I don't think there's any way the Canucks retain 3 mill over 4 years, unless the return is much better than a 4th. It'd be more likely that they just swap Eriksson for Backes straight up.

OK fair enough. The problem with swapping Backes for Eriksson straight up is that Backes has a NMC. And while I could envision Eriksson waiving his to come back to Boston, I can't imagine Backes waiving his to go to Vancouver (no offense lol).

What do you think the Bruins would give up to get Eriksson at 50% salary?

No idea really, but it would have to be more significant than a 4th round pick. Van has the cap space right now, but you're asking the owner to eat 12 million dollars so his player can suit up in Boston instead of Van. Doesn't seem that appetizing if I'm Aquilini.

Technically it would be 10M (in cash). The cap hit would be 12M yes, but if the owner were to care, I would imagine he'd care about real dollars, not the cap hit.

But I'll assume the relevant parties dealing with this would be the GMs - If I was Sweeney trying to sell Benning on this move, I would immediately point out trading 50% of his salary is way more efficient than buying him out. His contract is pretty buyout proof if you check it out (no matter what year you try to do this, except basically the last one). So they'd be saving money, term, AND getting an asset in return (unlike a buyout).

But perhaps you're right that a 4th wouldn't do it. I could see the Bruins giving up a 3rd, MAYBE (and that's a huge maybe) a 2nd round pick, but anything more lucrative than that and I think Vancouver would be crazy at that point. Eriksson has had an even worse 2 years there than Backes has had in Boston (if that's actually possible), and there is no future for Eriksson in that organization other than taking up cap space and a roster spot on a team where he has zero chemistry with anyone.

And maybe they are misjudging the situation, but from every "evaluation" I've read the Vancouver media write about him, it sounds like the team is dying to get rid of him?

I don't think the team wants to get rid of the player at all, but I'm sure they'd love dump the contract in the right deal. The real difference with Van's situation is that they've got at least three years before they need to start worrying about a cap crunch with their young stars getting lucrative deals. Having a decent vet like Eriksson around to help mentor the kids isn't a terrible thing, and if they need to buy out his final year that's not a big deal, as you mentioned.

And I'm not saying it's impossible that Loui gets traded with salary retained, I just don't think it's a smart thing for a team to do with so much term remaining. With only three retention spots available, I'd prefer Van retain on guys like Tanev or Edler (if he's willing to move) to get higher quality futures in return.

OK. Thanks for the input!