The Montreal Canadiens, as well as everyone else around the NHL, will have the opportunity to open up some salary cap space beginning today. Teams often have some regret after signing a player to a long term contract and this is the time of year they can undo some of those mistakes.
Now, they don’t exactly have a get out of jail free card. But teams can buyout contracts starting today. A player would then be paid out two-thirds of their cap hit over double the remaining term. That means if a player has one year left on his contract with a $6 million cap hit, a team could buy them out and pay a total of $4 million over two years, or $2 million per season.
There is an immediate cap relief felt, but then a bit of a penalty to serve later on after the original contract would have been done. This is often reserved for a team that is up against the cap and needs some space right now, or a team that has a few tricks up its sleeve planned for the upcoming offseason.
While the Canadiens aren’t necessarily up against the cap right now, there are two reasons to believe they may be interested in opening up a little cap space now. Or at least before the buyout window closes on June 30th.
First, it is conceivable that they want to get under the cap without having to put Carey Price on long-term injured reserve next season. This would allow them to not worry about any cap overages from entry-level contract bonuses carrying over into 2023-24. This really only makes sense if they are buying out a contract that is currently also scheduled to carry into 2023-24. Otherwise they are just adding a cap buyout penalty in that season instead of a cap overage.
Also, the team may be looking to make a big swing this offseason and need to be under the cap, even with Carey Price on LTIR. This would be the case if they plan on acquiring a player like Pierre-Luc Dubois and signing him to a long-term contract and also looking to upgrade a pricey position like goaltending.
If that is the case, they need to free up a few dollars. They could possibly look to the buyout option to do that. If they do, these three players would be candidates to have their contracts torn up.