Myers' contract carries a cap hit of $6M. He will be paid a $5M signing bonus in September, after which he is only owed a salary of $1M. So my question is, what's to stop Vancouver and Myers from agreeing to mutually terminate the contract after his signing bonus is paid? Myers is free to sign anywhere he'd like for $1M, or maybe even more and Vancouver presumably is free of his $6M cap hit? Or how would that work?

Update: I looked into a past example with Kovalchuk and LA and in that instance although the contract was terminated and off the books the cap hit remained for the rest of the season, I'm assuming that would be the ruling in this case as well. I thought there would be a loophole but it appears not.

With that being said here's a trade proposal from a habs fan to vancouver fans.

Carey Price ($10.5M × 3 years, LTIR insured)

For

Tyler Myers ($6M × 1 year, after VAN pays $5M signing bonus)

Habs get out of LTIR (so they are able to accumulate cap space and avoid bonus overages moving forward), they can either keep Myers or terminate the contract and just take the cap hit.

Vancouver frees up $6M in cap space, they are already operating in LTIR so there is literally no short term downside.

I think it can, but why would Myers want to do that?