NHL Rumors: Red Wings could eat Pavel Datsyuk’s cap hit

After seeing what it might cost to trade Pavel Datsyuk’s contract, the Red Wings might decide to just terminate his contract and eat his cap hit. 

The Detroit Red Wings will be losing one of their greatest players ever once Pavel Datsyuk makes it official that he is leaving the NHL for the KHL for family reasons.

Because Datsyuk signed his current deal when he was over 35 years old, the collective bargaining agreement forces the Red Wings to be accountable for his cap hit even if he retires. Detroit recently explored trading his cap hit to make a run at Steven Stamkos or David Backes, but it appears that they will be terminating his contract instead.

So why would the Red Wings choose to eat his cap hit rather than trade it? Recent moves involving expensive contracts likely scared Detroit away from trading away Datsyuk’s contract. Marc Savard’s contract was traded from the Florida Panthers to the New Jersey Devils.

The Devils made the Panthers include a second round pick in the trade. Like Savard, Datsyuk won’t be playing in 2016-17. However, Datsyuk has a much larger cap hit than Savard.

Another recent example happened earlier this offseason when the Carolina Hurricanes managed to get the Chicago Blackhawks to include Teuvo Teravainen in the Bryan Bickell trade.

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Teams with cap space know that they are doing a huge favor eating the cap hits for teams that are close to the salary cap ceiling. They are now expecting to be compensated as such.

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