There's always going to be Pros and Cons with anything and in the case of retired players I think it's nice to have the discounted buyout options available to your team. No one knew with 100% certainty that Lidstrom would retire. In fact some players retire then make a comeback. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Selanne played another season after this year same for Brodeur just so they don't feel like they retired too soon when they still had some gas left in the tank to make a go of it. I still think Lidstrom easily could've played another 2 to 3 years however I'm also sure his family wanted him around more often and it wasn't like Lidstrom needed more cash to line his pockets. So snugerud it almost sounds like you are advocating or prefer a straight 66.66% buyout, even for retiring players that suddenly retire. If that's the case then it's somewhat unjust for the owning team as a sudden retirement is just that out of the blue and unexpected. Mind you I see your point and it would be simple and straight-forward and force FA bidders to be responsible with their bids. 

San Jose has cleared an additional 1.1m to go with our current available cap of 0.5m for a total of 1.6m in available cap space.

We signed Brunette, LW to an extension that reduced his annual cap hit from 2.0m to 0.9m.
With this deal, we add an additional 1.3m in salary cap.
Sharks have 1.6m in cap space. 
We will be left with 0.3m once this deal goes through.   

Sharks are ready to move forward with this trade with the Buffalo Sabres.

In addition to the cap space we've calculated above we have a buy out player with open FA bids that will give us a little more cap space in the next few days when bidding closes. Currently we expect to get 0.4m refunded and counting. So feel free to bid on Jamie Langenbrunner everyone.

Andrew Brunnette, $2.0m (2012-2013)

Sharks veteran Brunette has agreed to accept a reduction in pay to remain with San Jose for another 2 years, likely his last FNHL contract.

Ranked 87th in 10-11 and 116th in 11-12.

Brunette receives a 2yrs extension for 0.9m (1.1m in cap savings)

This also allows us to to complete our pending trade with Buffalo. Thanks 

San Jose conditionally confirms as i believe the Ducks 4th rounder via the Panthers was also coming over to Our Sharks. We sent a PM to Anaheim asking about Strome and after a little talking and the additions of Ryan Murphy and Lydman to the deal we came to an agreement.

Ducks to reconfirm that the draft pick is included. Thanks cloud91!

2yrs @ 0.2m per
Thanks