It has been a tough year for Senators defenseman Nikita Zaitsev, to put it lightly. He has struggled when he has been in the lineup and passed through waivers earlier in the season which resulted in his first career AHL action.
However, it appears as if they’re stepping up their efforts to move the 31-year-old as ESPN’s Kevin Weekes reports (Twitter link) that Ottawa has given Zaitsev’s permission to speak to other teams to try to help facilitate a trade. Additionally, Weekes reports that the Sens are also willing to part with a sweetener – a good prospect or high draft pick – to get a deal done.
Zaitsev has another year after this one on his contract that carries a $4.5MM cap hit. That’s a high price tag for someone who is averaging less than 17 minutes per night when he’s in Ottawa’s lineup. While he had a 36-point rookie season with Toronto in 2016-17 which helped shape the price tag of his current deal, he hasn’t been able to reach half of it since then. Notably, he also has a ten-team no-trade clause which gives Zaitsev a bit of an ability to control what happens next.
If Ottawa is indeed willing to move a quality asset to get out of the final year and a half of Zaitsev’s deal, it stands to reason that the primary objective is to clear the full contract off the books, similar to what Calgary did when they sent Montreal a protected first-round pick to get out of the final year of Sean Monahan’s contract. That suggests that they’re likely unwilling to retain on the contract or take a bad deal back as if they were, they wouldn’t need to attach an additional asset to make a move happen.
Ottawa has a little more than $4.3MM in full-season cap space at the moment, per CapFriendly. That amount is lower than what it really should be as at the moment, they have six players on injured reserve (including Zaitsev); as some of them return and their short-term replacements go back to the minors, they will have considerably more cap room to work with.
However, it’s also worth noting that they’re typically a budget team, not one that spends to the Upper Limit and with an ownership situation that’s certainly in flux with efforts to sell the team well underway, it’s possible that they don’t have the green light to spend right to the limit. Accordingly, if they want to make a move to add to their roster, they might need to move Zaitsev to have the budget room to do so.
With the bulk of the trade market still a fair way away from developing with so many teams needing to bank more cap room, they haven’t had much luck finding a taker for him yet. Perhaps now with his agent being able to speak to teams and the Senators willing to incentivize a team to take on Zaitsev’s contract, they’ll eventually have some better luck making it happen.
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