Player Discussion Marián Gáborík: End Of The Road

[JungleBeat]

What’s the plan with Gaborik? He has three years left with an 4.8M caphit and a decreasing salary. He shouldn’t be playing any meaningful minutes next year if we plan on being a good team, he’s done as an NHLer.

Since a buyout is unlikely due to Melnyk’s cheapness, I believe are best bet would be to send him to AHL for the rest of the season and make it known he won’t be playing in the NHL anymore so he can retire and sign a contract in Europe.

Click to read more...

 

[Stylizer1]

What’s the plan with Gaborik? He has three years left with an 4.8M caphit and a decreasing salary. He shouldn’t be playing any meaningful minutes next year if we plan on being a good team, he’s done as an NHLer.

Since a buyout is unlikely due to Melnyk’s cheapness, I believe are best bet would be to send him to AHL for the rest of the season and make it known he won’t be playing in the NHL anymore so he can retire and sign a contract in Europe.

they will just sit him the rest of the season so he won't get hurt and then buy him out.

 

[BonkTastic]

He shouldn’t be playing any meaningful minutes next year if we plan on being a good team, he’s done as an NHLer.

Been saying this literally for months.

We replaced one problem player with an even worse problem player. Hopefully he retires (though I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, because why would he?), or else it's going to be a painful 3 years around these parts listening to literally the exact complaints people had about Phaneuf being tossed Gaborik's way, with the obvious caveat that Phaneuf is still an NHL-caliber player, while Gaborik is going to look like he's skating in an Old Timer's Charity game collecting a top-6 forward NHL paycheque.

I don't even know what to do with him at this point. His contract is all but un-tradeable (except to us, apparently), and there's no good reason for him to retire when he can make a small fortune playing out his career with the Sens on the 4th line until he's almost 40 years old.

It's a mess. I have no clue what to do with him. What happens if you send him to the AHL and he's fine with it? We give him the Redden treatment, but he still collects the almost $11mil left on his contract? We all know that actual salary matters to this club, not cap hit. $11 mil buried in the minors is $11mil we can't spend on the NHL roster.

I'm not confident this gets solved in a way that makes the club particularly happy about the outcome.

 

[Qward]

Send him and Pittsburgh first to Arizona so they can stay above the floor.

 

[BonkTastic]

they will just sit him the rest of the season so he won't get hurt and then buy him out.

OK, so Gaborik is owed $10,825,000 in actual salary from now until he retires. This is what his buyout costs:

2018/19 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $1,502,778
2019/20 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $2,902,778
2020/21 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $3,002,778
2021/22 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $1,202,778
2022/23 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $1,202,778
2023/24 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $1,202,778
TOTAL BUYOUT COST (actual dollars) of $7,216,668 spread out over 6 years.

... Buying out Gaborik saves us $3,608,332 in real dollars over the entire life of the rest of his contract. That is a difference of about $1.2mil per year in savings over the 3 years he has left on his deal. That's basically the cost of a decent 4th liner.

I just wanted to point out the math here, for the sake of transparency.

 

[BondraTime]

Been saying this literally for months.

We replaced one problem player with an even worse problem player. Hopefully he retires (though I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, because why would he?), or else it's going to be a painful 3 years around these parts listening to literally the exact complaints people had about Phaneuf being tossed Gaborik's way, with the obvious caveat that Phaneuf is still an NHL-caliber player, while Gaborik is going to look like he's skating in an Old Timer's Charity game collecting a top-6 forward NHL paycheque.

I don't even know what to do with him at this point. His contract is all but un-tradeable (except to us, apparently), and there's no good reason for him to retire when he can make a small fortune playing out his career with the Sens on the 4th line until he's almost 40 years old.

It's a mess. I have no clue what to do with him. What happens if you send him to the AHL and he's fine with it? We give him the Redden treatment, but he still collects the almost $11mil left on his contract? We all know that actual salary matters to this club, not cap hit. $11 mil buried in the minors is $11mil we can't spend on the NHL roster.

I'm not confident this gets solved in a way that makes the club particularly happy about the outcome.

Only way to look at positively is to hope he retires, as he has made a fortune and his knees still work.

I can't imagine we would retain on Phaneuf while getting back not even little value, but completely negative value. Dorion must have an inside track or some knowledge only he/few are privy to.

Wingers are easier to hide than D, but Gaborik is like trying to hide a spaceship in a petting zoo

 

[BonkTastic]

I can't imagine we would retain on Phaneuf while getting back not even little value, but completely negative value. Dorion must have an inside track or some knowledge only he/few are privy to.

I really, really hope this is the case.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

So...how does it work these days with sending a guy to the minors? Did the NHL close the Redden loophole?

If we had an owner willing to spend money, and Gaborik was ok with going to Belleville, and it didn't hurt our cap....that would be an amazing option to help the kids on the farm. Sigh...likely just a pipe dream.

 

[BonkTastic]

So...how does it work these days with sending a guy to the minors? Did the NHL close the Redden loophole?

If we had an owner willing to spend money, and Gaborik was ok with going to Belleville, and it didn't hurt our cap....that would be an amazing option to help the kids on the farm. Sigh...likely just a pipe dream.

Sort of. Any player sent to the minors can have a maximum of something like $900k in cap reductions. If you send a $3mil player to the AHL, your cap is only reduced by ~$900k. $5mil player? Still only ~$900k cap reduction. The rest stays with the NHL team, and counts towards the cap.

