even if he’s on a bad deal, he’s the heart of this team. rather keep him until he retires

This team has no cap issues and can afford a bad contract— no reason to buy him out imo

You can't buy someone out and then immediately re-sign him for a much lower cap.

Cap Circumvention Unfortunately.

Then trade him to a team in the bottom to do so for picks and asset... still - letting him walk is better.

Now, you are right.

But in 2025 it's another ball game.

We could see $5m+ cap increase in that time— and no massive deals to hand out in that time either. I still wouldn’t be worried.

That's not true.

Teams can't use a Compliance Buyout and re-sign a player but they can absolutely use a normal Buyout and resign the player. The Flames did it in 2019 with Micheal Stone. They bought him out of the last year of his $3.5m contract on August 1st 2019 and signed him to a $700k contract on September 11th the same year.

Seems like you are correct - I have a feeling that has since been changed though. But I could very well be wrong.

Thank you sir!

it's still cheaper to buy him and hand him a cheap longterm contract afterwards.

Honestly I wouldn't bother, he's probably LTIRetired within the next 2 years.

There is no need to buy out Gally until the cap in needed and there is a legit chance the Habs will never need that cap space while Gally has a contract with the Habs.

1 of 2 things would need to happen for the Habs to buy out Gally. Either Slaf/Rienbacher/Guhle/young player etc have MONSTER seasons leading up to needing a massive new contract. The other is if they get a legit chance to sign a monster free agent to a 8-9M+ contract.

Seeing as none of the Habs current prospect group look like they'll be megastars within the next 4 years and the fact that Habs probably will never be a big name UFA destination, there is a very low chance it happens while Gally is on the team. Then throw on top of that the cap rising swiftly over the next 4 years and you see how its going to very unlikely any of those issues cause the Habs to need to buy Gally out.

By all means, if Draisaitl wants to come to the Habs in UFA and Slaf has a 40 goal season this year, send Gally to the moon if need be.

See my "year 2" post (we could technically affort two 13M$ players on the roster). I do mostly share your opinion here. Buying out Gally is definitely not a priority right now as we will have the cap space for the foreseable future.

However, his buyout is not that bad and it opens up a lot of cap space for potential UFA in the future. I think MTL will soon become an interesting destination for UFA who want to win.

Yeah i saw it, that's why I mentioned the Draisaitl thing.

But being more attractive to UFA's and landing the biggest stars in free agency is a different thing. Either way, the point i was making was that chances are we won't even need cap space enough to need to buy out Gally even if we managed 1 single big name player in 2025. So I don't see the need. Yes his BO cap hit won't be that high for most of it but it will be longer. So I would much rather take the hit in the next 2-3 years then 4-6.

Also something to remember, Gally will be out of some cash that he is owed if he is bought out and there is no guarantee another team will want to make him whole again. Doing right by him will carry some weight with other players too.

Fair points ahaha.