Wouldn’t it be nice for the Montreal Canadiens if they didn’t have to deal with Scott Gomez’s $7,357,143 annual cap hit? Well, if a recent report citing league sources is true, they might not have to for much longer. According to Bruce Garrioch’s sources, GMs are hoping that the new CBA will include an amnesty clause, which will would allow them to buyout a single contract each without it counting against the cap. A league source specified that this “would be a one-time buyout only,” so this wouldn’t provide NHL squads with the freedom to ink a player to a big contract one summer and then shed themselves of it without a cap punishment before Year Two of the deal.
Of course, it’s worth emphasizing that all of this is still purely theoretical. Even if the NHL’s GMs want this clause, and it’s not hard to believe that they would, it doesn’t mean that it will be included in the final draft of the next CBA. Still, we bet that fans of almost every team can name a player whose contract they’d like to see their team shed.