A number of questions and hypotheticals continue to surround the remainder of the 2019/2020 season as well as what the off-season will look like. Due to the likely fact that a significant amount of revenue is going to be lost, there is a strong chance that the league and the Players Association will end up agreeing on not bumping up the cap for the 2020/2021 season.

With the cap currently at 81.5 million, a number of teams are already right at the ceiling, desperate for any increase to give them leeway to make some moves. Should the cap continue at 81.5, there are plenty of organizations that are going to be in real tough.

Due to this fact, the conversation has turned to discussing the likelihood of the league offering each team a compliance buyout.

For those who don't know, a compliance buyout allows a team to buyout a players contract, paying the player roughly two-thirds of their deal over double the length. In the case of a normal buyout, a portion of that salary counts against the team's cap. A compliance buyout follows the same rules with the massive exception of there being no cost against the team's salary cap.

There is recent precedence for this happening. After the shortened 2012/2013 season due to the lockout, the league had a lowered salary cap and offered this to each organization.

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I'm sure most of you get where this is going; James Neal is a perfect candidate to be bought out by the Oilers under these conditions.

The 32 year old Neal has another 3 years left on his contract with the Edmonton Oilers, with a cap hit of 5.75 million. While the winger did score 19 goals for the Oilers this season, and would have likely scored 20+ had he not been injured, his 5 on 5 production has dried up. He scored only 2 more goals at even strength this season with the Oilers than he did in Calgary and in Edmonton, Neal has received more ice-time and played more gravy minutes with the likes of RNH and McDavid. With a high 17% shooting percentage and the likely fact his PP production will drop off, Neal is at best a third line winger.

Let us imagine the cap stays at 81.5 million for next season and the Oilers use a compliance buyout on James Neal, freeing up 5.75 million... great. There is a secondary bonus for Edmonton.

If Edmonton is buying out Neal, you can bet that the Calgary Flames would in turn buy out Milan Lucic. Currently, the Oilers have retained 750,000 on Lucic when the trade was made. After spending a couple hours on the math I have determined that means Edmonton could suddenly have 6.5 million in freed cap space.

Not including the existing RFA's that need to be signed, the Edmonton Oilers would have 16,648,835‬ in capspace (numbers via CapFriendly).

The three big RFA's that need to be signed are Athanasiou, Bear, and Benning which by my estimate should come in around a total of 8 million. Effectively this would leave Holland and his team just over 8.5 million in cap.

With the emergence of Caleb Jones you can also bet that Holland would love to move Russell this summer but with a tight cap teams won't be lining up to pay 4 million for a third pairing PK specialist, but if Holland went so far as to retain half of Russell's salary I can see a trade happening.

The final magic number would then be 10.5 million. Nearly 11 million dollars to sign a third line centre, a new backup goaltender, and the big one, a real top six winger to play with McDavid while the RNH, Draisaitl, Yamamoto line dominates as well.

Eventually the league will start to officially lay out it's plans but if a compliance buyout is on the table, the Edmonton Oilers could benefit more than any other team in the league.

Thanks for reading!

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