Salary Cap: Real dollars impact of the Phaneuf Trade

[danielpalfredsson]

My 2 cents on the correct way to judge this trade....

1) Subtract out Greening and Cowen real dollar salary from Phaneuf's real dollar salary over the full length of Phaneuf's contract. This is roster spot equivalent, since it's basically one D for one D.
2) Whatever's left treat as Phaneuf's new salary structure. It's this "new Phaneuf" that we traded for, and how the trade should be judged.

3) So the trade boils down to "New Phaneuf" for Michalek, Lindberg and a 2nd round pick (probably 30-45 overall)

I'm too lazy to do the math, but I think it's conceptually easier to just take out Cowen and Greening entirely and consider the trade in these new terms. This of course assumes that Cowen and Greening are done and none of the leafs prospects we got back pan out to anything.

Michalek wasn't strictly a garbage pile cap dump, but the problem with him is that the Senators don't really need him any longer if MacArthur returns and Smith can keep up close to his current level of play. The team has MacArthur, Smith, Puempel, and then a boatload of guys who are ready to play at least 4th line roles who make around 600k.

Michalek makes nearly 2M more than Smith, and probably would be impossible to dump next season without taking salary back.

So with Greening and Cowen, it was dumping money that wasn't being used at all (healthy scratch for life/AHL). Where as with Michalek, he is useful, but not useful enough to justify his price tag when the Senators have so many players who can play in the bottom 6, and a much cheaper guy like Smith proving to be a capable middle 6 LWer.

 

[dumbdick]

"New Phaneuf" pay structure: (phaneuf$ - (greening$ + cowen$)

16/17: -$200K
17/18: $7M
18/19: $6.5M
19/20: $6.5M
20/21: $5.5M

AAV: $5.06M over 5 years.

So we traded

Phaneuf, 5 years @ $5M
for
Michalek, Lindberg and a 2nd.

Excluding all the other pieces, do people like that deal? I think I'm okay with it.

 

[Tnuoc Alucard]

You guys also aren't factoring in the warehouses full of unsold Cowen #2 merchandise that can be repurposed. That is pretty huge.

It's easy to remove the "Cowen" name plate, and replace it with a "Phaneauf" name plate ............. but still don't see it as becoming a big seller.