Well, the first buyout period ends tomorrow at 14:00pst so that’s actually a deadline of sorts in this mix. I’m expecting Baertschi to be bought out, if there’s a buyout at all, at which point Arizona will have to take on Eriksson’s $6m contract to make the cap numbers fit. I don’t see Benning buying out Sutter as he provides PK/“D-zone start shifts” so that leaves only Eriksson. I suppose they might want out from under Dvorak’s $$$ as well which may expand to Sutter’s cap hit going back the other way. I believe the actual dollar figures would be close to equal but Arizona gets out from underneath an additional $17.8m owed over the following four seasons after this year.
Whether or not we should be adding Dvorak’s $4.45m cap hit for another four seasons after this one is an entirely different discussion than OEL’s but, admittedly, I know very little about Dvorak’s efficacy.
Edit: I suppose Baertschi ending up on IR, a very likely scenario, also means that Arizona wouldn’t have to pay any actual dollars since Sven’s insurance would be covering that. So maybe Arizona’s owner(s) would actually prefer Baertschi over other cap dump options like Roussell/Beagle in which case the buyout deadline does serve a dual purpose for this deal to get done. Benning’s “soft deadline” so to speak...