





I doubt it comes to this, but it looks like there may be other concerns beside the 7.5mil in dead space if we don't unload Pav's contract....and frankly it might be a deterrent from other teams picking up his salary.

From what I understand, during the potential upcoming expansion draft (for Vegas's as of yet unannounced team) teams can submit a list of a maximum of 10 skaters to protect from the draft. They will however be required to include on this list any players with a no move clause. Datsyuk's contract expires on July 1st of 2017, but with the expansion draft slated to come a week or two before that, his contract would count against whatever team currently owns his rights///thereby preventing said team from protecting another player.

The saving grace here, may be that I don't fully understand cap recapture penalties. If Datsyuk retires at the end of next season, but before the expansion draft is the recapture calculated based on some percentage of whats left of the year? Meaning 10-15 days worth of salary if its divided by 365, or $0 if its based on a per game amount? If this is the case, then it's not much of a problem at all. If the penalty for his retirement is based on his full salary/cap hit then any team we're trying to trade him to will have to weigh that penalty vs. one less protected slot in an expansion draft...something I doubt any team would be willing to do.

Of course it's also possible Datsyuk can (and surely would) waive his No Move clause and thus avoid this problem altogether. I just don't know what the league will allow for.