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Report: Senators to Waive Bobby Ryan for Purposes of Buyout |
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TSN's Darren Dreger is reporting that the Ottawa Senators are set to place Bobby Ryan, this year's Bill Masteron Memorial Trophy winner, on waivers for the purposes of a buyout:
Ryan's contract runs through this season and next season, at an annual rate of $7.25M per year. CapFriendly's buyout calculator shows that the move will save the Senators approximately $3.7M in actual cash, and result in a cap hit of $3.5M for the next two years and $1.8M for the two seasons thereafter.
The timing of this announcement is relatively curious, from my perspective, as it suggests to me that Pierre Dorion must have something larger planned. The Senators are currently miles away from the cap floor, and this moves them in the opposite direction. Is the team planning on going out free agent hunting sooner than anyone expected? If not, what's the plan to get this team to the floor? Overpaying the restricted free agents might be the only other option, assuming they're not looking at just picking up dead-weight, injured reserve contracts.
With that being said, it's difficult to argue with this move when viewed through a hockey or money lense. The Senators have lots of promising young wingers coming up through the system, and Ryan is unlikely to deliver the value his cap hit demands.
From a purely human perspective, though, it's still a little bit disappointing to see the team move to buy out Ryan almost immediately after he won the Masterton. Ryan's perseverance and dedication to hockey were tested tremendously in the last year, and his comeback story was one of the better moments in the 2019-20 campaign.
Assuming this report comes to fruition, the only thing left to do is thank Bobby Ryan for his years in Ottawa. As always, thanks for reading.
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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