What would you do: Buyout or deal with it

[Sens of Anarchy]

I'd be willing to give up a Colin White if it meant getting ride of Ryan's contract. It would suck but being able to sign Karlsson and Stone would be worth it.

That would be puke worthy.. Why not just retain on Ryan and move him .. Keep White , get something back for Ryan.

 

[Stylizer1]

That would be puke worthy.. Why not just retain on Ryan and move him .. Keep White , get something back for Ryan.

There is not enough money we could retain for someone to take Ryan. I thought you could only retain like 20% or something along those lines. Not sure anyone would take him at even 5 million.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

There is not enough money we could retain for someone to take Ryan. I thought you could only retain like 20% or something along those lines. Not sure anyone would take him at even 5 million.

50%... I think at 5 million you'd get some interest.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

Doesn't insurance cover Ryan's salary while he's hurt, or is that just an LTIR thing?

I don't know the exact ins and outs, but it's probably safe to assume that Ryan's salary isn't covered for on and off injuries, but if his contract is insured, and he has a career ending injury or fails his pre-season physical in the future like MacArthur did, his salary would be returned to Ottawa in some form. The rumour with MacArthur is that we're getting 80 percent of his salary back, which means insurance is paying 3.8M and we are paying 950k of MacArthur's 4.75M yearly salary.

Some players aren't insured (see Horton as SOA posted a link to above). That was the motivation behind the Clarkson for Horton trade between TOR and CBJ. Horton was uninsured and CBJ couldn't spend above the cap salary wise, so it was better for them to spend that money on Clarkson who could play for them than it was to spend it on Horton to sit at home.

(Also of note, Clarkson was insured and while he wasn't injured at the time of the deal, he now like MacArthur failed his physical, will likely never play again, but unlike Horton his contract is insured.)

I'm not hoping for Ryan to get hurt or anything like that, but when discussing the cap/salary ramifications of his contract, considering whether Ryan who has what look to be chronic finger injuries will ever get to a point where he cannot pass his physical isn't that far out of line. I'm no doctor (do any doctors post on HFBoards....?), but there has to be something to it when Ryan can't go more than a few weeks this season without breaking a finger.

 

[JungleBeat]

Ryan + Harpur for Eriksson.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Ryan + Harpur for Eriksson.

That contract is worse than Ryans. It's almost all bonus money....pretty much buyout-proof.

 

[JungleBeat]

That contract is worse than Ryans. It's almost all bonus money....pretty much buyout-proof.

What’s the incentive for teams giving out contracts with a low base salary and high signing bonuses?

 

[danielpalfredsson]

What’s the incentive for teams giving out contracts with a low base salary and high signing bonuses?

There is very little to no incentive to the team. The incentive is to the player. Teams offer contracts structured with signing bonuses as a perk to get a player to sign. Players like signing bonuses because they are buyout and lockout proof.

This is more prominent with UFAs signed directly off the open market. Andrew Ladd's contract is an example of this. He signed a 38.5M contract with NYI where 31.5M is signing bonuses with only 7M being regular salary.

The Senators don't really abuse signing bonuses. Not counting ELC contracts since there are signing bonuses mandated by the league for those, the Senators rarely hand them out, and when they do hand them out, they are modest. I think Zibanejad got something like 100k coming off of his ELC, Karlsson got 1M. Ryan is the only player I recall the Senators signing with significant signing bonuses, and even then the Senators didn't really abuse the system as 2M per season on a 7.25M AAV contract isn't outlandish for (what was supposed to be) a superstar player.

To answer your question, the only incentive for a team to have players with signing bonuses is that the NHL does not count signing bonuses against the original team's cap once a player is traded. Look at the Brassard trade as an example of this. The Rangers paid Brassard 2M in signing bonuses before trading him to a budget team. The Senators took on Brassard's entire cap hit and got a cheaper player as a result of his signing bonuses being able to be paid by New York. Same thing happened with Bernier being traded from TOR to ANA. I don't think GMs account for this with contracts but it is one of the few (possibly unintended) advantages of signing bonuses.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

That contract is worse than Ryans. It's almost all bonus money....pretty much buyout-proof.

I'd do it if it was done in July (?) after Eriksson's bonus was paid. We pay Ryan's 2M bonus, it'd work out like this salary wise....3M/5M/4M/4M. Meaning we'd gain 4.5/2.5/3.5/3.5 in salary from the transaction while VAN would be looking at Eriksson's 6M cap hit VS Ryan's 7.25M cap hit.

Ryan is the better player, but this season he's just been hurt so much.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

I'd do it if it was done in July (?) after Eriksson's bonus was paid. We pay Ryan's 2M bonus, it'd work out like this salary wise....3M/5M/4M/4M. Meaning we'd gain 4.5/2.5/3.5/3.5 in salary from the transaction while VAN would be looking at Eriksson's 6M cap hit VS Ryan's 7.25M cap hit.

Ryan is the better player, but this season he's just been hurt so much.

