Quoting: dilldoughs
Brown hit his 10 games with Edmonton, so they have to pay his bonus even if he gets traded. So no point trading him imo, just send him down and clear his cap
I searched into it and this is my interpretation, may be wrong but nothing indicates that I am.
If we trade Brown we are moving his contract, Performance Bonus as well, with it. We have to pay next year since we're cap strapped and Browns PB is under 7.5% of total cap, however a team like CHI or NSH has cap space and can allow Browns BP to hit their cap this season. We also pay a performance bonus essentially whenever meaning EDM can pay the full 3.225M owed in actual dollars.
Essentially if we included him in the CHI trade at deadline, EDM would free up ~3.2M next season as Browns Bonus would move with him.
Chicago would have the cap hit of 4M for Brown this season, but they don't care since they have ~17M in cap space right now.
EDM would still pay a majority of Browns contract, ~3.75M and Chicago .25M (if done at deadline). Maybe we toss in a 6th as well to take him but it's a HUGE benefit to us to move Brown at deadline.