With no CBO's and a possible multi-season flat cap, some have brought up the idea of mutual contract termination for players with bad contracts.
For Loui Eriksson that would mean he'd be forfeiting $5 million total over two years after his 2020 bonus is paid, despite his cap hit being $6m each year. $5 mill is hard to walk away from for any player, and especially when the team also has the option of a regular buyout that pays out 2/3's of the remaining cash value to the player. However, Loui's contract won't be bought out as it saves the team very little cap space over the two seasons because of it's bonus structure.
Instead, Benning can inform Loui he'll be earning his remaining salary riding the bus in Utica for 2 years. It's a dick move by management, but in this case Loui might consider the termination so that he could then be free to sign with any other NHL team. Even signing a couple $1-1.5 million, 1 year deals would make up at least some of that $5 million he'd be walking away from, but he'd be in the NHL playing in a much more hospitable situation on a team that wants him. For a player that's earned an estimated 56 million over his career, is he going to choose an extra 2 to 3 million to play in the minors for two years, or earn a little less and continue playing in the NHL?
I think there's a decent chance a mutual termination happens, not just for Loui, but also other bad veteran contracts that have had most of the cash already paid out.
Why do DeMelo and Markstrom sign those contracts knowing you'll have no problem sending them to the minors to try and get out of their contracts????
For one thing, both of those contracts would be regarded as pretty decent value for the important role the two players would have. Eriksson's deal was terrible the moment it was signed; the only person that failed to see that was Benning unfortunately. I'm obviously not advocating to do this to every contract that seems like a bit of an overpay, but Loui's contract is way beyond that level, and there wasn't one season where it was even close to good value for what he produced. Given the economic situation the league and its teams now find themselves in, GM's are going to have to get creative, and maybe a little ruthless. After all their job is to ice a winning team, not be buddies with the players they sign.
Maybe that means some UFA's will be wary to sign in VAN in the future. And I'm sure Loui is a great guy and teammate. But if I'm one of the Canucks' core players and I see my GM trying to do everything he can to improve the roster in order to win... I'd be pretty happy about that. Eriksson's contract has to go in order to make that happen.
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