Behind Enemy Lines
Registered User
Why would we do that? Seattle is likely to take Kassian as a forward, or Jones as a dman, depending how we do our protection scheme (7/3, or 4/4). Let Neal play out next year, where he likely still produces somewhat still (say 12-14 goals), and is over paid, but its not the end of the world. Buy him out next off-season, where it will cost us $1.9 million for 4 years, but save us $3.8 million in 21-22 and 22-23. The flat cap is expected to continue until 22-23, so the $3.8 in extra space for these 2 years would be very beneficial. The 23-24 cap is going to go back to the old formula, where the previous years revenue sets the 23-24 cap. (Links: NHL salary cap to remain same next season) So buying him out next off-season would free up a decent amount of cap space in a time when we will need it. The additional 2 years where it actually costs us cap space is when the cap should start rising again, so will be more palatable. It's almost perfect to be honest.
This also happens to align to the cap penalties for Pouliot going away ($1.3 million) and Sekeras penalty dropping by $1 million in 21-22. Buying him out next offseason + the penalties being reduced would free up $6.1 million for 21-22 and 22-23, where the flat cap exists.
$6.1 million should help us replace Neal's 15-ish goals per year and find a #3 center, or help us "trade up" in defence. Say from trading Kelfbom and his $4.1 cap + something, to a team for a more expensive dman. Regardless how we spend it, $6.1 in the "flat-cap era" is a pretty decent amount of space, and the player(s) we would bring in would almost certainly provide more team value than Neal did on his own.
Interesting take and appreciate the thinking around the cap. I think it is a no-brainer for Seattle to take a young, cheap defenseman. Can never have enough young defense and this is actually an area that seems to have some ability in the pipeline.
Seattle will have cap flexibility to extract extra picks or assets from team's that want to flush bad contracts but it is going to be costly especially with a covid stalled cap. Zero chance imo they would voluntarily take an enigmatic, costly Zach Kassian. And I would still explore a pro-active approach with Seattle to take old and expensive versus losing an young, developing player - that would mean James Neal.