Marleau's contract has been talking endlessly. MMC, plus 35, retirement have meaning. Buyout no meaning.

He can be bought out but his cap hit counts in full. Arizona gets the full cap hit, but only a low salary. Marleau agrees because he knows he’s coming right back and makes 2 million more in this scenario. Colorado and Washington did it with Orpik last year.

This exact "Orpik" concept has been discussed at length on this forum. It's theoretically possible...but IMO the league would view this as clear cap circumvention and penalize the leafs

I don’t disagree but there is precedent. They can’t allow that last year, and then turn around and penalize the leafs the next. They allowed Robidas island for 3 years! Lol

sure they can...they allowed long, heavily back-ended contracts until Jersey went too far with the Kovulchuk deal and they got penalized...then they implemented the cap recapture penalty on the 2016 CBA renegotiation that made all those back-ended contracts potentially disastrous to the teams that signed them.

The only problem with the plan is he would have to pass thru waivers. If let say a team with a lot of cap space but only wants to pay a 25 goal scorer 1 million dollars can put in a claim. If Detroit who would have cap space put in a claim Marleau would have to report and play in Detroit or retire. If he retires his whole AAV cap for the final.year of his contract would count against the ML cap. 6.25 cap hit and you get nothing for it, just spit balling, this is why he may be reluctant to wave for buyout.

So....I thought this too...but Marleau has the ability to request skipping the waiver process and going straight to buy-out...and if he did opt for waivers...a team claiming him takes the $6.25m.

Also...in the scenario above...the leafs would trade him first and the aquiring team puts him on waivers...so if he chose to retire that team would be stuck with the $6.25m cap hit (which they are already assuming in the original trade anyway).

The thing is...this only makes sense if there's a pre-agreed to commitment between the leafs and marleau that this is what is going to happen (otherwise he won't waive his NMC in the first place)...and that type of arrangement would be considered cap circumvention if the league could prove it

Per this website he has to pass thru waivers like any other player being bought out. Not sure where you got he can bypass that step.

Also because the contract was signed after he was 35 years old and it is prorated on the front end of the deal, the team trading for him is not stuck with the 6.25 million dollar cap hit, the original signing team, Toronto, is hit with that penalty.

That is why guys like Zetterberg and Hossa did not retire but just were put on LTIR, cap recapture penalty for porrated and 35 + contracts.

Waivers
A player can only be bought out after clearing unconditional waivers. A waiver-claim by another team pre-empts the buyout process. If a player has a no-movement clause, the player can reject the option of waivers and proceed to the buyout process.

As for the who picks up the balance if Marleau were to retire...I'm uncertain on it as the CBA isn't as clear:

(iv) All Player Salary and Bonuses earned in a League Year by a Player who is
in the second or later year of a multi-year SPC which was signed when the
Player was age 35 or older (as of June 30 prior to the League Year in
which the SPC is to be effective), regardless of whether, or where, the
Player is playing, except to the extent the Player is playing under his SPC
in the minor leagues, in which case only the Player Salary and Bonuses in
excess of $100,000 shall count towards the calculation of Actual Club
Salary; plus

The part that says, regardless of 'where' he plays...i'm not certain if that is intended to mean minors, KHL, etc...or if it also includes other NHL teams