Hey everyone. I’ve noticed that a lot of other SBN sites have this awesome thing in the morning called an open thread. Basically you sit down with your cereal and coffee (or tea if you’re me) in the morning, and I whip up a topic, and we all talk about it instead of doing work.
Today’s topic is compliance buyouts. In the new CBA, there are two possible compliance buyouts per team. These buyouts will give instant cap relief with no penalty.
There are three obvious candidates for this with the Habs, Scott Gomez, Tomas Kaberle, and Rene Bourque.
Bourque has been with the team for the least amount of time and is making the least per year, but has the longest left on his contract.
Gomez is all but guaranteed to be bought out.
Kaberle could still have some trade value with just 1.5 years left and he’s a better player than the other two.
So is it two of these three? Which ones? Or is there someone else that might get bought out and we’ll all be shocked? Brian Gionta is getting old and struggled with injury, could a captain be bought out?
What about other teams? Will someone like Rick DiPietro be bought out, or is the up front cash too much?
Discuss.
