will miss extended time with an individual injury. He broke his foot that season and missed over 20 games due to the ailment.

Read more: All the Capitals roster moves ahead of the 1/8 Blue Jackets game.

• Nicklas Backstrom is back
• Tom Wilson is back
• Aliaksei Protas loaned to Hershey
• Joe Snively on waivers

Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB