What Brock Nelson‘s extension means for John Tavares?
First Up: Mike Johnson when asked what Brock Nelson’s three-year, $7.5 million cap hit deal with the Colorado Avalanche means for Toronto Maple Leafs pending UFA center John Tavares.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Host: “Do you think this Nelson deal again, three years, 7.5 million per. He’s a year younger than Tavares. Does that affect anything with regards to how Tavares looks at this free agency.”
Johnson: “It’s a really good point, because Tavares had a better year by a mile than Brock Nelson. Tavares had a better career than Brock Nelson. Tavares has been consistently better the last few years than Brock Nelson.
Tavares will not be offered the same contract that Brock Nelson was offered. And so to try to convince John Tavares that we just, you know, we want to give you three years at four and a half or five, the only way you can get that deal done is if he’s willing to just say, I’m taking a massive discount because I want to play in Toronto.
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Otherwise, you know, his market value is basically Nelson’s deal, maybe a bit more, right? Three for eight, three for eight and a half. That’s probably what Tavares’ open market value looks like, and you’re going to try to get him for almost half that? That is a significant discount.
You hope you can get it if you’re the Leafs, but the market sort of set there. And that negotiating position to like how do you pitch that to Tavares is only under the guise of, well, we need you to if you want to help your home team if you want to live and play here. You got to give it them.”
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