Rejoint: juill. 2021
Messages: 1,053
Mentions "j'aime": 550
I’m trying to figure out if this is a cap dump or a hockey trade. I think it might be a little of both.
It looks like a cap dump for Tampa Bay, but they retained half his salary and took back a player, so they only saved $500,000 in cap hit. They could save more if they waive Eyssimont, which would still leave them with 12 forwards, but Cap Friendly says they have $1.2M in cap space now, so unless they’re planning another move they didn’t need the $500,000 they just freed up. This makes me wonder if maybe they like Eyssimont and see him as better suited to a bottom-6 role in the playoffs than Namestnikov. Why include him – a player who appears to have value for San Jose – if it’s just a cap dump? If they did this to free up cap space for another move, to go for such a small amount they must already have a pretty good idea what that move is going to be.
Meanwhile, why would a team that’s out of the playoffs take on a rental cap dump without getting some future asset for doing that? Not only did they not get anything, they actually gave up a player who’s been putting up decent numbers for them and who, as a pending RFA, they could have brought back next season. It appears that they gave up a useful player for something of no value, and even with the retention, it’s costing them money to do that. The only thing that makes sense is if for some reason they didn’t plan to offer Eyssimont a contract next year, and they think that with retention they can flip Namestnikov to another team for more than they would have got for Eyssimont. Either that or they want to try to sign Namestnikov for next season and the retention is just to save them some cash now. Even in those scenarios, I see no reason for them to include Eyssimont in the deal unless Tampa really wanted him. They could have done it for future considerations.