A year after getting saddled with the Marc Savard contract in a trade for Reilly Smith, the Florida Panthers have offloaded Savard’s contract onto the New Jersey Devils. The contract and a 2018 2nd round draft pick are headed to the Devils, while AHL forwards Paul Thompson and Graham Black are headed to Sunrise.
Savard, a former Bruins center, hasn’t played since the 2010-11 season due to concussions, but had another six years on his contract. The deal was signed before the 2013 CBA agreement, allowing it to be heavily front-loaded. The Devils get a $4 million cap hit that will only cost them $575,000 in actual cash, and it expires at the end of the year.
For a team that is, at least to some extent, rebuilding, it’s a deal that helps them hit the cap floor without spending much to do so. Savard will be one of two players the Devils carry on LTIR, with Ryane Clowe’s $4.85 million deal on the books for the next two seasons.
In Florida, the team appears to be freeing up space to make some moves in free agency. They cleared around $2.5 million off the books with the Erik Gudbranson trade, putting the grand total in cap space cleared through postseason trades at nearly $7 million.