The San Jose Sharks have limited cap space to make upgrades this offseason, but one move the Sharks could make to improve their immediate cap situation would be buying out goaltender Martin Jones.
Jones has struggled for the last few years, posting an .896 save percentage in each of the last three seasons. The Sharks have looked for other goaltenders to take over for him at times, in the form of Aaron Dell, Devan Dubnyk and Josef Korenar, and it seems as though there isn’t much trust in him at this point.
He’s now 31 years old and still has three years remaining on his contract at a $5.75 million AAV. The Sharks could desperately use the cap space and you can’t fault the Sharks one bit for wanting to move on from Jones.
Here’s what the buyout penalty would look like in each of the next six seasons, should San Jose choose to buy out Jones (according to CapFriendly.com):
The Sharks would save about $3.85 million next season, then roughly $3.35 million and $2.85 million in the following seasons. However, they’d be stuck with about a $1.7 million penalty from the 2024-25 season until the end of the 2026-27 season. That’s a long time to keep dead cap space on the books and $1.7 million isn’t insignificant.
The thing is, if the Sharks want to compete now, a buyout could look like a smart idea. However, with the free cap space, the team will still need to spend a chunk of the money they're saving on another goaltender and while Jones has been poor for the team, simply changing a goalie probably won’t make a massive difference for the team, so long as San Jose is as bad defensively as they have been.
I also firmly believe the Sharks need to do what they can to enter a rebuild and in that scenario, buying out Jones and carrying a cap penalty for six years would make less sense than simply letting the contract run its course, or waiting another year or two to buy him out. Again, it seems as though management's goal is still to compete though, so I’m sure the thought at the moment is to try and clear space to make a change.
Personally, I just don’t see the Sharks being much better off if the team buys out Jones in order to find a replacement in net. It would help the team, but likely wouldn't be enough to get San Jose back into the playoffs and the Sharks don’t have enough cap space right now to make other moves as well.
Buying out Jones is, in a way, sacrificing a bit of cap flexibility down the road to be better off right now. Many people will disagree with me but personally, I don’t think buying out Jones, at least right now, is really a worthwhile move. Perhaps if the Sharks also managed to clear space by dealing the likes of Kevin Labanc and Radim Simek without taking money back, it could then make sense, as San Jose would have much more money to work with to make meaningful changes. As of now though, there are just too many holes in the lineup to address with the limited money the Sharks would save from a buyout and it would just compromise cap flexibility down the road.
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Do you think the Sharks should buy out Martin Jones?
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