• How quickly will Habs move on Price?
• Islanders pushing hard for Tavares extension
• Is McDavid worth $15 million per year?
It’s been called the day of the year when NHL GMs make their biggest mistakes. And now, July 1 is almost here. While most Canadians will be busy painting their faces and setting off fireworks, the hockey world will be keeping an eye on the wire for the latest signings.
Most years, that means watching the unrestricted free agents. But this year’s class isn’t an especially strong one. There’s Kevin Shattenkirk, and we’re all breathlessly waiting to see which teams he pretends to be interested in before signing with the Rangers. There are respected veterans, like Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Jarome Iginla. Alexander Radulov might get there, and Ryan Miller will be available. But as far as dramatic storylines, this year’s UFA class won’t have all that much to offer.
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So instead, let’s turn our attention to the other July 1 class: players who are already under contract, but will become eligible to sign an extension. The CBA dictates that players on multi-year contracts can sign extensions one year before their current deal expires. And that means we’ll have plenty of big-name players who can re-up with their current teams as early as Saturday.
No doubt, plenty of negotiations have already taken place behind the scenes. Some players will sign almost immediately. Some might take a few days or weeks to get a deal done, like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in 2016. And others could head into the season without a new deal, Steven Stamkos or Anze Kopitar-style, which will no doubt cause some frayed nerves for their team’s fan base.
So today, let’s look at some of the bigger names who are eligible to steal the headlines from this year’s UFAs on July 1.
Price is one of two true superstars still in their prime who’ll be eligible for unrestricted free agency in 2018. With a recent Vezina and Hart Trophy on his resumé, he’s widely considered the best goaltender on the planet. Now he’ll have a chance to be paid like one.
But is it possible that it won’t happen in Montreal? The Canadiens have been an unpredictable team in recent years, both on and off the ice. They made headlines by trading Price’s friend P.K. Subban last year, and we can’t say for sure exactly how that sat with the goaltender. Price has also had to endure an injury, playoff disappointment and a coaching change, and his team still can’t score any goals for him. Could he secretly have his eye on the door?
Well… not really, no. As juicy a story as that would be, there’s been little indication of any true animosity between the Canadiens and their franchise player, and he’s explicitly said that he plans to stay. We won’t know for sure until the ink is dry on a new deal, but all indications are that it will happen, and probably quickly.
But the story won’t end there. While Price will almost certainly re-sign in Montreal, the question of how much it costs could loom large. Barring some sort of hometown discount, Price could become the highest-paid goaltender in the league. The top cap hit at the position right now belongs to Henrik Lundqvist at $8.5 million. That contract seems like a bit of an outlier — it’s over $1 million more expensive than the second-highest-paid goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky — but it should be in the ballpark for Price. If he wants even more, Marc Bergevin probably won’t have much choice.
Whatever Price winds up getting, Habs fans will be fine with it as long as he can maintain his recent level of play. But how much room does that leave Bergevin to sign guys like Radulov or Andrei Markov, or to get a new deal done for Alex Galchenyuk (if he’s still on the team)? And can Bergevin get a Price deal nailed down quickly enough to know what he’s working with when bidding on this year’s UFA market?
As always in Montreal, we’ll get some off-season drama. It may not end in another star player leaving town, but we’ll see how long the story drags on.
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Tavares is the other superstar UFA from the class of 2018, and his case gets a little more complicated than Price’s. Many of the same questions apply — Is he happy where he is? Does he believe in management and the team’s direction? Would he prefer a fresh start somewhere else? — but the difference is that, unlike Price, asking those questions doesn’t feel like wishful thinking from other fan bases.
Tavares has endured a lot in his eight years with the Islanders. The team has moved to a new arena that everyone seems to hate. There’s been an ownership shuffle. He’s missed the playoffs five times, including last year, and gotten out of the first round just once. And he’s done it all on a below-market deal signed back in 2011, one that pays him less than Travis Zajac and Brandon Dubinsky. If anyone would want a fresh start somewhere else, you’d think Tavares might be the guy.
It sounds like Islanders’ ownership might be thinking it, too, because they’ve reportedly made an extension their top priority. There’s been talk of an offer in the eight-year, $80-million range. Last week’s Jordan Eberle deal was widely assumed to be driven at least in part by a desire to please Tavares. And there were even rumours that the team would offer his agent a front-office job.
It sounds like you can’t accuse the Islanders of not trying. But in hockey, just trying hard doesn’t always get it done. Talk of a trade has died down recently, and that would seem like a good sign that negotiations are going well. But if Tavares were to decide that he doesn’t want a long-term commitment, it would be a devastating blow to a franchise that’s already hit plenty of bumps in the road over the years.
With apologies to Price and Tavares, there’s no bigger star eligible to sign a new deal on Saturday than McDavid. The Oilers’ star is still years away from UFA status, so there isn’t quite the same level of urgency in Edmonton as there might be in Montreal and New York. But McDavid’s new deal will almost certainly be the biggest of the year.
The question becomes how big. Given that he may already be the league’s best player and hasn’t even entered his prime, McDavid could probably name his price here. Some Oilers fans still seem to be clinging to the idea that McDavid will sign a discounted bridge-style deal, but that’s a pipe dream. Those contracts are for players who still have something to prove; McDavid doesn’t.
