David Booth's camp haven't heard from Canucks about possible buyout
Vancouver Canucks forward David Booth may not be "very likely" to be the target of a compliance buyout this June, but he's certainly a high-profile fringe candidate.
Booth managed nine goals and 19 points this past season, but suffered through a 32-game goalless streak, battled injury, and was occasionally a healthy scratch. That's been par for the course for the underachieving power-forward, who has struggled mightily to fill the net and stay healthy during his three seasons in Vancouver.
Booth has one-year and $4.25 million remaining on his contract, so he doesn't exactly pose a long-term threat to Vancouver's salary cap situation. Still, it wouldn't be a huge surprise if the team elected to terminate his contract and remove the cap-hit from their books later this month.
Read more about the NHL's first buyout period
On Monday, as the buyout period opened, there was nothing doing on the Booth buyout front. The American-born forward was not placed on $125 dollar unconditional waivers, and his camp has heard nothing about a prospective buyout yet.
"I haven’t heard anything from Vancouver (today)," Booth's agent and former NHL goaltender Mike Liut told the Vancouver Province's Jim Jamieson on Monday. "I called [Canucks GM Jim Benning] a couple of weeks ago and spoke with him about David then. That was before before the club’s meetings and he was still getting up to speed on things. I asked him to give me a heads-up if they came to a decision."
NHL teams have until June 30, which is after the 2014 NHL entry draft, to exercise an ordinary course or compliance buyout on a standard player contract.
For the Canucks, a team that still has a big name player to trade this offseason in Ryan Kesler and waited until the last minute to buyout Keith Ballard a year ago (even desperately placing the underachieving defender on normal waivers before succumbing to the inevitable), it would make sense that a potential Booth buyout would be delayed until later in the month.