The Coyotes may be looking to trade Sam Gagner at the draft, but if there are no takers for the 25-year-old center, the Coyotes may look to buy him out.
Gagner finished the season with 15 goals and 41 assists in 81 games in his first year as a Coyote. He has played in 562 games in his career, scoring 116 goals and 220 assists. But the Coyotes are hunting for a top-line center, and the Coyotes don't realistically see Gagner as a fit.
Gagner has just one year left on his contract, and he is set to make $5 million next season. But the Coyotes are only obligated to pay Gagner two-thirds of that salary, as the Tampa Bay Lightning retained one-third of his salary last season when they sent him to Arizona. Because Gagner will be just 25-years-old during the buy-out period, Gagner will be paid one-third of the salary spread over two seasons. So Gagner will be owed a total of $1,666,666 in two years, so that is a cap hit of $833,333 per year. But because the Coyotes are paying just two-thirds of the contract, they need to pay just two-thirds of the buy-out, so their cap hit on the buyout would be just a little over $500,000 for two seasons.
Does that make sense?
So why would the Coyotes do that?
The Coyotes would save roughly $2.6 million in cap space for this season, and lose roughly $500,000 next season in cap space. If they truly want to back out of the contract, they will have more money to play with this offseason.
And the Coyotes really need to play with money this offseason. The team needs to pay nearly $19 million this upcoming year to reach the cap floor, more than any other team in the league.
(h/t Sportsnet)
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