Can someone explain why they are doing these buyouts? Doesn’t it appear like cap suicide while it’s flat

It was either pay them to sit in the press box and watch the games or pay them to leave. We would’ve had to pay them the money regardless of the buyout, now we can do it while opening up spots for our rookies.

I think Guerin saw them as 2 declining players that were only going to keep getting worse the next 4 seasons. Parise was already a 4th liner/scratch the end of this year and Suter had maybe 1-2 decent years left. By buying out both now he at least gets an extra $10M to play with this offseason. Years 2-4 are going to be a killer on the cap, but GMBG must be thinking some young players will be able to step up and produce at a better level than a very old Parise and Suter. It just doesn't leave the team with many options if the young players don't pan out.

I highly doubt Guerin just opened up 10 million extra in cap space so he could sign Paul Stastny. My guess is Rask will be off the team within a couple of weeks, we will trade for a higher skilled center that will play with Kaprizov and Zuccarelo (Dvorak, Zacha, etc.). Also, I don’t think they break up the FOLIGNO JEEK GREENWAY line, they are far too good together defensively.

Yeah I played it pretty safe with my prediction. I'm not a fan of Rask and would be happy to see him moved. Plus that would probably mean we'd see Rossi either at the start of the season or not long after he gets some AHL games under his belt. I hope Ek gets a shot with either Fiala or Kaprizov. I don't think they would've given him that contract if they only saw him as a 3rd line center forever. I can't wait to see what GMBG does next.

I agree but Eriksson Ek was playing 1st line last year with Foligno and Greenway, he wasn’t playing on the 3rd line.