Coyotes Release Ribeiro Sign Gagner

Forward Sam Gagner was traded twice Sunday, winding up in Glendale. The Coyotes acquired the center and right wing B.J. Crombeen from the Tampa Bay Lightning for a sixth-round pick in the 2015 NHL Draft. Tampa Bay earlier obtained Gagner from the Edmonton Oilers in a trade for right wing Teddy Purcell. The Coyotes were in the market for a center after buying out Mike Ribeiro on Friday. Gagner, 24, had 10 goals and 27 assists in 67 games last season after missing the first 13 games recovering from a broken jaw. He has two years remaining on a contract with an annual NHL salary-cap charge of $4.8 million, according to CapGeek.com. Gagner was the No. 6 pick in the 2007 NHL Draft and had eight points (four goals, four assists) in a game Feb. 2, 2012 against the Chicago Blackhawks. Crombeen, 28, had three goals and seven assists in 55 games last season. He had 79 penalty minutes and has 771 in 387 NHL games. He will make $1.15 million this season before becoming an unrestricted free agent, CapGeek states.

"It's been a roller coaster of emotions," Gagner said, according to The Canadian Press. "I was talking to my agent, and he had said when Tampa [Bay] traded for me that there might be something else going on. So it was something that I was prepared for. I wasn't really expecting to be traded (again) today."

"It came together in a hurry," Arizona general manager Don Maloney said, according to the CP. "I think there's three [teams] that feel pretty good about our day so far. [Sam] has the intelligence, character and skill set we were looking for and we believe he has further growth in his game. B.J. is a great fit for us. He is a big, strong, character player who will be a leader on the ice and in our locker room."

Purcell, 28, had 12 goals and 30 assists in 82 games last season. The undrafted free agent has missed three games in the past four seasons and has two years remaining on a contract with an annual NHL salary-cap charge of $4.5 million, according to the website. The Lightning also traded center Nate Thompson to the Anaheim Sucks for a fourth-round and a seventh-round pick in the 2015 draft. Thompson, 29, had nine goals and seven assists in 81 games. He will make $1.6 million in each of the next three seasons, according to CapGeek.

It’s one thing for a team to buy out a player’s contract. It’s another to flat out admit that signing the player was a mistake. It’s totally another to say that the buy out is happening because of “behavioral issues.” Which is all to say that the Coyotes buying out Mike Ribeiro is anything but typical. The Coyotes initiated a buyout of Ribeiro’s three remaining years on Friday. It’s not a compliance buyout, meaning that the Coyotes are on the hook for $1,944,444 against the cap through 2020. They had signed Ribeiro last summer to a 4-year, $22-million free agent contract after he amassed 49 points in 48 games for the Washington Crapitals in 2012-13. He didn’t find the same success in Arizona, with 47 points in 80 games. Coyotes coach Dave Tippett even made him a healthy scratch late in the season. But the big news here is that GM Don Maloney flat out said that Ribeiro’s buy out was motivated by behavioral issues. From the Arizona Republic:

"Mike had some real behavior issues last year with us I felt we could not tolerate going forward," General Manager Don Maloney said. "To his credit, he has been getting help this offseason and obviously would hope he continues. But at the end of the year and all the background checking and what happened, we felt that for us to move forward, we couldn't have him a part of this team."

From Maloney: "We realize this is a fairly significant cost to us, but we also know we have to have certain people and leaders here to make us successful and certain levels of behavior we'll tolerate," Maloney said. "Hey, we all have our issues and no one's an angel. When we're looking at older players, there's certain things we accept and certain things we can't and it doesn't matter how much they make. They have to do the right thing for the organization, and we feel this is the right thing.”

The team gave Ribeiro the term he was seeking, and was confident that he would be on his best behavior under Tippett, for whom he played for in Dallas. Said Maloney, to the Republic: “We weren't naïve to some of the issues of the past, but we felt it could be manageable and managed," Maloney said. "Obviously, it was a mistake."