The Arizona Coyotes have placed veteran forward Zack Kassian and defenseman Patrick Nemeth on waivers for the purposes of a buyout.
The Arizona Coyotes have kicked off their off-season by buying out two players.
The Coyotes pulled the plug on two veteran roster pieces on Tuesday, placing forward Zack Kassian and defenseman Patrik Nemeth on unconditional waivers for the purpose of buying them out.
Once both players clear waivers and the buyouts are finalized, the Coyotes will then be left with a final projected cap hit of $53,344,644 heading into the summer, giving them a whopping $30,155,356 in cap space with which to sign players, according to PuckPedia.
With the Coyotes currently in the deep stages of a full-scale rebuild, however, player cap hits are not exactly at the forefront of the front office's mind. It's a fact that will make the dead money left over from the Kassian and Nemeth buyouts easier to stomach, as both players will remain on Arizona's cap for the next two seasons.
Kassian, 32, has 203 points and 913 penalty minutes in 661 career NHL games. He joined the Coyotes this past season in a trade from the Edmonton Oilers and recorded two goals and no assists in 51 games at a cap hit of $3.2 million.
Nemeth, meanwhile, was traded to Arizona with 2025 and 2026 second-rounders for Ty Emberson last July. The 31-year-old had five assists in 75 games at a cap hit of $2.5 million this season.
In total, Kassian will count for $1,666,667 against the cap in 2023-24 and $766,667 in 2024-25, while Nemeth will count for $166,667 next season and $1,166,667 the one after that. Together, the two will represent about $1.8 million and $1.9 million in dead cap charges in 2023-24 and 2024-25, respectively, with the Coyotes still under the salary cap floor even with Oliver Ekman-Larsson, whom they traded to Vancouver in 2021, still on their books.
With their very future in Arizona as uncertain as ever, the Coyotes are certainly in an interesting position as a crucial off-season gets underway.