Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
They did - they got 2 free roster players for what they were paying Horton anyway
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I think there's a bit of a misconception here. Horton's cap hit is 5.3 and Clarkson's is 5.25. Both have roughly 28M left on their deal for a little bit over 5 years. The contracts are near negligible. I think there's a couple assuming Horton has a higher contract.
Of note, Horton's contract can't be bought out because of LTIR but Clarkson's contract is structured in such a way that a buyout may be near pointless. His base salary is actually
only a million a year, however, he receives a large signing bonuses each year. Depending on the exact wording of the contract, only the salary portion could be bought out and he would still be guaranteed his signing bonuses.
But really worst case scenario, assuming Horton is done, is Columbus is still better off. Even if they do buyout Clarkson this summer and up paying him whatever 20M+, it's still a slightly better scenario than paying Horton. If Clarkson is able to bounce back at all, it becomes a very solid move.