Disgraced Former Captain Now Top Buyout Candidate

A buyout can be quite lucrative for any NHL team who wants to save a couple of bucks. While some players are signed to fantastic contracts, others are severely overpaid resulting in their team wanting to cut ties with them.

With the buyout window opening up today, fans have begun speculating on who will be bought out from their current contracts. While there are obvious candidates such as Matt Murray or Oliver Ekman-Larsson, other top candidates are beginning to shine through who could be bought out.

Disgraced former captain Blake Wheeler found himself on the list of the top buyout candidates on capfriendly.com.

The 36-year-old Wheeler is not a bad player at all coming off of a 55-point season and has scored at a 60+ point pace for the past decade. Despite this, the stories of him being a locker room cancer have come to the limelight and it looks like the Jets will be rebuilding shortly.

Wheeler is entering the final year of his contract where he will have a cap hit of $8.25 million which is a hefty price. If the Jets were to buy him out, he would cost them $2.75 million for each of the next two seasons, saving $5.5 million this year and $2.75 million throughout the next two seasons.

Another thing the Jets could do is trade Wheeler with 50% retention which would be $4.125 million in cap space. They will certainly be shopping him on the trade market but if they cannot trade their former captain, they will likely buy him out despite him still being a serviceable top-six forward.