The Red Wings are currently enjoying a second “buyout window” after reaching a pre-arbitration contract agreement with Joe Veleno on Friday.
As such, both The Athletic’s Max Bultman and the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood have wondered aloud today whether the Wings should exercise the option to buy out one of the millstones on the roster.
As Bultman notes, it’s not going to be easy to buy out Justin Holl this summer…
Why didn’t Steve Yzerman buy out Justin Holl’s contract? His contract is unmovable. His cap hit is an expensive one for a player sitting in the press box. — Mark F.
They likely didn’t want to be on the hook for four years of dead cap that would have come with a buyout. It wasn’t a massive number ($1.13 million each year), but four years is a long time to pay dead cap. The Red Wings’ management team likely believes Holl can play. Whether Lalonde uses him is another question, but I don’t get the sense from Yzerman that he thinks Holl is a lost cause.
Your point about the cap hit sitting in the press box is good, but the Red Wings probably don’t expect to be quite as lucky injury-wise this season as they were in 2023-24 — and if that’s the case, Holl could play more this season.
But if he doesn’t and he’s again a $3.4 million scratch for most of the season, I’d have to imagine they’ll explore a buyout next year, for just two years of dead cap at the same $1.13 million cost.
And Eargood wonders whether the Wings will buy out goaltender Ville Husso:
A buyout for Husso or any other player comes with its costs. Detroit would cut the cap hit of the bought out contract down to 2/3 of its AAV, but the term would double. For Husso, his $4.75 million cap hit becomes roughly $3.17 million, paid for two seasons instead of the one year left on his contract. In other words, the Red Wings save $1.58 million this season at the cost of $3.17 million next season.
With such a losing calculation, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to buy out Husso. They have more than $17 million in cap space left — plenty to sign star free agents Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond — and the extra $1.58 million doesn’t help them a whole lot. Buying out Husso might have made more sense earlier in the offseason, such as when they traded Jake Walman and a second round pick to free up $3.4 million in cap space, or when they dealt Robby Fabbri after free agency to free up $4 million.
Detroit has prepared to keep Husso anyway. Speaking on July 4, Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman said his team is prepared to utilize a three-goalie system in 2024-25 just like it did last season.
“We’ll see how Ville’s health is in training camp,” Yzerman said. “We expect him to be 100% ready to go, and then we’ll kind of do what we did last year. We’ll play it by ear, we’ll figure it out as we go along.”
I’ll grant you that every penny counts when it comes to re-signing Raymond and Seider (and Jonatan Berggren, for that matter), and the more cap space you have, the better…
But even with the salary cap likely to increase significantly over the next couple of seasons, I can’t imagine that the Red Wings are actually going to buy out Holl or Husso.
At this point, Holl’s a warm body on a blueline which may experience injuries over the course of training camp or the exhibition season, and Husso is the same.
If the Wings really need cap relief, or if the Holl or Husso simply prove to not be ready for prime time, the team can shave $1.5 million off either player’s cap hit by waiving them and sending them to Grand Rapids, and it can then try to work out a salary-retention trade with another team to find Holl or Husso gainful NHL employment elsewhere.
At this point, I just don’t see a buyout or buyouts happening.
