They won't need Nielsen's contract to reach the cap floor. There is only a $1M difference between his cap hit if he's bought out vs not bought out. They can easily find that somewhere else if they are that close and want to free up the roster spot. After they re-sign Bertuzzi and Hronek they would be about $15-16M from the floor, with the need to sign 8 forwards, 4 defensemen, and 1 goalie. Shouldn't be difficult.
It's more likely they keep him around to meet the expansion draft exposure requirement, but even then I kinda doubt it at this point (I expect they'll re-sign Erne and expose him and Namestnikov to meet the req). At this point, I'd bet on Nielsen getting bought out.
I've been looking at this a lot recently and I don't agree with this. Although I have to admit I don't understand exactly the real-money effect of the buyout. But from a cap floor perspective I don't think they will do it.
I agree they shouldn't have Nielsen in the line up, but I don't agree with buying him out. Simply because it's a short term fix that they don't need with this very weak roster. It will free up money for 21/22 that they probably won't bring to use anyway. It will be more usefull to just have Nielsen completely off the books in 2022/23.
Now, my speculation starts elsewhere: Namely at looking at what prospects we have coming into the team:
In my eyes there are only five potential forwards for next season and it would be a miracle to see all five of them slide into the line up: Jonatan Berggren, Lucas Raymond, Alexander Kadeykin, Otto Kivenmäki and Joe Veleno. To me Berggren and Kadeykin seems most ready for next year, but none of the five are a guarantee. Of course we might add a draft choice in 2021 to this, but it seems that there might very well not be any NHL ready forwards in play at this draft. So I think we will get a defenseman in this draft.
I would love to add Svechnikov and Rasmussen to the possible list for next season and even Hirose, but since they don't spend this season getting them ready for NHL, I am writing off these guys - I just don't think they will make it. I'll be happy suprised if they manage to get one or two of them into the roster next season, but I just wouldn't count on it when they don't use them over Nielsen this year.
Now, we have Filppula, Gagner, Helm, Glendening and Ryan as UFA's and Erne and Bromé as RFA's. I would like to keep Ryan and Glendening, but the other ones would depend on what Yzerman will be able to fetch on the market.
But that is a lot of players going out and with only MAYBE a couple of young players able to step in it will be necessary to make some serious scoops on the market to close these holes. And I just can't imagine a scenario where Nielsen becomes completely expendable to a degree where it becomes a good enough deal to buy him out.
I think it will be better to just let this contract run for the last season.