While we were all wallowing in Phillies/Eagles misery, the Flyers made a significant move yesterday. Let me give this a try in hack website AI speak: Flyers Trade $50m Mistake. Did I do that right? How about: Flyers Move Point Per Game Center in $50m Trade.1 In a sly little move for accounting purposes, Ryan Ellis has been moved to the San Jose Sharks along with a 6th round pick for forward Carl Grundström and defenseman Artem Guryev. Who are they? It doesn’t really matter. This was a pure cap move for both teams.
Ryan Ellis signed his 8/$50m contract with Nashville when he was at the top of his game. However, after 10 years with the Predators, they traded him to Philly for Nolan Patrick and Philippe Myers. There were still 6 years left on the contract at the time. He suited up for 4 games in orange and black, before suffering a “multilayered pelvic injury” that turned out to be career ending. He finished with 4 assists and 1 goal in 91 total minutes for the Flyers.
So, what happens to NHL contracts when they die? They go to heaven of course! And by heaven, I mean Long Term Injured Reserve or LTIR. LTIR players don’t just come off the books. Instead, the money is credited to the salary cap so a team can use it. If the player is to come off LTIR, that money goes back on the books and the team has to remain cap compliant. He hasn’t counted against the cap for years. However, this year the LTIR rules have changed. Previously a team would get the full relief of the salary, but that has now been recalculated to the average league salary of $3.8m. Ellis will have a $6.25m cap hit this season and next year too.
One problem with LTIR is that you don’t really have cap space. Yes, you get credit on the cap sheet, but you can’t actually save cap room. Sometimes players earn bonuses on the year. Just because a player goes on LTIR and gets you technically cap compliant, a bonus would not be covered by this relief. Any overages would be debited from next year’s cap.
By making this move, the Flyers get Ellis completely off their books. That means $6.25m this year and next year to actually be able to spend. Last year they would have received full relief but that would have been $2.45m less this season. They have already waived Grundström allowing them to bury most of his salary and freeing up more space. This was purely a cap maneuver for the team.
As for the Sharks, they did not do this out of the kindness of their hearts. In fact, they barely did anything at all. Not only did they shed the salaries of Grundström and Guryev but they didn’t really take on Ellis’s. Apparently, his contract is insured, meaning they aren’t paying anything at all. He isn’t the only one either. The Sharks also traded for the LTIR contract of Carey Price and have Logan Couture already on LTIR. With Ellis, that is almost $25m in contracts that will not play this season. Yes, a lot of that will count against the cap this season, but they are not exactly trying to be good either. Assuming those contracts are also insured, Sharks ownership gets to save some money while collecting a few extra assets and keep their overall ceiling low while their younger players get better.
Anyway, the Flyers season starts on Thursday with one less bit of cap gymnastics to worry about.
Salaries courtesy of Spotrac
- The ploy works pretty well, I’m not going to lie. Even though I know it’s junk I want to click it every damn time. I refuse to do this on this website by the way even though I know how juicy it is. Also, Ellis scored 5 points in 4 games so he would technically be a point per game scorer. He also scored 5 points in 4 years so he is a point per season scorer as well. ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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