I think the issue with us, though, is that we really don't care about cap hit in the first place. We care about actual dollars. Even if Gaborik is OK with playing AHL hockey for 3 years, his cap reduction is kind of irrelevant for us - we're not a cap team. Wasn't one last year, aren't one this year, and certainly don't look to be one next year, either. We care about his actual salary, which doesn't change regardless of whether he plays NHL or AHL hockey.

 

[Benttheknee]

Might the Sens keep him around to hit the floor next season?

 

[Engineer]

Buried cap relief is 1.025M

 

[BonkTastic]

Buried cap relief is 1.025M

Right. This is correct. It used to be ~$900k, back when the minimum NHL salary was lower.

I just looked it up, and it changes every year. The buried cap relief is "Minimum NHL salary cap hit + $375k"

So in 2018-19, the NHL minimum salary for players will be $650k/year.
Therefore, the buried cap relief becomes $650k + $375k = $1.025mil, like you said.

The minimum salary for both 2019-20 and 2020-21 will be $700k per year, so the buried cap relief for those two years becomes $1.075mil.

 

[dumbdick]

This has been a very complex way to atone for the cowen/greening contracts.

 

[Stylizer1]

OK, so Gaborik is owed $10,825,000 in actual salary from now until he retires. This is what his buyout costs:

2018/19 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $1,502,778
2019/20 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $2,902,778
2020/21 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $3,002,778
2021/22 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $1,202,778
2022/23 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $1,202,778
2023/24 - Buyout cost: $1,202,778 - Cap hit: $1,202,778
TOTAL BUYOUT COST (actual dollars) of $7,216,668 spread out over 6 years.

... Buying out Gaborik saves us $3,608,332 in real dollars over the entire life of the rest of his contract. That is a difference of about $1.2mil per year in savings over the 3 years he has left on his deal. That's basically the cost of a decent 4th liner.

I just wanted to point out the math here, for the sake of transparency.

What was the purpose for trading for him then?

How much would have buying out Phaneuf cost?

 

[BonkTastic]

What was the purpose for trading for him then?

How much would have buying out Phaneuf cost?

Phaneuf is due $14mil in salary + $4.5mil in signing bonus money over the rest of his contract = $18.5mil/3 years.
You can't buy out signing bonus money - you owe that amount in full, regardless of buyouts.

Actual cost in dollars for a hypothetical Phaneuf buyout is $1,555,556 per year for 6 years, plus the $4.5mil in bonus money, for a total of $13,833,336.

 

[Qward]

refer to bonks

 

[BonkTastic]

A little more fun math.

a) So we retained 25% of Phaneuf's contract to send him to LA. That works out to be $4.625mil over 3 years. That is a sunk cost for us going forward - no getting out of it.

b) A hypothetical Gaborik buyout costs us $7,216,668 in real dollars

c) The COMBINED cost of retaining 25% of Phaneuf's salary and buying out Gaborik would be: $11,841,668.

 

[Benjamin]

Wait until 2019 and the buyout isnt so bad.

 

[Langdon Alger]

Wait until 2019 and the buyout isnt so bad.

Hope he doesn’t get hurt and put on LTIR though. It’s a gamble.

 

[Billy Bridges]

Only way to look at positively is to hope he retires, as he has made a fortune and his knees still work.

I can't imagine we would retain on Phaneuf while getting back not even little value, but completely negative value. Dorion must have an inside track or some knowledge only he/few are privy to.

Wingers are easier to hide than D, but Gaborik is like trying to hide a spaceship in a petting zoo

I think you may be wrong on this one.

We really have no way of knowing what type of technology would exist on this hypothetical spaceship, so it's possible this ship could:
A-)Make itself invisible
B-)Shrink down to the size of a baby goat
C-)Look like a bale of hay

 

[L'Aveuglette]

If Gaborik is not bought out this summer, it will be further proof that the team doesn't know what the hell it's doing and that Melnyk is full of shit. But yeah, seems more likely that they made this trade with the full intent of buying him out.

 

[Sensung]

Hope he doesn’t get hurt and put on LTIR though. It’s a gamble.

If his contract is medically insured, then they might prefer he gets "injured". Saves Melnyk $ while still counting against the cap. Similar to how people think we are spending 72M this year while ignoring MacArthur approx 5M.

Could be very helpful if they go scorched earth and run at the cap floor.

 

[ottawah]

Might the Sens keep him around to hit the floor next season?

Hitting the floor is not an issue, unless we jettison salary. We already have a cap hit of 58M next next year, and floor is 55M this year. Floor is probably closer to 59M, which I think pretty much already hit. Plus you have to add Stones salary to that (~6M) and 2 (maybe 3) of Ceci/Wideman/Claesson (~6M), so we are roughly 12M over the cap floor.

Even if we traded Ryan and Karlsson, we would be only a 2 million under the cap floor and would need a F and D.

 

[Micklebot]

I think you may be wrong on this one.

We really have no way of knowing what type of technology would exist on this hypothetical spaceship, so it's possible this ship could:
A-)Make itself invisible
B-)Shrink down to the size of a baby goat
C-)Look like a bale of hay

Certainly this spaceship would be equipped with an infinite improbability drive, right? So pound back a pint, and get your towel ready.

 

[Zorf]

I feel like there's no good answer, but if I had to choose (and if him retiring isn't an option) then I think the best course of action is to keep him as a healthy scratch next season and then buy him out only because it lowers the amount of years for the buyout cap penalty.


But unless he does retire, I don't see a good solution to him being on the team.



Actually, the other option is to play the absolute balls out of him, which would ensure that he breaks down at some point, then boom. LTIR.

Yup. That's the answer. 30+ mins of ice time per game to finish out this season.