Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson has made it known he’d like to move to a team that has an eye on winning now. But with four years left on his contract at a cap hit of $11.5MM, a trade is proving to be difficult to do. In his latest piece for NBC Sports Bay Area, Sheng Peng examines another possibility for both sides, a mutual contract termination. He’d be walking away from the remaining $39MM in salary but coming off a Norris Trophy-winning season, it stands to reason he could get a big chunk of that back over the next several seasons with a team that’s more of his choosing. On the flip side, the Sharks wouldn’t get anything in return but would save a significant amount of cash that they’d otherwise be retaining to help facilitate a move. It’s not the likeliest of options at this point but if a viable trade fails to materialize, perhaps it’s an option that is considered at some point.
More from the Pacific:
- Seattle is one of the teams where the backup goalie is not yet set in stone for next season with veteran Chris Driedger set to battle the recently re-signed Joey Daccord for the spot. Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times suggests that the Kraken would be better off with Daccord in the second-string position from an organizational depth perspective since there’s much less of a risk of Driedger and his $3.5MM AAV being claimed than it is for Daccord and his $1.2MM price tag. Daccord was the better of the two goalies with AHL Coachella Valley last season but Driedger’s NHL career numbers (2.45 GAA, .917 SV% in 65 games) are certainly better than Daccord’s (3.64 GAA, .884 SV% in 19 appearances).
- Even with the salary cap expected to rise faster starting in 2024-25, it will certainly be difficult for the Oilers to keep both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in the fold. Postmedia’s David Staples posits that both middlemen – who could conceivably command the maximum 20% of the cap on their next contracts if they looked to get top dollar – might have to settle for something in the 14% range which, depending on how much the cap moves, could put their contracts both in the $12.5MM territory which is what McDavid is currently making. Can a team with two deals at that price point still have enough depth to seriously contend? That’s a question Edmonton certainly hopes they’ll have a chance to answer. Draisaitl is signed for two more years while McDavid is under contract for three more seasons.
If they ever even considered mutually terminate with EK65 Grier and Plattner should be thrown in jail. Trade away Norris, Stutzle etc, lose Pavs cause of $, miss on a score of F.As, rob fans of 5 years of decent play and then in the end give away all remaining value for nothing? Straight up if that happens I’m done with SJS – would willingly flush 22 years of being a fan and burn my SJS jerseys if that happened.
A mutual contract termination here would be the headline for a generation. And, EK65 wouldn’t be guaranteed to get signed by a “contender”, either. Well, Ruzy, there’d be a whole lot of “Billy Mosienko time” shout-outs flying around The Tank.
If Karlsson has his contract terminated, he will not get a good chunk of the money he walks away from back. No contender has the cap space to give him a big contract. He would have to take a lot less to play on a contender. Maybe he’s willing to do that. He just isn’t getting paid & playing for a contender. It’s likely one or the other
Sounds like Grier isn’t happy with the Pens offer but having ZERO other suitors, his only leverage is to float some random nonsense.
No chance EK does that. No chance Grier does that.