After an arbitration hearing, Tyler Bertuzzi was awarded a one year contract for $3.5M for the 2020-21 season.
Bertuzzi will still be a restricted free agent when the contract expires. His previous contract was 2 years for $1.4M AAV.
Last season, Bertuzzi scored 21 goals and 27 assists in 71 games playing on Detroit’s top line. According to Cap Friendly, the comparables for today’s contract are Andre Burakovsy, Pavel Buchnevich, and Jakub Vrana
The number is below the threshold for the Wings to even be eligible to walk away, so that won’t even be a question.
The conclusion of Red Wings arbitration cases means that a second buyout window is triggered. The terms are different this year as follows:
Further to this, @CapFriendly tells me that the MOU changed this year’s rules for this buyout window. Window now begins in two days (not three) and lasts 24 hours (not 48).
— Rob Williams (@RobTheHockeyGuy) October 22, 2020
So Detroit would have a buyout window starting on Thursday and lasting until 24 hours later.
The requirements for the player being bought out are:
- A buyout can only be performed on a player who was on the clubs reserve list at 3:00pm on the most recent trade deadline
- The player must have a cap hit of at least $4,000,000 for the 2020 offseason
On the Wings roster, Frans Nielsen seems the only candidate. While the topic of this article is Tyler Bertuzzi’s contract, it seems likely that the potential buyout topic will be discussed in the comments, so here is how a Nielsen buyout would play out:
Instead of a 5.25M cap hit for the next two seasons:
Year 1 – $4.416M cap hit
Year 2 – $4.416M cap hit
Year 3 – $667k cap hit
Year 4 – $667 cap hit.
Overall, the team would save $1.3M over the four years for the cost of having a 667k cap hit in each of years 3 and 4.
