Well that was underwealming

Paying a player $8.5M to play somewhere else.

I just don't get it. Why are teams paying soo much to get rid of salary when the UFA market has nothing to offer?

The best guess I have is plain thanking.

They burned 1 retention spot in order to free up over 10M in cap over that time period. It is justifiable.

A retention spot used as a third party to retain is usually worth at best 4th round pick at the trade deadline. That is assuming that the opportunity comes up to retain. With the difference between a 4th and 6th round pick being negligible, they possibly cost themself two late round picks by retaining for 3 years here. That is assuming that they have to use the 2 other slots on long term deals and cannot be active in the market as the third party to retain.

In short, you're correct that it is a consideration but creating over 10 million in cap flexibility over 3 years easily justifies burning the slot.

Fire Briere!!!

They never had lot of leverage, but Hayes at 3.5 mill has some value and the Johansen trade set the market which just made their situation worse on top of Torts wanting him gone before next season.

I get that cap space is tight in a flat cap environment, but retaining $3.5 million for three years at that return is genuinely atrocious for the Flyers.

Your analysis fails to consider his impact on the team when he was here, as well as market fluctuations. He was a crucial part to the teams success in 2019-20 but the team never recovered after Niskanen's retirement and made poor move after poor move. As the team's play and direction declined, so did Hayes' value. What you paid for something before could be at a fair price, just like what you sell him for later can be a fair price.

They were our 1C and 2C last year. Hayes got shafted and put at 3LW most of the time

For the Blues: Actually I think I really like it. Hayes and Schenn can rotate in the 2C / 3C spots depending on who's playing better/chemistry at any given point in time. It's like signing him to a 3 year deal at $3.5 AAV, which I would do all day every day.

For the Flyers: They're rebuilding, it didn't matter if it was a "loss" trade. They gained: (1) cap flexibility for other moves or salary retentions that could return them even MORE draft/prospect capital, (2) a 6th round draft pick. It is a massive return? No. Did Briere at least get SOMETHING? Yes he did. There's one more asset in the rebuild pipeline for a player who was not part of the future. It's SOMEthing; and infinitely better than a buyout.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O9IjrcOqIxc

Google sunk cost fallacy.

They aren't paying a player to play somewhere else. They are creating usable cap space, which is an asset.

The 10M+ in cap space Briere created is more valuable than Hayes. Hayes was a sunk cost because no one was going to take him on his contract. A buyout would clear less money than this trade, and it would be spread over 6 years, not 3.

There are lots of smart hockey people on this website, but I am always amazed that great cap related moves like this that are really easy to understand the motivation behind seem to fly over the heads of so many posters on a website dedicated to the salary cap. If this was Reddit or HFboards or something, like whatever that's a general hockey forum I don't expect everybody to be nutty about how the cap works over there.

I cannot get over the absurdity of people calling out Briere for creating a ton of cap space for a player there was no market for without giving up any assets. The Flyers get no value out of Hayes playing for them, and at his age and size he is at a high risk of declining. Arizona has dropped out as a cap dumping ground, the cap did not go up, there are going to be opportunities to turn that 3.5M into multiple 2nd or 3rd round picks via taking on bad contracts. Chicago just got a 2nd+4th for taking on Zaitsev at the deadline and he only had 1 year of term remaining at 4.5M, among numerous other examples.

They have a reasonable chance of parlaying this cap space into multiple draft picks. It isn't guaranteed, but it is a reasonable outcome based on how frequently teams have paid 2nd or 3rd round picks to dump contracts in the 3.5M range with limited term. If the title of this thread was Hayes for 2nd+2nd+6th, people would be calling Briere a genius. Well, that's what he will likely end up with, maybe even more.

This is an excellent trade by Briere. The market for dumping these contracts is going to close quickly as teams use their available cap space. He did a great job to capitalize on the bad FA market and create cap flexibility that can be used to acquire further assets.

It doesn't have value because very few teams will want to take on the risk of his term at his age. It requires multiple teams to create a market for a player.

Johansen and Hall are signed for 2 years, which makes them easier to move, and even in those cases there wasn't likely a market for either of them.

This isn't magic, if he doesn't make this trade because he wants to hold out for a better asset, Hayes is a Flyer this season and Briere cost his team multiple 2nd/3rd round picks that he would have possibly been able to acquire by leveraging the 3.5Mx3 years of cap space as a dumping ground for bad contracts (for example, Zaitsev to Chicago, or any of the dozen contracts Arizona took).

This is an excellent move, and it is shocking that on a forum dedicated to the cap how people don't understand how this stuff works and how great of a job these GMs have done to capitalize on a weak free agent market to create cap space. A week from now, the opportunity to dump this contract probably is not there. Next off season, maybe not either.

Common Blues W

I wouldn't recommend making a trade like this again.

For any team.

Danny Briere just ripped out a piece of the team's core for a 6th round pick.

I'm not exactly sure how else to put it.

STL just paid a 6th round pick for a $3.5M capable top 6 center and you think another team is going to offer PHI a 2nd to take on a $3.5M pure capdump?!? Google double standard...

Could you elaborate? I don't understand your point as it is written.

I don't understand how Kevin Hayes isn't worth more than this with Philly picking up half the freight.

Like son like father

greatest comedy in philadelphia since 1975

Rangers could have given them a 5th.

Highway robbery. Hayes is very underrated. Cap space makes things wacky

Blues badly needed a center and got one for essentially a bag of pucks. Great move by Army. I know cap is king right now, but the return is a bit of a head scratcher for Philly. Not like Danny B is going to go on a spending spree this off season. So why keep 3+ mil on the books for the next 3 seasons for essentially nothing?

Blues win, Philly does clear cap but Kevin Hayes at 3.5x3 is not worth only a 6th, Kevin Hayes at 3.5x3 should be worth more than that

Hayes is not part of this teams core nor did he or the coaching/front office have any interest in him remaining part of the core. He was brought into an established core that saw each player get traded away. He was off the team come hell or highwater. A 6th round pick is better than having to buy him out.

Honestly forgot him. Good point.