http://www.capgeek.com/buyout_calculator.php?buyout_y=2009&buyout_m=06&buyout_d=15&Calculate=CALCULATE+BUYOUT&Player=976

Jay McKee is 31 years old on the buyout date of June 15, 2009, putting the total buyout cost at $2,666,667 spread over 2 years. His contract was originally valued at $16,000,000 with an annual cap hit of $4,000,000 beginning in 2006 and ending in 2010. The following is a season-by-season breakdown of the buyout. A negative buyout cap hit number indicates a credit.
SEASON ACTUAL SALARY CAP HIT BUYOUT SAVINGS BUYOUT CAP HIT
2009-2010 $4,000,000 $4,000,000 $1,333,333 $2,666,667 $1,333,333
2010-2011 $0 $0 $1,333,333 $-1,333,333 $1,333,333

TEXT CAP HIT BREAKDOWN (for copying and pasting)

JAY MCKEE BUYOUT FROM CAPGEEK.COM
2009-2010: $1,333,333
2010-2011: $1,333,333

MOST POPULAR BUYOUTS: Shawn Horcoff, Dustin Penner, Vincent Lecavalier, Daniel Briere, Wade Redden, Dany Heatley, Scott Gomez and Michael Nylander.

Winchester and Weaver resign. They aren’t to bad, and I agree that a one year deal will be good to see them and make a desicision under non-crisis situations. Also glad that they bought out McKee.

So, do we go after some free agent to replace him, or pull from our talent pool?

I like that fact they bought out McKee. other than part of the last half of last season he was dead weight on the ice.

Andy is also reporting that the Blues are showing interest in Sergei Zubov.

Also says that Woywitka is not expecting a qualifying offer.

Instead…I’ll just say that I agree with everything done up to this point:

Walt, Winchester, and Weaver re-signing – buying out McKee.

On Brewer and his back/nerve problem? Since we haven’t heard anything, I would assume it isn’t going very well.
I hate to say, I prefer they would have bought Brewer off, instead of McKee. With the exception of the two own goals by McKee, at least he wasn’t a liability on the ice that Brewer is (was hopefully).

Anyone else anxious to get the season started again?… wow..

Damn beach.

Anyways, I dig. Whoever said that McKee looked like dead weight was spot on. It’s just very impressive to me to look at our defensive corps. Big guys, good shots, and really deep depth at the position. It’s necessary to have that when you’re in the Central thanks to Chicago and Detroit’s offenses. We shut down Chicago this year. We should be able to nail Detroit next year. Def. get Polak back, and we’re set.

Zubov is interesting. He’d fit well with the offensive defenseman track that we seem to be taking. He’s not ancient, either. I’m concerned about injuries. The 2007-2008 year got cut off for him (still got 35 points in 45 games), and he only played 10 games last season thanks to his hip. What’s the prognosis for this year?

Glad they swallowed the McKee buyout — almost a no-brainer at this point. It’s funny, I remember where I was when I read that they had signed him for 4/$16, because once I got over the shock, I had this complete, concise picture of the next four years. You could see it playing out almost exactly as it has (crazy injuries notwithstanding).

It was the wrong price and wrong term, true, yet it was somehow understandable: The team was at rock bottom, wasn’t likely to attract any free agents without overpaying for them (remember that Guerin was coming off a miserable year and was signed late). Hell, they even needed to get up to the cap floor. They wanted a veteran presence to calm things and help protect the few leads they’d get. (Again, injuries got in the way of even that.) It was almost like start-up costs for resurrecting the squad and telling other players, “Hey look, we’re solvent. Give us a shot.”

But even if their best hopes played out for year 1 and 2, you just knew that by year 3 or 4 it would become a problem (cap and roster-wise … I didn’t expect the performance drop-off) and McKee would be blocking the young talent coming up. Glad they took the bullet now.

this is all well and good, but for gods sake get Roman Polak re-signed.

I check this site daily, its almost in my routine right after waking up. . . check stlgametime and fantasy then go about my day
blues news is great to come across, especially great blues news, the trend of being frugal, intelligent, and concise in our dealings since the new regime has been astronomically better than administrations of past. its great to see continued work, and god damn if that list of defensive pairings isnt as sexy on paper as it is on the ice.

buying out brewer is very stupid, there is a lot of talk about people hating up based on the pronger deal, i think thats crap, hes hated because he has a moronic expression on his face and loses the puck, but its easy to notice mistakes when your watching a player you hate, rather than the team you love. hes a good defensemen, period, and as far as im concerned he doesnt need to come back any time soon, we did just fine last year, now we are + EJ and some other young talent, why not get them some games under their belt while brewer gets stronger. its no secret he has far from “game-changing” skill so relatively its a blow the blues can (and have) handle/d

random note, calgary is going to suck to play against, i hope the dont re-sign cammaleri, with him they are dirt-nasty
but anyway canada sucks and so do the flames, screw them and paul coffey

about Brewer. Good point though, there hasn’t been any sort of update on him, which seems to indicate that its not going as well as one would hope.

I have to say, I’m not to big a fan of them trying to bring in Zubov. He’s injury prone just like McKee. There are better free agent defenseman out there. Another thing to keep in mind is that we’re a team on the rise. With our (projected) upside, I would think that the Blues are quickly becoming a very attractive team to play for.

Once they resign Polak (and they better) I guess we just see where we’re at and who to go for. I have to think that a back-up goalie and good forward would be priority over defenseman though…

Other than the signing of Polak, my interst is peaked in signing a backup. I have my eyes on a few names out there. Joey Macdonald is one that could use a good mentor like Wamsley. Budaj is could also suit our needs since he knows our division. Clemmenson is out of the picture. Plus he would come fairly cheap. But what about stl native Mckenna, he might fit our system. There are many goalies out there yet to be had.

Although I was sorta, but not totally, shocked they pulled the trigger on the McKee buyout. $1.667MM is a lot easier to handle than $4MM, but I’m still kinda stunned that they’d swallow ANY money. I just kinda figured they’d keep him around . . . if for anything else, just for the hell of it to see if it COULD work.

I did enjoy seeing McKee play when he COULD play, because he definitely WAS a solid defender . . . but those injuries. Goddamnit, those injuries. That, and . . . he was sssssssssslllllllllloooooooooowwwwwwwwww, and he had below-average offensive skills even for a DEFENSIVE defenseman. Yeesh.

As for Winchester Cathedral and Dream Weaver . . . VERY solid keeps, although if you looked at the two in the locker room, you’d probably guess B-Dub to be the defenseman and Weave to be the forward, right? Har har har . . .