Philadelphia has wasted no time using its compliance buyouts, and the club announced Tuesday that it has bought out the contract of goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. This is the second of two compliance buyouts for the Flyers, the first of which was used on forward Daniel Briere.
“I met with Ilya [Tuesday] morning and informed him that we are going to exercise a compliance buy out of his contract,” general manager Paul Holmgren said in a statement. “This was a very difficult business decision to make for us and we want to thank Ilya for his time here and wish him all the best moving forward.”
With the salary cap set to go down this summer, the Flyers really had no choice but to cut ties with the underperforming goaltender. The Flyers signed Bryzgalov to a nine-year, $51 million deal prior to the start of the 2011-12 season.
While the Flyers don’t totally get out from underneath the burdensome contract, they do get plenty of relief. The Flyers still have to pay two-thirds of the remaining $23 million on the deal. However, they have the next 14 years to pay that off. According to the team’s website, they will pay Bryzgalov about $1.6 million for the next 14 seasons, although they do save $5.67 million on the cap for the next seasons or what would be the rest of the original deal.
