Arizona needed that contract in order for them to remain above the Cap floor at the time, but they also received Hinostroza, Oesterle, and multiple picks to take on Hossa's dead contract -- so if you want to include very high prospects and multiple draft picks in order to move a contract like Seabrook's, say, that pretty much defeats the purpose if the goal is to rebuild, which it should be.
I think it also depends on what the plan is an how far down the road you could kick a particular can.
Just speculation, but I think that Stan considered Osterle and Hino expendable. I think with Debrincat coming up and Boqvist/Joker/Beaudin/Mitchell in the pipeline Stan thought he could kick the can down the road a bit...again, speculation.
The recapture stuff I'm hazy on, but I don't think that would be a huge concern at this point, especially with Keith -- who can still play. Seabrook will probably not finish out his contract of course, but he will probably just do what Hossa did and not officially retire. Besides, I thought the recapture penalty only kicks in if the player's personal (total) salary is more than the AAV/cap hit...if that is the case, Keith's remaining years is fine and Seabrook's personal salary is higher than his cap hit, but only for this season -- the rest of his contract is fine. That's how I understand it, anyway.
https://www.capfriendly.com/players/duncan-keith
https://www.capfriendly.com/players/brent-seabrook
The gist of recapture is the cap advantage over the remainder of the contract, not in any given year. It's basically cap hit per year times years left, minus actual salary remaining in the contract times year left, divided by years left. So in Hossa's case in 2018 he had 21.1M in cap salary left (5.275M*4), and he was only making 4M total in actual salary--1M/year. So that's 17.1M of cap advantage over 4 years, or 4.275M of recapture penalty
if he retired instead of Pronger'ed himself. Adding to that, the last years of his contract were all 1M, so the cap advantage is the same per year through the rest of his deal...if he decided to fully retire.
Keith is more complicated since his actual salary goes from 3.5 this year, to 2.65 next year, to 2.1 the following, and finally 1.5M. Thus as time goes on his cap advantage gets more and thus the recapture amount per year. If he retired this summer it would be a recapture of 3.45M, to a recapture of 3.64 the following summer, and 4.03 if he retired before his last season.
It may not seem like much, but that amount of dead cap could set the 'hawks back just like a buyout. It could cost us a Murphy. Thankfully Keith has not been a money soak and has been playing well overall, so I think the point is moot unless his play drops off the cliff like Seabs'.
As for Seabs, he's not a recapture risk because he signed after 2013. His issue is that if he retired, he'd leave a lot of money on the table which is incentive for him to keep playing. Plus the LTIR solution requires the player to be on the books for the 1st day of the season. Honestly though I'm not too worried about them moving forward.
Was a cap floor team. No more, which is why I said that 5 million could have been used now that they are a playoff team. Today they are at 86 million, no room. They are in worse shape than the hawks.
Either way, I am hoping there is no Hawk movement because Rocky will not allow stan to make this roster worse.
86 in cap...not in actual salaries. in salaries they're projected at 74M (vs. 79M for the 'hawks). Hossa costs AZ about $1M per year even though he's 5.275M in cap--that's about 4.275M they don't have to spend in salaries vs. what's on the cap (and rumor has it player insurance covered the $1M). For a team like AZ with a limited actual budget (at least was limited internal), contracts like those help. They aren't the only team to do things like that--they are just notorious for it.
The 'hawks have a similar projection. In 2023 they're projected right now for 39.9M in cap with their current contracts, but 29M in salary to be paid. Keith's deal (1.5M salary vs. 5.538 in cap), Seabs' deal (5M in salary vs. 6.88M in cap), and Toews & Kane's deals (6.9M in salary vs. 10.5M in cap) help this.
