The Phoenix Arizona Coyotes have bought out three remaining years on Mike Ribeiro’s contract. Ribeiro was owed $5.5 million in 2014-15, $6 million in 2015-16 and $6 million in 2016-17 with an average cap hit of $5.5 million a season. The Coyotes will now pay Ribeiro $1,944,444 through 2019-20 and will end up saving roughly $5.9 million on the contract. However, the team didn’t cut Ribeiro loose due to financial woes.
Maloney said this move was purely about behavioral issues and not cost-saving move. Ribeiro has been seeking help this summer, Maloney said.
— Sarah McLellan (@sarah__mclellan) June 27, 2014
That’s a pretty telling Tweet. The fact Ribeiro is seeking help indicates this is a pretty serious situation. The details are still pretty vague as to what kind of issues the team was dealing with, but they must have been a major distraction for the team to buy him out.
Maloney: "Mike had some real behavioral issues we felt we could not tolerate going forward."
— Sarah McLellan (@sarah__mclellan) June 27, 2014
Ribeiro has been linked to bad behavior and a “cancerous” attitude in the past and the Coyotes were aware of that.
#Coyotes weren't naive when they acquired Ribeiro last summer, but Maloney thought they could manage. Called it "mistake" now.
— Sarah McLellan (@sarah__mclellan) June 27, 2014
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Ribeiro. He has the talent to be a contributor for any number of teams, but few will want to take a gamble on him until he has a hold on whatever is troubling him off the ice. He’ll get a new contract, but hopefully the next one will end under better circumstances.
