As for pro-rated salaries… it breaks down like this (bear with me):

1) The season is broken into "days" (last season, there was 186).

2) Each players' salary is divided by the number of days.

3) Each day that the player is on the active roster, their salary counts toward the big cap figure.

To the best of my understanding, the salary cap is AS IF $56.8 million worth of salary was on the books all season. So, it is possible to play with a roster that is — in theory — over the cap, as long as their salaries combined don't exceed the cap at various checkpoints during the season.

So, trading Lebda may indeed work. Depending on how long Lilja was out of the lineup. I'm not going to bother with the math (specifically because I'm not sure my understanding is correct anyway), but if Lilja doesn't return until the New Year, then there really might not be any issue at all with the numbers.

I'll look into it more and get back to you. I haven't read the CBA in a while. Lawspeak is fun!

Also, if Lilja sits out half the season, doesn't his cap hit only count as half? I haven't seen confirmation on this either, but I've been suspecting that they could still trade/waive Lebda or Meech if Lilja sat out long enough.