So how high does the number go? Today, Kane, Toews and Kopitar are the only members of the $10-million-cap-hit club, but McDavid should blow by that. Something in the $12-million range would get him to a symbolic $97 million on a max-length deal. Recent rumours have pegged the annual number at closer to $14 million. With a $75-million cap in place, the maximum hit for any one player would be $15 million, and if McDavid isn’t worth the max then nobody is. Given how the game’s economics work, he could sign for the absolute maximum and still be a great value for the Oilers for years to come.
Of course, this is where we’ll run into some hand-wringing over whether McDavid should leave some money on the table to make it easier for his team to build a winner around him. Negotiating a league-high cap hit didn’t seem to put a dent in Toews’s reputation as a leader, but we’ll no doubt hear some suggestions that McDavid should go easy on the Oilers (who also have Leon Draisaitl to sign this summer).
While the cap hit will be interesting, the contract length could be a bigger question. It’s typically assumed that players want to sign contracts for as long as possible, and that’s almost always true. But in McDavid’s case, it might make more sense to aim for a shorter deal. He’d still make plenty of money, and he’d be eligible to sign another monster contract in a few years when he’s still in his prime and the cap is (presumably) higher. There’s always the risk of injury, and some players would prefer to just lock in for the long term. But if McDavid wants to maximize his dollars, a shorter deal might make more sense.
You can take a lot of what we just said about McDavid and apply it to Eichel. But the Buffalo star’s journey to get to this point has been a bit bumpier, including reports that he insisted on a coaching change before he’d commit to the team. Those reports were later denied, although the team did go ahead and make changes behind the bench (and front office) shortly after.
Much like McDavid, Eichel holds the hammer here; the Sabres have invested far too much in building the franchise around him to start pinching pennies now. Eichel is in a position where it might make sense to look at a shorter bridge deal, with the goal of really hitting the jackpot in a few years. But the Sabres would probably prefer to get their star locked down for as long as possible.
And of course, we’ll all compare Eichel’s deal to McDavid’s. The Oiler star will get more — we’re talking about the 20-year-old reigning MVP here. But it could be interesting to see who signs first, and whether one deal gets used as a baseline for the other. It could make sense for Eichel to wait for McDavid’s deal to ease any sticker shock for the Sabres and their fans.
That’s assuming a deal isn’t already done, which it may well be. New GM Jason Botterill has plenty on his plate (Sam Reinhart needs a new deal, too), but this figures to be the priority. The Sabres are coming off a disappointing year, and could use some good news. Getting Eichel signed for a long time would be one way to deliver some.
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The rest of the pack
While Price, Tavares, McDavid and Eichel could be viewed as the Big Four of extension season, there are plenty of other big names worth watching.
One is Toronto’s William Nylander. While he’s nowhere near the McDavid/Eichel level, he may be the best of the remaining rookie deals coming up for renewal. And he presents an interesting dilemma for the Leafs, because despite being tied for third in rookie scoring last year, he may only be the third-best young player on the Leafs roster. That’s a nice problem for a team to have, but how high (and how long) do you go with Nylander now, knowing that you have Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner to tackle next summer?
Another young player to keep an eye on: Winnipeg’s Jacob Trouba. While it was just last November that he signed a two-year deal with the Jets after sitting out the season’s first month, he’s already eligible to sign an extension. Whether he wants to is a different question; he seems kind of lukewarm on the idea in this interview, in which he described re-signing as “not a super-pressing issue” and says he wants to talk to his agent before committing to sticking around. The Jets also have to figure out what to do with Bryan Little and Toby Enstrom.
Another young defenceman who’ll need a new deal is Anaheim’s Cam Fowler, although based on the rumour mill we may need to wait and see if he’ll be negotiating it with the Ducks or with a new team. As for the older generation, Zdeno Chara is another big name who could technically sign a new deal this summer, although it’s hard to imagine the Bruins committing to a 40-year-old blueliner with a full year left on his deal.
In San Jose, two key players are eligible to re-sign, as defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic and goalie Martin Jones are both entering the final year of their deals. The Brent Burns extension kicks in this year, but the Sharks will have cap room to work with if Thornton and Marleau depart as expected.
An under-the-radar situation to watch can be found in Minnesota, where captain Mikko Koivu can be extended. He’s 34, and the Wild cap situation is always going to be complicated by the long-running Zach Parise and Ryan Suter deals. You’d have to figure something gets done here, although it may need to come at a discount from his current $6.75-million cap hit.
Elsewhere, the Flames have Mikael Backlund, the Rangers have Rick Nash, the Penguins have Cup hero Patric Hornqvist, and the Senators need to figure out whether to re-commit to 36-year-old goalie Craig Anderson after yet another solid season.
And then there’s the Sedin brothers in Vancouver, who are nearing the end of their careers but may not be ready to call it quits just yet. The rebuilding Canucks would have to figure out what number, if any, would make sense for a pair of players who’ll be 38 by the start of the 2018–19 season.
Add it all up, and we could get some interesting moves (and even more interesting non-moves) over the first week of July. And then time will tell whether any of the GMs involved look back on that decision as one of their biggest mistakes.