Flyers Buyout Bryzgalov

The Philadelphia Flyers announced this afternoon that they will use their second and final compliance buyout on goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. 

Bryzgalov, who just completed his second year of a nine year contract worth $51 million, will now be payed $23 million by the Flyers NOT to play for the team. Bryzgalov was payed $10 million in his first season and $6.5 (prorated due to the lockout) this season. So the Philadelphia brass will pay Bryzgalov $1.63 million a year for the next 14 years becoming the most expensive buyout in NHL history. He will become an unrestricted free agent on July 5th.

The buyout was not surprising but still a little shocking. Bryzgalov had a rough go-around here in Philadelphia as his personality clashed with the media and started becoming tiresome to the fans. However, Bryzgalov is not to blame for the poor season the Flyers put on the table, but he certainly did not help. Poor defense, too many turnovers and a gaping hole where the team's heart should have been just to name a few others.  Regardless, Bryzgalov wasn't getting the job done, so the Flyers right their wrongs and move on. 

But where do they move on to? The Flyers most likely have big plans coming up and quite possibly have something brewing right now. And they will almost certainly make a deal before the June 30th NHL Entry Draft in which they are currently slated to pick 11th overall. 

Amongst some of the goalie rumors are trades for Roberto Luongo, Ryan Miller or Jonas Hiller and free agents Ray Emery, Mike Smith, Evgeni Nabokov and even possibly Tim Thomas. 

A compliance buyout is a new stipulation added to the 2013 Collective Bargaining Agreement as a result of the lockout. Each team is allowed two buyouts which will not count against the salary cap. Since the cap ceiling went down this year from $70 million to $64.3 million, the buyouts were implemented to give teams cap relief. The Flyers have now used up both their allowed buyouts as they announced last week that they would be using their first on veteran center Danny Briere. With Briere gone, the Flyers will receive $6.5 million in cap relief plus an additional $5.67 million from Bryzgalov's buyout. They have already used some of that space to sign former New York Islander captain, defenseman Mark Streit, who they acquired via trade a couple weeks ago, for $5.25 million a season. Unofficially, that leaves them with about $4.1 million in cap space with almost a full roster. 

With the NHL offseason officially starting today, the Flyers and GM Paul Holmgren have already been very busy and expect this to continue through the draft on June 30th and up until free agency day on July 5th. 

The Flyers can't make their buyouts official until 48 hours after the Stanley Cup finals are complete and once the players clear waivers. Since the Chicago Blackhawks won the Cup last night (congratulations to them), the buyouts and Mark Streit signing will not become official until Wednesday at 11PM at the earliest.