Red Light newsletter 🏒 | This is The Athletic’s hockey newsletter. Sign up here to receive Red Light directly in your inbox.Good morning, hockey folks. The NHL Draft is a week from today and free agency opens five days after that. Plus: Everyone finally (almost) has a coach. That and more in store.Maple Leafs beat the market on RaddyshThe Toronto Maple Leafs pulled off a middle-of-the-night blockbuster by bringing in defenseman Darren Raddysh, sending a late-round pick to the Tampa Bay Lightning to obtain his rights.The Leafs then signed Raddysh, an undrafted 30-year-old who had never previously earned $1 million in a season, to an eight-year deal for more than $8 million per season.It’s a huge bet by new Leafs GM John Chayka, given Raddysh has only been a top-four defenseman for one season in the NHL. He’ll immediately step into a role on Toronto’s top D pairing and power-play unit.With defenseman Morgan Rielly on the trade block, the Leafs aren’t finished reshaping their blue line, either. Raddysh is the second defenseman Chayka has added this week after acquiring Emil Andrae from the Philadelphia Flyers in a deal that sent goaltender Joseph Woll the other way.• More analysis of the deal here and more to come throughout the day.(Bob Frid / Imagn Images)Buyout watch begins around the NHLThe hockey calendar is jam-packed for the next two weeks, but the first order of player-movement business has begun: Teams can now buy players out.With the salary cap jumping 8.9 percent to a record $104 million for 2026-27, there’s going to be a ton of money in the system this summer, so buyouts may not be as necessary for everyone. But one other key reason they won’t happen is just how many buyout-proof deals there are in the NHL these days.How does a buyout-proof contract work? Exhibit A was when the Toronto Maple Leafs signed David Clarkson to perhaps the first and most famous one back in 2013, and it immediately became a problem given his struggles after signing it.Clarkson’s seven-year, $36.75 million deal was made up of $27.75 million in signing bonuses, which cannot be bought out. Buying out only the $8 million base salary after Year 1 would provide just $2.6 million in cap relief spread over 12 seasons, making it nonsensical to execute.Since then, more and more agents have attempted to engineer these types of deals for their clients to take buyouts off the table. It’s to the point that many candidates this year aren’t going to get one as a result.Let’s go through PuckPedia’s list of the most popular buyout searches and sort out which ones might actually make sense.1. Jesperi Kotkaniemi, CarolinaThe contract: $4.82M, four more years.The buyout penalty: $851,000 in Years 1 and 5-8; $471,000 in Years 2-4.The verdict: The Hurricanes’ ill-fated offer sheet acquisition didn’t play a single game in the postseason and is clearly on the outs. Because Kotkaniemi is only 25 years old and his deal includes no bonuses, his buyout is extremely reasonable. Carolina is still attempting to trade him, but if those efforts fail, expect this to be a buyout, which would make Kotkaniemi a UFA.2. Darnell Nurse, EdmontonThe contract: $9.25M, four more years.The buyout penalty: $7.72M next season, $8.52M for three more years, then a $466,667 charge for four years after that.