Releasing a player contract question

[crusadertsar]

I feel like I messed up my Winnipeg Jets campaign. I am a long time Football Manager player. So coming over from football, when I saw the option that I could just buy out a contract of my long-term injured Brian Little, I jumped at it. And I didn't realize that in hockey buying out a contract had consequences. Little did I know.
Now I am saddled with paying almost 1.7 million per year, for 6 years! But I'm a little confused. Does this take away from my salary space? And is there a way to get rid of this burden? Like if the player retires? Or if I resign him on a cheap contract?

[Adam B]

So short answer:

A buyout in Hockey means that a portion of their cap hit is spread out among the years they have left. It stays on the salary cap until it runs out. FHM does occasionally offer the ability to have compliance buyout - which means that there's no cap hit for anyone.

So Yes it eats salary cap space. No, nothing makes it go away. No, you can't re-sign him, at least for a year.

1.7 is manageable though.

Still, we've been robbed of what would have been the most epic thing for Hockey Fans: The retirement of Shea Weber under the pre-2020 rules. Had Weber retired before his contract was done at one point Nashville would have had a cap penalty of almost $25 million dollars in one year (and over 12 in some too)!

As a full-time member of Team Chaos, I was all for that.

[crusadertsar]

Originally Posted by Adam B

So short answer:

A buyout in Hockey means that a portion of their cap hit is spread out among the years they have left. It stays on the salary cap until it runs out. FHM does occasionally offer the ability to have compliance buyout - which means that there's no cap hit for anyone.

So Yes it eats salary cap space. No, nothing makes it go away. No, you can't re-sign him, at least for a year.

1.7 is manageable though.

Still, we've been robbed of what would have been the most epic thing for Hockey Fans: The retirement of Shea Weber under the pre-2020 rules. Had Weber retired before his contract was done at one point Nashville would have had a cap penalty of almost $25 million dollars in one year (and over 12 in some too)!

As a full-time member of Team Chaos, I was all for that.

Thanks for clearing that up! I guess I will have to suck it up and take it as a lesson for the future. Think before pressing that button.
And wow didn't know that about Weber? Guess he was a gentleman (typical Shea) and probably decided not to retire then and destroy Nashville in the process haha.

[Adam B]

Originally Posted by crusadertsar

Thanks for clearing that up! I guess I will have to suck it up and take it as a lesson for the future. Think before pressing that button.
And wow didn't know that about Weber? Guess he was a gentleman (typical Shea) and probably decided not to retire then and destroy Nashville in the process haha.

I mean, technically it's all Philly's fault for their offer sheet he signed. The NHL backed off the cap penalty...which is sad. But this does happen! Vancouver's still paying for Luongo even though he didn't play there at the end and retired. 35+ contracts also deal with some issues too to stop teams from backloading contracts to spread out cap hits.