Dallas Stars Need To Buy Out Antti Niemi To Afford Ben Bishop

The Dallas Stars reeled in a premier goaltender on Tuesday in a trade with the Los Angeles Kings. Now, how do they clear their crease?

With the Dallas Stars sending a 2017 4th-round NHL Draft selection to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for enigmatic goaltender Ben Bishop, the Stars now possess the contracts of three NHL-calibur netminders.

Wait, hold that. The Dallas Stars simply acquired the exclusive negotiating rights to the former Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender – meaning they’ll get a little over seven weeks to find a middle ground in contract talks with Bishop.

It’s been estimated that Bishop, a two-time Vezina Trophy finalist, will request an average annual value of $6 million or more. Only six goaltenders in the National Hockey League earn an excess of $6 million each season, with future Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist at the summit with an $8.5 million AAV.

This means they will likely part ways with one of the two Finnish goaltenders that hold down the blue paint at the current moment in time. Their names are Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi, and their futures with the Dallas Stars are unknown.

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With subpar stats, it would be difficult to package the two veteran goalies in any trades during the off-season. However, with over $10 million committed to the two goalies, Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill needs to work on clearing out some of that cap hit.

The logical option is a “buyout” for the one of the two goaltenders. Buyouts can be pretty confusing, so here’s a simplification:

All 31 NHL teams are permitted to buy out a player’s contract in order to reduce the salary cap hit the player in question’s deal makes on the overall salary cap. The franchise pays the player two thirds, or one third if the player is under 26 years of age, of their remaining value over the course of twice as many years on their current deal.

For example, and this would never happen, but still: if the Dallas Stars were to buy out John Klingberg’s current contract, one of five more years at an average annual value of $4.25 million, the buyout math would operate like this:

John Klingberg is 24 years old, so only one third of his contract would be paid out.
A total sum of $24.75 million remains on Klingberg’s contract, signed last off-season.
The buyout ratio is one third, which indicates that the cumulative cost of the buyout would only be $8.25 million.
Since Klingberg has five years remaining on his current deal, the buyout will be spread out over ten calender years.
The annual buyout cost would be one tenth of $8.25 million, therefore Klingberg would receive 825,000 for ten years.

Simple, right? I hope, because here’s where the math gets tricky.

Kari Lehtonen was given a horrific five-year, $5.9 million per year contract by former Dallas Stars general manager Joe Nieuwendyk back in 2013. Antti Niemi is paid less, at just $4.5 million per year, but still grossly overpaid when compared to goaltenders around the same statistical range.

So, in purely hypothetical ways, the Stars need to buy out Antti Niemi. If Bishop gets the contract he demands and in some sense deserves, then the Dallas Stars could be looking at over $12 million in goaltender contracts this upcoming season without Niemi, a 2013 Vezina finalist.

Niemi would be the much easier and cheaper goalie to buy out. Additionally, his stats with the Stars have been less than desirable, so it’s an easy decision to keep Lehtonen over his Finnish counterpart.

Niemi’s buyout would be handled like this:
Antti Niemi is 33 years old at the date of the buyout, so two thirds of his existing contract is owed.
Niemi’s salary remaining: $4,500,000 for just one year.
The buyout ratio is two thirds this time, which results in a total buyout cost of $3,000,000.
Again, only one year remains on his contract, one given by the San Jose Sharks.
The buyout will be spread out over two years, meaning the annual buyout cost is $1,500,000.

Awesome. So, say the Dallas Stars wrap up Ben Bishop to a four-year, $5.5 million contract. Combined with the preexisting Lehtonen deal, the newest Stars goaltender duo will cost $11.4 million altogether. Add in $1.5 million from Niemi, and that total reaches $12.9 million.

However, it would be the only year that this cap level would be up that far. The best choice is to buy out Antti Niemi, keep Kari Lehtonen until his contract expires, and sign Ben Bishop to a long-term deal.

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The Dallas Stars acquired Ben Bishop as a long-term fix for a win-now team, as the primary cause for their failures in the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs was netminding. With Bishop, there are fewer concerns and more dependability.

Of course, Jim Nill is a maniacal, screaming mad scientist. His plan is different than ours, and keeping track of him is as hard as ever.