[News] UPD: Flames officially buyout Troy Brouwer

[Stanley]

There's really only one way for me, based on merit and actual years of Flames blood/sweat/tears:

C - Gio
A - Backs
A - Mony

Tkachuk is an obvious choice going forward but I think Backlund's A is overdue and Chucky will eventually be the next captain of the Flames after a few more seasons of experience.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by The Boy Wonder

Smith is our only weak link in this roster at this point. Mediocre goalie will likely be the reason flames don't win the division.

Either Rittich or Gilles needs to bottle lightning if this team is going deep

Smith's health is the weak link - a healthy Smith is a fantastic goalie.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by The Boy Wonder

I honestly don't feel too bad for the guy. He gets his full contract paid out now, gets to invest those future years money a few years earlier than expected and regardless, this was likely his last NHL contract if he plays it out while this way he gets a chance to get a veteran minimum contract elsewhere.

Hopefully Gully makes a case for him to go up north, would love to play Brouwer 4 games a year

He doesn't get his full contract price. However, he can make a pretty good deal with some other team to make up the difference.

[H2SO4(aq)]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

He doesn't get his full contract price. However, he can make a pretty good deal with some other team to make up the difference.

never heard this. What does he get then?

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by Stanley

Man, acquiring Lack was my least favourite move by Tre. Sure, there wasn't any cap implications like a Brouwer, it was low risk, but man was that a complete waste of time and energy. One of the most useless acquisitions I can think of in recent memory.

IMO one of the big black marks on Treliving's record that still endures today is his decisions with goaltending. First we had the 3-headed monster that resulted in losing Byron for nothing. Then there was the Hiller/Ramo debacle. Yes, the team was rebuilding at the time but whatever, it still wasn't good. Brian Elliott, Eddie Lack, etc. And now we're hoping that a 36/37 year old Mike Smith can hold the fort down with two guys as backup who looked shaky to bad. I don't even know what the plan for next year is, God help us if it's going back to the Mike Smith well.

Having said that, I like Smith ok. He was pretty good last year but clearly isn't a long-term solution. If I'm Treliving I'm shopping Bennett for a young potential starting goalie in the mould of Andersson or Jones at the time they were traded. Relying on Parsons, Rittich, and Gillies as the future seems like a pretty big gamble to me.

[CalgaryFan1988]

Well, colour me shocked. I didn't think owners would pony up to bail out Treliving again. Huge commitment by them, glad to see.

I really like Trelivings signings on RFA's, the UFA's leave a lot to be desired.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by H2SO4(aq)

never heard this. What does he get then?

He gets two thirds.

https://www.capfriendly.com/buyout-faq

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by H2SO4(aq)

never heard this. What does he get then?

I think he gets 6 mil. 2/3 of his remaining salary paid out and hits the cap over twice the remaining contract. So 6M/4 is where the cap hit comes from.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

Well, colour me shocked. I didn't think owners would pony up to bail out Treliving again. Huge commitment by them, glad to see.

I really like Trelivings signings on RFA's, the UFA's leave a lot to be desired.

Yeah, I wouldn't surprised if this is Treliving's one get-out-of-jail-free card. After the GG hire and now this, I imagine the goodwill is going to run dry soon if the team isn't much improved this season.

[SeanCharles]

Originally Posted by blender

Agreed. A lot will hinge on the Gio-Brodie pair performing. If they are not as good as Gio-Hamilton it will put a lot of pressure on the 2nd pair which features a very young and unproven player in Hanafin.

Personally I'm optimistic, but there are questions on D for sure.

That's why I figure it is a wise move to retain Stone, at least for now.

One of Andersson, Valimaki and Kylington needs to prove themselves before we can think about trading Stone.

I personally think Andersson and Valimaki are going to be great young NHLers before Stones contract is up so there will be a time and place to move him. But at the moment he is our 5th best dman, until the youngsters prove otherwise.

Either way he is a good insurance policy.

My original comment was more to do with the fact we only have 12 defenceman signed within the organization to fill out 2 professional rosters.

7 guys will likely be in Calgary and the other 5 in Stockton so we need some more depth for the AHL whether it be AHL deals or what have you..

[Flamesm]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Yeah, I wouldn't surprised if this is Treliving's one get-out-of-jail-free card. After the GG hire and now this, I imagine the goodwill is going to run dry soon if the team isn't much improved this season.

