{"id":130445,"date":"2022-07-06T10:37:16","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T14:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=130445"},"modified":"2022-07-06T10:37:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T14:37:16","slug":"colin-white-buyout-unfortunate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/07\/06\/colin-white-buyout-unfortunate\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin White Buyout Unfortunate but Needed Step for Ottawa Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was announced on Tuesday afternoon that Colin White had been placed on waivers for purpose of a buyout. This has been a move that Sens fans have discussed as a potential option all season. White never lived up to the contract that he was given, which saw him make $4.75 million per season. So, a Colin White buyout became a clear option. For Ottawa, it shows a step in the right direction. The team is saving money in the long-term, but that can now be used to make some commonly promised improvements. However, it is unfortunate that White never worked with the team.<\/p>\n<h2>Colin White Buyout Provides Options<\/h2>\n<h3>Colin White in Ottawa<\/h3>\n<p>The main reason a Colin White buyout is so unfortunate is that he was one of the first players since Bobby Ryan that the Sens gave a long contract to. Betting on his upside, the Sens handed him a six-year, $28.5 million contract in hopes he would become their 2C, or even potentially a 1C. However, that did not end up being the case. White never seemed to find a consistent game with Ottawa and was moved up and down the lineup regardless of what coach used him.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t be more proud to be a Senator for the next 6 years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Colin White talks about his new long-term contract with the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Sens?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Sens<\/a>, preparing for the upcoming season and more.<\/p>\n<p>READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XocT3bC7l0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/XocT3bC7l0<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ogrBhEji0d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ogrBhEji0d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ottawa Senators (@Senators) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Senators\/status\/1164277776515522562?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 21, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>There <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/04\/11\/colin-white-ottawa-senators-2\/\" target=\"_self\">is still value in this<\/a>. Over the past few seasons, White became a defensively responsible 3C that could take some harder matchups if needed. The problem was that he still made too much for that role and that he couldn&#8217;t stay healthy. White has missed 58, 11, 10, and 10 games respectively in the four seasons he has been a full NHL player. If you&#8217;re going to be an overpaid player, you need to be more available than that.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, White did seem like one of the guys you could classify as &#8220;good in the room&#8221;. How much value that truly holds is impossible to determine. But at the very least, he seemed like a good mentor to have for some of the young guys coming up.<\/p>\n<h3>Where He Goes Now<\/h3>\n<p>The good thing for White is that he still should have plenty of options. Yes, usually your value is at an all-time low when you&#8217;re bought out. But White now has a very unique chance to go and boost his value. The Senators will be paying White $875,000 for the next six years, which means regardless he will have a steady income. This could allow him to a sign a cheap one-year deal on a really good team and rebuild his value.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"5BMByreDSIhTwrnhx0yJNQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1391524141\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'5BMByreDSIhTwrnhx0yJNQ',sig:'BXolIbgC-mlRrrJ10Dti0ZOmbnj2pnDRDSDSSlESJGg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1391524141',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Look at the contract Nick Paul just got <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/07\/01\/nick-paul-signs-new-contract-with-tampa-bay-lightning\/\" target=\"_self\">because of his playoff run in Tampa<\/a>. If White can do even half of that on a team that goes deep like Tampa or say the Colorado Avalanche, he could very easily turn it into another multi-year deal at a lower AAV than what he had with Ottawa. For the teams, they would get a guy who can slide up and down the lineup at a price tag of say $1 million. Way more palatable than $4.5 million.<\/p>\n<h3>Where Does Ottawa Go From Here?<\/h3>\n<p>The real question becomes, what does Ottawa do now? It can be looked at as a positive the team is willing to acknowledge and move on from a mistake. However, part of moving on is fixing the issue. Buying White out and calling it a day simply isn&#8217;t enough. You now need to use that money and spend it elsewhere to upgrade your team. Whether that&#8217;s a Free Agent signing next week, or maybe it is a trade target. Jesse Puljujarvi is a name on the market that could be an excellent fit in Ottawa and he wouldn&#8217;t cost anywhere close to the price that someone like Alex DeBrincat will be demanding.<\/p>\n<p>The other issue to look at for Ottawa is the right side of their blueline. They do have some promising pieces in Jacob Bernard-Docker and Lassi Thompson. However, Nikita Zaitsev and Travis Hamonic are also there. You can&#8217;t consider yourself a legit playoff team and have those two both playing meaningful minutes. An upgrade needs to be made somewhere.<\/p>\n<h3>Big Decisions to Make<\/h3>\n<p>Regardless, the Senators have some big decisions to make this summer. They were all talk and no game last offseason. That simply can&#8217;t happen again. A Colin White buyout was step one in giving themselves some additional flexibility. Now the question becomes what do they do to take advantage of that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was announced on Tuesday afternoon that Colin White had been placed on waivers for purpose of a buyout. This has been a move that Sens fans have discussed as a potential option all season. White never lived up to the contract that he was given, which saw him make $4.75 million per season. So, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2473,"featured_media":130447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,4548,8],"tags":[1065],"class_list":["post-130445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-nhl","category-senators","tag-colin-white"],"modified_by":"Luiza Vidal, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2473"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}