TORONTO – This was the kind of staring match that was always going to be won by Dave Nonis and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Still, you have to give the general manager all kinds of credit for sticking to his guns and getting Nazem Kadri to agree to a two-year, $5.8-million contract on Tuesday night – just 12 hours before the start of training camp.
That is the perfect type of contract for a player in Kadri’s situation: Not only does it include a nice raise off his entry-level deal, it should also leave the 22-year-old centre with plenty of motivation to go out and earn more in his next one.
“Happy to be with the Leafs for the next couple years, looking forward to camp,” Kadri tweeted.
These so-called “bridge” deals have been ideal for a number of young players in recent years.
The list of those who have parlayed a similar second contract into a big-money, long-term extension includes Logan Couture, Matt Duchene, Jamie Benn and James Neal. And it’s only a matter of time before Montreal Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban does the same thing.
The common denominator among that group?
Each player took his game to another level in the years coming out of entry level. It is up to Kadri to now do the same.
After months of negotiations, the Leafs forward should be commended for surveying the situation and deciding against dragging this dispute through training camp. With Nonis making it clear he wasn’t going to budge, that would only have caused further distraction and robbed the player of his first full camp where a job is already promised to him at the end of it.
This is a big year for the seventh-overall draft pick in 2009.
He established himself as a full-time NHLer by scoring 44 points during the shortened 48-game season and will now be given more responsibility. You can expect to see him penciled in as Toronto’s second-line centre, where he’ll need to produce while likely drawing even more attention from opponents than he did in the past.
Meanwhile, the work is far from done for Nonis and his management team after the Kadri signing.
Defenceman Cody Franson remains without a contract – the Leafs have as much as $3-million in remaining cap space, depending on roster moves – and a decision will need to be made on speedy winger Mason Raymond, who is in camp on a tryout.
However, in a season where 21 or 22 teams could struggle to stay under the salary cap, Toronto isn’t actually that poorly positioned.
Getting Kadri on a reasonable deal was imperative and Nonis managed to achieve that.
In fact, both sides can walk away from the situation with their heads held high. Kadri maintained all along that he wanted a fair deal – and got the going rate for a player with just 106 total games of NHL experience – while Nonis appears to have left enough money in the bank to take now care of Franson.
Plus, despite a few frustrated public comments from Kadri, the negotiations didn’t turn too ugly.
As talks dragged on, other NHLers started encouraging him to take the bridge contract he ended up signing.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t just do a two-year deal,” Couture told sportsnet.ca last week. “Play and have a good two years like you know you can and then you’ll sign a nice deal after. You’ve just got to be confident that you’re going to have two good years.”
If there is anything Kadri doesn’t lack, it is confidence.
And if his experience is anything like the players that came before him, the day will soon come where the Leafs are happily signing him to a monster payday. That should be a pretty significant carrot for Kadri as he reports for medicals with the rest of his teammates on Wednesday morning and resumes life as normal.
Just ask Duchene, who turned a bridge deal into a $30-million extension with the Colorado Avalanche this summer.
“At the end of the day, maybe I lost a few bucks at the end of my career (with the bridge contract) … but that’s not what I’m about, that’s not what it’s about for me,” Duchene said. “We’re all making great livings here and it’s not going to make a difference in the way I live my life and my well-being.
“I’m not too worried about it – the motivation was more beneficial than those extra dollars would have been.”
Eventually, Kadri might feel the same way.