Wouldn’t the buy out not hurt the owners at all? I realize he is taking 6 mil right away but the remaining cap hit would not be real dollars for the future which means that tre can’t spend that 1.5 over 4 years either since we are a cap team

[EVERLAST]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

IMO one of the big black marks on Treliving's record that still endures today is his decisions with goaltending. First we had the 3-headed monster that resulted in losing Byron for nothing. Then there was the Hiller/Ramo debacle. Yes, the team was rebuilding at the time but whatever, it still wasn't good. Brian Elliott, Eddie Lack, etc. And now we're hoping that a 36/37 year old Mike Smith can hold the fort down with two guys as backup who looked shaky to bad. I don't even know what the plan for next year is, God help us if it's going back to the Mike Smith well.

Having said that, I like Smith ok. He was pretty good last year but clearly isn't a long-term solution. If I'm Treliving I'm shopping Bennett for a young potential starting goalie in the mould of Andersson or Jones at the time they were traded. Relying on Parsons, Rittich, and Gillies as the future seems like a pretty big gamble to me.

I hear what your saying but I don’t care who is in net. If this team cannot score goals the goalie back there could be Kipper and once he’s played into the ground it’s not going to work.

We HAVE to be able to score.

We can’t deflate as a team when we don’t score first or when the other team ties it.
Relying entirely on the only player whose job is to stop pucks just doesn’t work.

The Knights leaned on Fleury way too much and couldn’t score enough when it mattered .

Hopefully Peters and company has this team mentally prepared because this team looked horrific , confused, unmotivated , unwilling to compete and do what was necessary to win.

None of that’s on any flames goalie. I’m pretty confident in what we have coming up if Smith fails.

More than in the past with Ortio, Irving, and on and on.

[SeanCharles]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Funny I see Bouma as the biggest screw up.

The Flames under Treliving looked like a rebuild that needed to find good people to fill out the team and get them to the cap floor at the time. Adding Engelland, Hiller and Raymond made sense. They're weren't huge in term or dollars and they fit what they were trying to limp along doing.

Engelland turned out way better than just a locker room guy, Hiller was good for one year. Raymond did a face plant. But they all made sense.

Brouwer was a mistake but it made sense when you think of the lack of RWs and the fact that they wanted to add to the room and experience. If the Flames didn't give him 4 years $18M I'm guessing some other team would have been pretty close.

The Bouma over pay off of a career year was a head scratcher. Made my skin crawl that day. He got "Backlunded"

Yea that is fair as Bouma was a serious miscue but I more meant I never liked Raymond and Brouwer as players so I didn't like them being signed to the team at all.

At least Bouma played his heart out for the team for a few years and blocked a ton of shots and battled hard for the organization. No doubt he had the Backlund boost and it helped him get paid but at least Treliving has learned from that and allowed players like Colborne to walk.

[getbak]

I've seen a few comments in this thread about Brouwer getting paid out all $6 million at once, but that's not the case. There are no "lump-sum" buyouts allowed under the current CBA.

Any buyout is paid out evenly over the length of the buyout term. He'll be paid $1.5 million per year for the next four years. He doesn't even get that as a lump-sum each season, it's paid out in installments just like their regular salaries.

[Plaedo]

So this move is a no-brainer and makes so much sense to me.

Firstly, in isolation, the cap impacts are a net positive.
Buy out this year: $1.5M * 4 years, extended out to year 4 = $6M against the cap in total
Buy out next year: $4.5M + $1.5M * 2 years, out to year 3 = $7.5M against the cap in total
Don't buy out: $4.5M + $4.5M = $9M against the cap in total

Savings: $1.5M in cap space from the cheaper alternative, or $3M from the no buy-out alternative.

So even simplistically, there is a cap savings by opting to buy out now (by the way, the 2/3 payout structure further incentivizes teams to buy out a negative contract instead of sending the player to perpetually road-trip in the minors, something the NHLPA may have disliked more than a discounted buyout which at least ensures 2/3 value and grants immediate freedom).

This doesn't consider the cost to replace his performance on the team, which is low if he was going to be outworked and pushed off the team by young guys on entry-level contracts, anyway. If he sits in the press-box, then there isn't much cost to replace him, other than the luxury of having a 23rd man on the roster. If he made the team as a 4th liner, then the cost is whatever it would be to replace him (i.e. $925K for Spencer Foo). So your additional cost would be $925k * 2 years
Therefore savings are at least $3M - $1.85M = $1.15M

This doesn't even consider the discount factor, which essentially means that with the assumption that the Salary Cap will increase by some amount each year, the $1.5M is less and less significant comparatively each year.
I.e. $1.5M during 2015-2016 (salary cap of $71.4M) was 2.10% of the salary cap, and 51.72% of an NHL player's average annual salary that year ($2.9M), whereas in 2018-2019, $1.5M makes up 1.89% of the total salary cap ($79.5M). I would expect a proportionate decrease in the percentage of how much $1.5M represents in the average 2018-2019 player salary, since the salary cap and average player salaries are fundamentally related.

