Top players could start looking to shorter-term deals to maximize their value
104.3 The Score: Mark Lazerus, talking about Connor Bedard’s five-year deal. He was looking at an even shorter deal, with the Chicago Blackhawks looking for eight years. $15 million a season may seem like a lot now, but with the salary cap expected to keep climbing at a good jump, it won’t seem like a lot towards the end of the deal. Top players could start looking to shorter-term deals to maximize their value.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Lazerus: “The term was really the sticking point, right? Because, you know, the team wants to sign him up for as long as you can. Like Connor McDavid signed for eight years out of his entry-level deal. Leon Draisaitl signed for eight years. Jack Eichel signed for eight years. That’s been the new norm.
But it wasn’t that long ago that guy signed bridge deals so they could maximize their value. With the cap going up, as often as it is, we’re talking like eight, nine, $10 million a year now. Players need to start taking shorter-term deals to maximize their value so they can stay with it and not be grossly underpaid.
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So at one point, Bedard apparently wanted a shorter turn than five. The Hawks were pushing for eight. They came to a compromise at five, which is reasonable. And you know, Kyle Davidson made his case to Connor Bedard that the team needs to have stability and continuity. Needs to project that to its fan base. Needs to project that to other free agents. Needs to project that to the team itself. And Connor Bedard, you know, agreed with it. So he was willing to take a couple of more years to give Kyle Davidson that kind of continuity.”
Host: “And he’s so young, Mark, that he will get back on the market, and he will be, mean, he will be hitting his prime when this contract ends”
Lazerus: “He’ll be 26 years old. The Hawks only bought out one year of unrestricted free agency. It’s going to cost a ton of money five years from now. But the hope is that you know, from the Blackhawks standpoint is, the cap will be so high by then.
You know, so many of us are still caught in this flat cap mentality, right? After COVID, and the cap just basically plateaued. It would go maybe a million dollars every year, and so many teams were in these cap crunches, and nobody could keep their stars. That you see $15 million, and you’re just like, oh my god, that’s so much money in the NHL.
But the fact is, by you know five years from now, when he is 26, he’s going to be probably like the 17th highest paid player in the league. And he very well might be the fifth best, you know, in the top five in the league in terms of actual ability and success.
So this is going to be the cost of doing business now. The cap is is soaring. There’s no reason, you know, famous last words, but there’s no reason to think it’ll stop anytime soon.
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And we have to get out of this whole like, you know, you got to start thinking about percentage of the cap instead of the number itself. And this number in a couple of years is like going to be like 11 and a half, 12% of the cap, and that is a good deal for your very best player when 20% is the max.”
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