The NHL season will actually, finally, mercifully come to an end Monday night following Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Oilers and Panthers in Sunrise, Fla., and that will kick off a countdown to a pretty important period in the NHL offseason.
The NHL's first buyout period of the offseason opens on June 15 or 48 hours after the Stanley Cup is awarded -- whichever is later -- and runs until June 30. With this year's playoffs running exceptionally late, it will make for a short buyout period.
Now, Kyle Dubas has gone on the record on several occasions as being anti-buyout, and it's not difficult to understand why. The cap implications are often just not worth it. If a player is older than 26, the team is still responsible for two-thirds of the remaining salary. If a player is younger than 26, the team is only responsible for one-third. Full signing bonuses are still paid out in any case. The amount of time a team has to pay out the remaining salary is equal to double the amount of time remaining on the contract at the time of the buyout.
Dubas also sounded pretty comfortable with the Penguins' salary cap situation when we chatted in Buffalo, N.Y. earlier this month, telling me "we probably have more flexibility than is publicly thought."
"I mean, we don't have a ton of positions to fill, and we have a lot of guys internal near the minimum," Dubas told me. "But I also don't think we're going to be big into the big, long-term, high-money guys. Just with where we're at, we need to try to find players on shorter-term that can come in and and help, but also continue to keep our focus on young players, prospects and draft picks, and trying to get those into the system and expedite things that way."
The Penguins really are in a pretty good spot cap-wise. After Alex Nedeljkovic re-signed last week with a $2.5 million cap hit, the Penguins would have $9,195,661 in cap space with the following roster:
Forwards (12): Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust, Reilly Smith, Rickard Rakell, Michael Bunting, Lars Eller, Noel Acciari, Drew O'Connor, Matt Nieto, Jesse Puljujarvi, Valtteri Puustinen
Defensemen (6): Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, Ryan Graves, Marcus Pettersson, John Ludvig, Jack St. Ivany
Goaltenders (2): Tristan Jarry, Alex Nedeljkovic
That cap space figure also includes $1,562,500 of retained salary for the final season in the Jeff Petry trade and $916,667 on the books from the penultimate year of the Jack Johnson buyout.
But if the Penguins did want to add additional cap space before free agency opens on July 1, would a buyout make sense, regardless of Dubas' general sentiment toward them?
Spoiler alert: Not really. Here's a look at the cap implications for the popular fan suggestions I've seen for buyouts of players this offseason, using CapFriendly's calculator (before the Capitals kill it forever).
RYAN GRAVES
Contract: Five years remaining, $4.5 million per year
Buyout implications:
2024-25: $1,750,000
2025-26: $2,500,000
2026-27: $3,500,000
2027-28: $3,500,000
2028-29: $3,750,000
2029-30: $750,000
2030-31: $750,000
2031-32: $750,000
2032-33: $750,000
2033-34: $750,000
Obviously, this one is a fat no. Graves wasn't great in his first year, but he wasn't horrendous enough that it's worth taking on dead cap for the next decade. Guys like Brayden Yager and Owen Pickering could be the new old, veteran core and the Penguins would still be paying Graves. If the Penguins really, really wanted to move on from Graves, they'd be better off trying to move him at the maximum 50% retained.
But with a new assistant coach on defense coming onboard in David Quinn, it seems like the most likely scenario is that Graves is back next season and everyone hopes that a full offseason and a new coach will set Graves up for a better second season with the Penguins. If he doesn't improve next year? Then they start seriously looking at a trade. But a buyout? No way.
REILLY SMITH
Contract: One year remaining, $5 million
Buyout implications:
2024-25: $2,333,334
2025-26: $1,333,334
If there's a candidate that makes the most sense, it's Smith. But Smith still doesn't make that much sense for a buyout.
Smith isn't immovable. He only has a year left on his contract with an eight-team no-trade list. And while he too is coming off of a down season, he has a much better body of work before his time in Pittsburgh that could entice some teams to take a flyer on him. Even if the Penguins retained the maximum 50% salary, it would be almost the same in dead cap for next season as a buyout would, and would save the extra $1.3 million in 2025-26.
If the Penguins wanted to move out a roster player to free up cap space, Smith makes sense as a trade candidate. But not a buyout.
NOEL ACCIARI
Contract: Two years remaining, $2 million per year
2024-25: $583,333
2025-26: $1,083,333
2026-27: $583,333
2027-28: $583,333
From a cost-benefit perspective, this one might actually be the worst idea of the suggestions I've seen. Actually.
Acciari was fine last season when healthy. He's a good penalty-killer. If the concern is just that his game often leads to him taking a beating and that could lead to injury, that's not reason to get rid of him. If Acciari suffers another long-term injury next season, he'd just go on long-term injured reserve and the Penguins would get temporary salary cap relief that could be used on a young forward call-up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
Even if you personally believe that Acciari was just so awful that injuries aside, a buyout would be addition by subtraction, the money just doesn't make sense. The cap savings next year would be just over $1.4 million next year and $916,667 the following year. Even if the Penguins did just want to move Acciari for cap space -- and there's zero indication they do -- his cap hit is low enough that they'd be better off just burying him in the minors after waivers. For players on one-way contracts, just over $1.1 million can be freed up by sending the player down, and the remainder would be dead cap. That's just about what they'd save next year in a buyout and even more than they'd save in the second year of a buyout.
For several reasons ... no.
TRISTAN JARRY
Contract: Four years remaining, $5.375 million per year
Buyout implications:
2024-25: $1,022,917
2025-26: $1,997,917
2026-27: $5,297,917
2027-28: $4,797,917
2028-29: $1,047,917
2029-30: $1,047,917
2030-31: $1,047,917
2031-32: $1,047,917
This one is straight up goofy, but enough people have wondered that it's worth taking the time to shut down.
For one, I fully believe Jarry will be back next season with Nedeljkovic, and performance will dictate playing time. Joel Blomqvist isn't yet ready for a 1A/1B type role with Nedeljkovic, but he'll surely be the first recall if there's an injury. I don't think I'd be comfortable making Blomqvist a backup under Nedeljkovic, either. That's not what's best for Blomqvist's long-term development, and that's putting way too much trust in Nedeljkovic after such a short stint with him as the starter late in the season -- a stint in which he lost steam as the starts piled up, too.
I don't think they want to move Jarry, and I don't think a trade would be as easy as some might think. For one, Linus Ullmark could be on the move from Boston, and he's a much more appealing target for a team looking to add a real No. 1 goaltender. I don't even think it'd be that possible to move Jarry in a pure cap dump. The teams without a goalie but with ample cap space to take on a cap dump are likely the teams toward the bottom of the league's standings. Guess which teams are most likely to be on Jarry's 12-team no-trade list? Those teams. And even if Jarry didn't have a bottom-feeder is no-trade list, those teams generally want picks and prospects in exchange for cap dumps. What are the Penguins really trying to hold onto these days? Picks and prospects.
Nothing Dubas, Mike Sullivan or anyone else has said has suggested that the team doesn't have faith in Jarry. But even if that weren't the case, the buyout terms are just not worth it.
