Montreal Canadiens: Exploring a Karl Alzner buyout

Karl Alzner wasn’t what the Montreal Canadiens and the fans hoped for all season, and if they chose to move him, a buyout could be an option.

More than anyone on the Montreal Canadiens, Karl Alzner has been involved in a lot of angry rants and eye rolls this season. It’s a perfect example of being something you didn’t expect. When the Habs signed Alzer last summer, fans thought they were getting a stabilizing option on the backend who would compliment Claude Julien‘s defensive structure. Instead, it would take 50 sets of hands to count on your fingers how many times an Alzner turnover, poor play, or misread led to a goal against.

In the time span of the regular season, the 29-year-old went from being a possible partner for Shea Weber, to okay second pairing guy, to, “Why is he playing?!”. It’s not entirely fair, but the evidence speaks for itself. Besides the number of examples, according to Natural Stat Trick, Alzner was also on the ice for 54 of the Montreal Canadiens 158 goals against at even strength.

The discussion quickly turned to ways Alzner could be removed from the team. Scratching him would never be a possibility based on the way Julien used him at even strength and most importantly the penalty kill. Trading him would be tough as well seeing as he has a Modified No-Trade Clause in his contract.

In other seasons, that may not have been a problem. But his performance, in combination with his $4.625 million cap hit will have general managers cautious, to say the least. We can’t deny that Alzner looked better after getting paired with Noah Juulsen and having his usage tweaked at times. However, a trade may still be concerning, unless Marc Bergevin took a ‘bad’ contract back.

Now that the year is over for the Montreal Canadiens, the buyout option has come to light. And who has been the name on the Habs linked to that CBA move? I’ll let Capfriendly answer that one.

No surprise here. If Alzner is off the books, its another free spot on the blueline for a new, or better, face on defence for the Montreal Canadiens. With Weber, Juulsen, Victor Mete, Jeff Petry, Mike Reilly, Jordie Benn, David Schlemko, and Brett Lernout in the fold, there’s going to be competition (assuming all around).

Frankly, buying out Alzner isn’t a move I think Marc Bergevin will pursue. Everyone has their bad years, and this may be the one for the BC native. He’s proven to be a better player than he displayed this season, and perhaps he can get back to that with some slight adjustments to his game.

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But what if the Habs did buy him out? It’s not as simple as some fans think. General managers don’t play hit the buyout button completely removing the player from their salary cap situation. We can see the detailed complications from the site that brought this debate back to light.

Seeing as how Alzner would be over 26, the amount added to the team’s cap would be 2/3 of his remaining contract value. Additionally, with four years left on the deal, the cap hit the Montreal Canadiens would have to face would stretch over the next eight years.

Montreal would save $72, 917 the first year, which wouldn’t be too much of a relief, but after that is when the damage gets done. The cap hit from the buyout would be $1.302 million the next year as well as the final four years. Unfortunately, the 2020/21 cap hit would sit at $4.427 million and then drop to $2.427 million in 2021/22.

A $4 million cap hit on someone who isn’t on the team wouldn’t hurt the Montreal Canadiens now, but two years in the future when there may be someone else needed to be resigned could be frustrating. That’s why most teams wait until the final year or two in a player’s contract before buying them out. It keeps the bases covered.

Latest examples of this are Mark Stuart with the Winnipeg Jets, Jussi Jokinen with the Florida Panthers, Antti Ranta who was bought out by the Dallas Stars.

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Either way, buying out Alzner, at least at this point in his tenure with the Habs isn’t worth it. He has the chance to improve and be the shutdown defenceman the Montreal Canadiens hoped he would be.