Patrick Eaves has re-signed with the Red Wings for a bargain basement deal — yet again. The one-year deal is worth a reported $750,000, a raise on his league-minimum $500,000 deal from a season ago. He has been receiving buyout payments from the Boston Bruins, per the trade with the Carolina Hurricanes, which help supplement his regular paycheck. The Bruins, in turn, receive a credit this season as Eaves’ salary would have been below the buyout amount (or some such nonsense).
If you follow along, you’ll recall I was most concerned about Patrick Eaves coming back into the fold, for fear that he’d earned his way into a bigger paycheck than the Wings could likely afford.
Using the numbers from yesterday, the Wings now have $55,642,045 dedicated to salary (12 forwards, 6 defenseman, and 2 goaltenders) and an additional $50,000 due for bonuses, leaving the Red Wings with $3,757,955 to sign their remaining restricted free agents: Darren Helm, Justin Abdelkader, and Derek Meech.
I won’t get into the Modano and sixth D implications again, everyone’s covered how insanely easily those pieces will fit financially thanks to the deals these guys are taking.
Maybe Lilja comes back after all…
Im from Nova Scotia and i enjoy seeing an atlantic canadian like Cleary on the team but I think the best thing for the wings to do would be do trade him..He hasnt really produced the numbers the wings thought he would.. it would free up about 2.5 million next year and would give the wings room to resign Howard when he becoms a RFA next year
I think he said they should trade Cleary…not Eaves.
Absolutely did… retracting. Thanks for the catch.
This part still makes sense:
Jimmy Howard might be tricky to re-sign (he's unrestricted, however, not an RFA), but unless he's not willing to play ball like every other Red Wing, it shouldn't be a problem squeezing him in next season. Also, Chris Osgood's 1.4M deal is up so there will be more wiggle room.
Comments are closed.