Boston Bruins place Mike Reilly on waivers for purpose of buyout
The Boston Bruins have placed defenseman Mike Reilly on waivers for the purpose of buying out his contract.
The Bruins are buying out the final year of Mike Reilly's contract. The buyout will free up $2.66M in cap space for 2023-24, $1.33M penalty in 2024-25.
— Ty Anderson (@_TyAnderson) June 30, 2023Reilly had one year remaining on a three-year contract with a $3 million cap hit, a deal he signed with the Bruins in the 2021 offseason after being dealt to Boston at the prior trade deadline. He had $4 million in actual dollars remaining on his deal, meaning that his buyout will carry a cap hit of $333,334 in the 2023-24 season and $1,333,334 in the 2024-25 for the Bruins.
Reilly didn’t spend a ton of time in the NHL this season, getting into just 10 games where he had one assist. He did play 36 games in the AHL with the Providence Bruins, where he had 7 goals, 19 assists, and 26 points, and also got into one playoff game with them where he was held pointless as Providence lost in four games in the division semifinals to the Hartford Wolf Pack.
Reilly was a fourth-round draft pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2011, but decided to go the college route and opted to become a free agent afterwards, signing with the Minnesota Wild. After struggling a bit with the Wild and the Montreal Canadiens, he found more of a groove with the Ottawa Senators, including a career year in 2020-21 that resulted in him getting traded to the Bruins at the deadline.
The Bruins had been looking to offload some cap space going into free agency in hopes of somewhat reassembling their record-setting team for another playoff run. They also traded Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno to the Chicago Blackhawks for Ian Mitchell and Alec Regula to make more cap space, as they were already up tight despite so many free agents due to the signing bonus overages of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. They currently have around $13.6 million in cap space with seven unrestricted free agents and three restricted free agents, including Bergeron, Krejci, Tyler Bertuzzi, Dmitry Orlov, and Jeremy Swayman.
The Bruins finished the regular season setting the record for wins in a season with 65 and points with 135, finishing first in the league by 22 points. Despite the dominant regular season, their playoff run was cut short, as they were upset in the first round in seven games by the Florida Panthers.