Top players may start looking for short-term deals to increase their value
Top players may start looking for short-term deals to increase their value
104.3 Points: Mark Lazerus, talking about Connor Bedard’s five-year contract. He was looking for a much shorter deal, with the Chicago Blackhawks wanting eight years. $15 million per season may seem like a lot now, but with the salary cap expected to continue to rise in the right direction, it won’t seem like much toward the end of the deal. Top players may start looking for short-term deals to increase their value.
** NHLRumors.com subscription
Lazerus: “The name was really a sticking point, wasn’t it? Because, you know, the team wants to sign him as long as possible. Like Connor McDavid signed for eight years without his opt-out agreement. Leon Draisaitl signed for eight years. Jack Eichel signed for eight years. That was the new norm.
But it wasn’t long ago that the boy signed bridge deals so that he could increase their value. With the cap going up, as often as it is, we’re talking like eight, nine, ten million dollars a year now. Players need to start taking short-term deals to increase their value so they can stay with it and not underpay.
NHL Rumors: Jason Robertson, Philadelphia Flyers, and Alex Ovechkin
So at one point, Bedard apparently wanted a shorter turn than the fifth. The Hawks were pushing for eight. They agreed on five o’clock, which makes sense. And you know, Kyle Davidson made his case to Connor Bedard that the team needs to settle down and move on. It needs to express that to its fans. Need to add that to other free agents. It needs to project that to the team itself. And Connor Bedard, you know, agreed with it. So he was willing to take a few years off to give Kyle Davidson this kind of continuity. “
Broadcaster: “And it’s too young, Mark, that he’s going back to the market, and he’s going to say that he’s going to hit the jackpot when this contract ends”
Lazerus: “He’ll be 26. The Hawks only bought one year of unrestricted free agency. It’s going to cost a ton of money five years from now. But the hope is, you know, from the Blackhawks’ point of view, the cap will be much higher by then.”
You know, many of us are still stuck in this flat cap mentality, right? After COVID, and the cap just filled up. It would go maybe a million dollars every year, and so many teams were in these cap crunches, and no one could keep their stars. That you see $15 million, and you’re like, oh my god, that’s a lot of money in the NHL.
But the truth is, you know five years from now, when he’s 26, he’ll probably be like the 17th highest paid player in the league. And he might be the fifth best, you know, top five in the league in terms of actual skill and success.
So this will be the cost of doing business now. The cap goes up. There’s no reason, you know, last names are popular, but there’s no reason to think it’s going to stop anytime soon.
Did Connor Hellebuyck play his last game for the Winnipeg Jets?
And we have to come out of this like, you know, you have to start thinking about the percentage of the cap instead of the number itself. And this number in a few years will be like 11 and a half, 12% of the cap, and that’s a good deal for your best player if 20% is at the top. “
We had to restart our X account. Please follow @MyNHLRumorsX
Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel? Rumors and hot topics from around the league. We also post some stuff on Instagram.
If you like our reporting, choose NHLrumors.com as a favorite source on Google.
