Updated Status on Oilers Potential to Buy Out James Neal

Shortly after the Edmonton Oilers shocking playoff exit at the hands of the Winnipeg Jets, general manager Ken Holland spoke to media about his offseason plans. One of those plans was in regards to buyouts, where Holland said he was likely to buy out at least one contract, and possibly two. This led to plenty of speculation, with most considering the two to be James Neal and Mikko Koskinen.

According to DailyFaceoff’s Frank Seravalli, Neal is the more likely of the two. In a column he recently published, Seravalli had the Oilers forward second on a top 10 buyout candidates list, trailing only former New York Rangers defenceman Tony DeAngelo. The article certainly doesn’t guarantee anything, but after what Holland said just over a month ago regarding this exact situation, it seems extremely likely.

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Buy Out Breakdown

As of now, Neal has two seasons remaining on a deal that carries a cap hit of $5.75 million. After the Oilers acquired him during the 2019 offseason for another bad contract in Milan Lucic, he had a pretty impressive bounce back season with 19 goals and 31 points in 55 games. However, the 2020-21 season was quite rough for him, as he finished with just five goals and 10 points in 29 games and was healthy scratched on multiple occasions.

Once again, a bounce back may be possible given that he struggled to get back in game shape this past season after having COVID-19 early on. However, he will be 34-years-old to start the 2021-22 campaign, and has never been known to be a good skater, which means this type of production may just be all he has to offer at this point. The Oilers are in a tricky spot here as they need to find players to help Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, and having nearly $6 million tied to Neal makes that difficult.

If they were to use one of their buyouts on Neal, his cap hit would drop to just $1,916,667 per season, giving the Oilers $3,833,333 in cap space. The only negative here is that this cap hit would continue on for two additional seasons, meaning it wouldn’t be off the books until the end 2024-25.

As mentioned above, many have also suggested buying out Koskinen. After a fairly impressive 2019-20 season, the Finnish netminder struggled this past year, posting an ugly 3.17 goals against average along with a .899 save percentage in 26 games, numbers far worse than his 39-year-old goaltending partner in Mike Smith. The good news here for the Oilers is that he only has one season remaining on his contract, but as mentioned this team needs to pick things up quickly, and many want a Koskinen buyout as a result.

The 32-year-old Koskinen carries a cap hit of $4.5 million, but that would drop down to $1.5 million if they were to use a buyout on him. It isn’t as much savings as Neal, but that $1.5 cap hit would only be on the books for the Oilers for one additional season, meaning it would expire after the 2022-23 campaign.

Which Player Should Go?

If Holland would indeed prefer using just one buyout, he needs to consider who he feels would help his team more next season. While this year wasn’t pretty, most would agree that Koskinen can still be a backup at the NHL level. Neal, on the other hand, struggles to keep up with the play often times. This makes him a liability at times at even strength, with his only asset being his power play abilities. With other talents like McDavid and Draisaitl, Neal being on the team to help on the man advantage shouldn’t be of concern.

With that said, it seems Neal is the better choice if Holland is choosing between one of the two. Perhaps he is able to somehow trade one of them this offseason as well, or give the Seattle Kraken additional assets to take one of them in the upcoming expansion draft. That remains to be seen, but if neither can be done and only one buyout is used, Neal should be the guy.

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