One of the oft-overlooked benefits of heading to arbitration with a player is some potential additional salary cap flexibility in the form of a second buyout. It’s a window granted to teams for a 48-hour period beginning three days after they settle their last arbitration case. The Seattle Kraken did so with defenseman Vince Dunn today, inking him to a rather significant four-year, $29.4MM pact.
A rather obvious candidate for a buyout on the Kraken is netminder Chris Driedger, who the team was aggressively trying to shop earlier this summer. He missed most of the season with injury and couldn’t work his way back into the Kraken lineup when healthy, instead playing 14 games for the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds and slipping to fourth on the team’s goalie depth chart. He didn’t see a single second of action in the Firebirds’ run to Game 7 of the Calder Cup Final in their first season.
He’s third now with the departure of Martin Jones in free agency, but his $3.5MM cap hit is incredibly steep for a third-string netminder. However, Seattle will not be able to use a buyout on Driedger – players bought out during the conditional second window must have a cap hit of at least $4MM (and have been on the team’s reserve list at the prior season’s trade deadline).
It leaves Seattle with no other likely buyout options in the second window, so don’t expect them to take advantage of that early next week. The Kraken are now within $2MM of the salary cap’s $83.5MM Upper Limit after signing Dunn, a testament to the team’s quick rise to relevance with a payroll that reflects it.
The team will likely continue its attempts to move Driedger as the season draws nigh, as even getting rid of him at 50% salary retention is preferable to burying him in the minors, which would only bring his cap hit down to $2.35MM.
Philadelphia is the only team to utilize its post-arbitration buyout window this offseason, parting ways with defenseman Tony DeAngelo and the final season of a two-year, $10MM contract last week.
Not sure it’s fair to say Chris is #3 yet. Let’s see what happens in training camp. Good competition between him and Joey.
Daccord was strong in the AHL playoffs, getting them within a save of perhaps winning the Calder Cup, but he needs to reign in his puck handling at the NHL level. He might not get away with the third defenseman crap in the bigs. Handling the puck can be advantageous, but he doesn’t need to be wandering like that, all the time.
Driedger had a .899 SV% in 21-22, which is poor, but let’s remember that that’s actually the 2nd best SV% in a season in Kraken history, after Joey Okay at all of .900 in 5 games. Yes, Driedger’s FLA sample was small, but his SEA sample is even larger. The ultimate question: is it all 4 goalies they’ve used, or the defense?
Buyout Grubauer instead
The 2nd buyout window did not materialize with Dunn accepting a contract. You really should read the article…….
No, the article notes the issue was Driedger’s low cap hit. No such issue for Grubauer.
“However, Seattle will not be able to use a buyout on Driedger – players bought out during the conditional second window must have a cap hit of at least $4MM”
I think you should work on your reading comprehension skills.
Prime team candidate to see a return to norm… they really picked the wrong draft year to make a huge jump, because while they’re a great ‘5-man unit’ they need more star power. Don’t want to fall into the Predators playbook…