If you then layer on potential savings from other players' contracts, there is even more value from this move. Bingo has mentioned in various threads the potential savings from a newly enabled long-term Hanifin contract versus a bridge contract if Hanifin performs well and raises his stock beyond his current, realistic projection, like many expect.

Then you factor in the stakeholders, and looking at who Treliving has to please. The owners save real dollars, which are not discounted if the buyout payments are regular salary installments. He is also enabling himself to become better by subtraction, which the owners are also concerned about.

Looking through the lense of simply improving the hockey team, you are removing someone that has become slower and slower, and highly ineffective, even with a negative impact on his line at times, and make room for a blossoming prospect. And you also know the Calgary Flames keep the pulse of the fanbase by monitoring Twitter, CP, etc., so another externality is that they get almost widespread approval and excitement from the fanbase.

It just makes sense on all fronts to me!

[GirlySports]

Oshie for Brouwer was one of the worst trades ever.


Brouwer switched teams twice and is out of the league. Oshie just won the Stanley Cup

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Plaedo

So this move is a no-brainer and makes so much sense to me.

Firstly, in isolation, the cap impacts are a net positive.
Buy out this year: $1.5M * 4 years, extended out to year 4 = $6M against the cap in total
Buy out next year: $4.5M + $1.5M * 2 years, out to year 3 = $7.5M against the cap in total
Don't buy out: $4.5M + $4.5M = $9M against the cap in total

Savings: $1.5M in cap space from the cheaper alternative, or $3M from the no buy-out alternative.

So even simplistically, there is a cap savings by opting to buy out now (by the way, the 2/3 payout structure further incentivizes teams to buy out a negative contract instead of sending the player to perpetually road-trip in the minors, something the NHLPA may have disliked more than a discounted buyout which at least ensures 2/3 value and grants immediate freedom).

This doesn't consider the cost to replace his performance on the team, which is low if he was going to be outworked and pushed off the team by young guys on entry-level contracts, anyway. If he sits in the press-box, then there isn't much cost to replace him, other than the luxury of having a 23rd man on the roster. If he made the team as a 4th liner, then the cost is whatever it would be to replace him (i.e. $925K for Spencer Foo). So your additional cost would be $925k * 2 years
Therefore savings are at least $3M - $1.85M = $1.15M

This doesn't even consider the discount factor, which essentially means that with the assumption that the Salary Cap will increase by some amount each year, the $1.5M is less and less significant comparatively each year.
I.e. $1.5M during 2015-2016 (salary cap of $71.4M) was 2.10% of the salary cap, and 51.72% of an NHL player's average annual salary that year ($2.9M), whereas in 2018-2019, $1.5M makes up 1.89% of the total salary cap ($79.5M). I would expect a proportionate decrease in the percentage of how much $1.5M represents in the average 2018-2019 player salary, since the salary cap and average player salaries are fundamentally related.

If you then layer on potential savings from other players' contracts, there is even more value from this move. Bingo has mentioned in various threads the potential savings from a newly enabled long-term Hanifin contract versus a bridge contract if Hanifin performs well and raises his stock beyond his current, realistic projection, like many expect.

Then you factor in the stakeholders, and looking at who Treliving has to please. The owners save real dollars, which are not discounted if the buyout payments are regular salary installments. He is also enabling himself to become better by subtraction, which the owners are also concerned about.

Looking through the lense of simply improving the hockey team, you are removing someone that has become slower and slower, and highly ineffective, even with a negative impact on his line at times, and make room for a blossoming prospect. And you also know the Calgary Flames keep the pulse of the fanbase by monitoring Twitter, CP, etc., so another externality is that they get almost widespread approval and excitement from the fanbase.

It just makes sense on all fronts to me!

And from a quick NPV calculation at 10% in today's dollars it's $7.8M vs $4.8M with the buy out.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Yeah, I wouldn't surprised if this is Treliving's one get-out-of-jail-free card. After the GG hire and now this, I imagine the goodwill is going to run dry soon if the team isn't much improved this season.

All depends how they see it in my opinion.

If they were hiring and maintaining the manager of a nuclear plant it's one thing, but NHL GMs are like commodity traders more than other fields. You know they won't be perfect, you know they'll make mistakes. You hope that they are just as good at managing the exit strategy on bad moves as they are in basking in their good ones.

You don't have to look to hard at other Canadian cities right now not to see what happens when you get many big ones wrong in a row without exit strategies.

[calumniate]

Rip Brouwerplay!

[MarkGio]

Totally called it:

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...t=Troy+Brouwer

Even from day 1 I knew it was a brutal contract