I'm not entirely sure how the buyout works here. Cap Friendly has Eriksson's signing bonus at $6, 4, 3, 1 in the next four years, and base salary at $1, 1, 1, 3. If I understand correctly, the full signing bonus must be paid out, and it's only 2/3rds of the salary portion that is paid? If so, the savings are next to nothing.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

I'm not entirely sure how the buyout works here. Cap Friendly has Eriksson's signing bonus at $6, 4, 3, 1 in the next four years, and base salary at $1, 1, 1, 3. If I understand correctly, the full signing bonus must be paid out, and it's only 2/3rds of the salary portion that is paid? If so, the savings are next to nothing.

To clarify, I was not talking about making the trade for the purpose of a buyout. Just a pure hockey trade if Van would rather pay Ryan 7.25 than Eriksson 6.

Salary wise, if it was done after both players bonuses were paid, we get Eriksson for 3/5/4/4 in salary instead of Ryan at 7.5/7.5/7.5/7.5.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

To clarify, I was not talking about making the trade for the purpose of a buyout. Just a pure hockey trade if Van would rather pay Ryan 7.25 than Eriksson 6.

Salary wise, if it was done after both players bonuses were paid, we get Eriksson for 3/5/4/4 in salary instead of Ryan at 7.5/7.5/7.5/7.5.

Ahh, I see (said the blind man).

That does make more sense.

 

[Lenny the Lynx]

I think they should buyout Ryan because the math makes sense and I think he’s untradeable.

Phaneuf is tougher because you need to factor in a top 4 replacement. So it doesn’t really accomplish that much in the end

 

[pt_mck]

The sens will never be in a financial position to be able to afford buying some one out. Not in cap space nor in actual dollars. If they bought some one out their respective cap spending would drop accordingly. Trade or keep is the only option.

 

[Alex1234]

We need faster skater then those two its thats simple
Buy out trade them or just sit them
Its not like bringing up AHL will worsten the season anyway
At least they’ll get experience

 

[Stylizer1]

The only way we can trade Ryan is if we give up a high end prospect. There has to be some benefit for the team taking on that crazy contract. Unfortunately the only teams with the type of cap space to take on his contract is a team most likely on his no trade list.

 

[Lenny the Lynx]

The sens will never be in a financial position to be able to afford buying some one out. Not in cap space nor in actual dollars. If they bought some one out their respective cap spending would drop accordingly. Trade or keep is the only option.

This seems a bit illogical - would a cash strapped team not rather spend 2/3 of the remaining amount instead of 3/3?

With Ryan they owe him $22MM in salary over 4 years. If they buy him out its $14.7MM over 8 years. That means they would save $7.3MM in actual cash, and also spread it out longer. There are also inflation related benefits to that - money spent in 8 years will be worth less compared to money spent today. That's not insignificant money for this team - would help offset a bit of EK/Stone increases.

I dont think Ryan is tradeable unless you add a big asset or take an equally bad contract back. Sad how that has turned out but it is what it is at this point

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

The only way we can trade Ryan is if we give up a high end prospect. There has to be some benefit for the team taking on that crazy contract. Unfortunately the only teams with the type of cap space to take on his contract is a team most likely on his no trade list.

If you are right .. which I don't think you are .. we eat Ryan's contract. IMO we can retain on Ryan and move him.

 

[Stylizer1]

If you are right .. which I don't think you are .. we eat Ryan's contract. IMO we can retain on Ryan and move him.

How much could we retain for another team to bite and who do you think would? Let's say we take out the bottom 10 teams in the league as his no trade destinations.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

How much could we retain for another team to bite and who do you think would? Let's say we take out the bottom 10 teams in the league as his no trade destinations.

I think 2.5 million would be a starting point. Leaves a 4.75 Cap hit and Salary/Bonuses of 5 per.

 

[Stylizer1]

I think 2.5 million would be a starting point. Leaves a 4.75 Cap hit and Salary/Bonuses of 5 per.

For arguments sake let's say 5 million.Ryan most likely will have the 5 worst teams/markets on his list. The 10 best teams/markets don't have the cap and if they did would Ryan be playing on their top 2 lines? Would a top team want to have Ryan for 4 more seasons at 5 million? Would any of those teams want to have a 5 million dollar 3rd liner who is highly injury prone and has confidence issues? Middle tier teams who have some cap space, higher picks on entry level contracts, and could absorb the cap hit and term would not be looking to move younger picks with upside. Most likely they are going to try and give us their Bobby Ryan contract as too not corner themselves like we have. I would see one of those mid tier teams willing to bite the bullet if with along with a reduced Ryan contract they also received a blue chip prospect for their future in a Colin White. For me eating some money isn't enough in Ryan's case. Phaneuf, sure, I think he still holds a lot of value to a team looking for defensive depth. Ryan @ 31 come March with 4.75 cap would still not benefit anyone enough to take that chance. If Ryan was consistent in giving you 75+ games and 55 points and not burning out in the second half of the season I think you would see interest from teams looking for that depth. He just isn't that guy.