The New Jersey Devils have placed forward Dainius Zubrus on unconditional waivers for the purpose of terminating his contract, the team announced on Wednesday.
The 37-year-old forward played 74 games for the Devils last season, scoring four goals and six assists. In his career, he’s played 1,243 games split between the Devils, Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals, Montreal Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers.
Because the team had players who filed for arbitration, the Devils have a second buyout window that is currently open. It isn’t immediately clear if this is a buyout or if it is a contract termination. If it’s a buyout, the Devils will not get cap relief, since Zubrus is over 35. This seems like the most likely scenario.
https://twitter.com/NHLDevils/status/626422172324622336
If it is a termination and not a buyout, as their tweet states, it may be a similar situation to when the Devils terminated the contract of Damien Brunner last season after he refused to report to the AHL. He spent the remainder of the season playing in Switzerland. If that’s the case, the termination is done by mutual agreement, which would mean that there’s another story here that we are not yet seeing.
Zubrus has one year remaining on his contract, with a $3.1 million cap hit. His contract can be terminated if he clears waivers unclaimed on Thursday.
UPDATE:
The Devils have clarified the situation. It will not be a contract termination as we saw in the Brunner case, but a buyout, according to TSN’s Frank Seravalli.
#Devils clarify: Zubrus to be bought out. Strange since his contract was over-35, his full $3.1M cap hit will be on books for next season.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) July 29, 2015
