Buyouts of Retained Contracts
If a team retains salary on a player and that player is later bought out by a different team, does the player still count as taking up a salary retention slot after being bought out?
Answer
Jul 20, 2022
Once a player is bought out, the retained cap hit is converted to a buy-out cap hit for the player that was traded/bought-out, and it no longer counts as one of the team's 3 permitted active retained transactions. For example, Ottawa's buyout cap hit for Phaneuf does not count as an active retained salary transaction.