The NHL buyout period began Tuesday and will run until June 29 — two days before free agency begins.
The Bruins have used this process to alleviate cap space before, buying out forward Patrick Eaves in a trade-and-buyout move to free up space to sign defenseman Derek Morris last summer.
The club also bought out the contracts of forwards Peter Schaefer last summer and Glen Murray in 2008, but according to general manager Peter Chiarelli, that won’t be the case over the next two weeks.
"We’re not afraid to use this process but we won’t be doing any buyouts this time," Chiarelli told NESN.com on Tuesday morning.
For the 2010-11 season, the Bruins will be free of the $1,383,333 they carried the last two seasons from Murray’s buyout. There is one more year of Schaefer's $766,667 buyout and the Bruins get a $41,667 credit on Eaves's buyout.
"This is a process that takes both the team management and ownership acknowledging that they made a mistake with the player and things just didn’t work out," Chiarelli added.
Apparently that isn’t the case with the current roster, despite speculation that a player like Michael Ryder, who after a disappointing season (18 goals, 33 points), could be a candidate. If the Bruins want to free themselves of Ryder’s $4 million cap hit in 2010-11, they would need to trade him or demote him to Providence (AHL) via waivers.
