Buy-Outs: The Nikita Nikitin Story

Tonight, the NHL’s buy-out window opens. The Edmonton Oilers have a number of candidates for a buy-out in the shape of Teddy Purcell, Nikita Nikitin and Andrew Ference. Most, myself included, expect at least one of these players to be bought-out by the club in the coming days.

Here’s the thing, Purcell is too good to buy-out. Sure, he’s not worth his money, but he’s actually a player at the NHL-level and can produce. He had a down year, but he’s a real bounce back candidate. Andrew Ference has shown signs of still being a quality NHL’er too, showing well in a third pairing role for portions of this past season.

Nikita Nikitin on the other hand, well I just don’t think he has a case to not be bought out. Nikitin has one year remaining on his deal, along with a $4.5 million dollar cap hit. That’s a lot of money for a player that was Edmonton’s worst defender last season.

Nikitin is simply too slow to be effective in the NHL at this point. He routinely gets beaten by opposing forwards, leading to many chances against. While defending the rush this past season, opposing forwards could blow right past him. When he was trying to skate backwards, defending coming out of the offensive zone, it was even worse.

Nikitin also routinely found himself out of position last season, which led to far too many chances and goals against. Put politely, it was a disaster when Nikitin was on the ice. As bad as he was defensively, his passing skills were arguably worse. Moving the puck for him was like tossing a grenade up ice.

That said, there were positives for Nikita this past season. He was effective on the penalty kill, was good at clearing the front of the net, and possessed a bomb of a shot. Only problem was, he didn’t use that shot as much as we had hoped going into the year.

Overall, Nikitin was a disaster. He was brought in to be a top-four defender, but was anything but. He started off slowly, was injured for large chunks, and was terrible when in the line-up. The face of Edmonton’s defensive woes, in 2014-15, was Nikita Nikitin. Too slow and too ineffective. On a bad team, that’s a terrible combination of things.

I know I’m being harsh here, but let’s be honest, I’m telling the truth. If Edmonton plans on getting better next season, then Nikitin has to go. No one will trade for that contract, so you’ll have to buy it out. Is buying Nikitin out worth it? Let’s take a look.

The Buy-Out Route:

Edmonton owes Nikitin $4.5 million for the upcoming season, but they are off the hook for his contract starting next July. If Edmonton were to buy Nikitin out of his contract, that cap hit would shrink dramatically, but the Oilers would tack on a second year of cap constraints.

A buy-out would force Edmonton to carry a $1.5 million per year cap penalty for the next two seasons. That means the Oil actually save $3 million this coming season, but have $1.5 million extra on the tab the following year.

The savings could be used on a goaltender or an actual top-four defender, food for thought.

The Chart:

Here is Nikitin’s HERO chart, which shows us some pretty ugly things:

Nikitin clocks in as a bottom pairing option in regards to ice time, shot generation and a few shot suppression categories. It’s not a good looking graph, especially for a player making $4.5 million a season.

The Final Verdict:

The Edmonton Oilers need to limit their goals against next year. Part of that will come from having a better goalie, but part of that needs to come from having a better defensive unit. Upgrading the unit means you have to add better players, and to add better players you have to subtract bad ones.

Unfortunately for Nikita Nikitin, he’s one of the Oilers bad players right now.

After a nightmare season filled with injuries and ineffective play, Nikitin finds himself as overpaid and over-matched as player in the NHL.

The Oilers will need the cap space for upgrades this summer, which leads me to come to a verdict. Peter Chiarelli should buy-out Nikita Nikitin right when the window opens, which is tonight. We’ll see if Chia pulls the trigger and is serious about upgrading this roster.

I know Craig MacTavish viewed Nikitin as a top-four option, but let’s be serious, he just isn’t that kind of player. Saving $3 million this coming season is more valuable to the Edmonton Oilers than Nikita Nikitin is, and that’s just a cold hard fact.