Confirmed with Link: Hughes extension official (8 years, $64 million)

[HBK27]

Shame our coaching staff is utilizing him horribly since he’s back.

It's one game.

They were probably a bit worried about his conditioning, so putting him on the wing to start after being out for 6 weeks could've helped. They shifted him to center by the 3rd period.

It's been one game. One.

 

[NJDevs26]

If you're going to criticize the deal then show me the viable alternative. Letting him play a bridge deal and risk being screwed either financially or via another big FA leaving if he does break out?

Would I have liked to have seen more out of Hughes before extending him, sure but it's kind of a unique circumstance having his second season get so personally affected by COVID (both in terms of getting it himself and in terms of the wonky schedule), while his third season has been all but nonexistent so far because of injury.

You could possibly argue for tabling the extension till after the season but if Hughes breaks out you're paying another couple million under the cap and if he doesn't then the resulting bridge deal won't work for anyone. In this market you pretty much have to be proactive to keep your big names.

 

[JimEIV]

I don't see how anyone can question the facts you bring. You're analytical and a realist, but please come be a dreamer with us and lets enjoy the moment and worry if things don't work out later. One of the most fun things being a hockey fan is believing into the potential and in my (dream) world I refuse to believe that Jack won't become a superstar in this league.

I say it here often: I have been waiting a lifetime for a New Jersey Devil 50 goal scorer and/or 100 point player...I might want to see a 100+ point season and 50 goals from a Devil as much as a Cup...Seriously. So I have been dreaming since 1982.

 

[My3Sons]

I say it here often: I have been waiting a lifetime for a New Jersey Devil 50 goal scorer and/or 100 point player...I might want to see a 100+ point season and 50 goals from a Devil as much as a Cup...Seriously. So I have been dreaming since 1982.

Well nobody held a gun to their heads and made them trade Lovejoy.

 

[The Grinder]

I thought Fitz would have had a little more leverage considering we just drafted Luke. What was the harm is waiting till the end of the year? I don’t get it. He lights it up, great then give him this monster deal, if he was a PPG player then year give him an extra .5 mill or whatever a year, or a more tenable bridge deal. Was Jack gonna leave in three-four years right when his brother becomes a regular?

The downside far outweighed the positive in getting this done now. Essentially if Jack does not become a dominant force with production to match we are screwed. What happens when Mercer outperforms Nico and Jack’s ELC’s? Give him 10 mill a year?

 

[Stephen Gionta]

I thought Fitz would have had a little more leverage considering we just drafted Luke. What was the harm is waiting till the end of the year? I don’t get it. He lights it up, great then give him this monster deal, if he was a PPG player then year give him an extra .5 mill or whatever a year, or a more tenable bridge deal. Was Jack gonna leave in three-four years right when his brother becomes a regular?

The downside far outweighed the positive in getting this done now. Essentially if Jack does not become a dominant force with production to match we are screwed. What happens when Mercer outperforms Nico and Jack’s ELC’s? Give him 10 mill a year?

If Jack doesn't become a dominant force, then we are screwed either way - regardless of having an 8x8 contract on our books or not.

This is a tremendous contract for Jack Hughes. Remarkable work by Fitzgerald.

 

[Guttersniped]

I say it here often: I have been waiting a lifetime for a New Jersey Devil 50 goal scorer and/or 100 point player...I might want to see a 100+ point season and 50 goals from a Devil as much as a Cup...Seriously. So I have been dreaming since 1982.

That's nice.

 

[Buck Dancer]

If you're going to criticize the deal then show me the viable alternative. Letting him play a bridge deal and risk being screwed either financially or via another big FA leaving if he does break out?

Would I have liked to have seen more out of Hughes before extending him, sure but it's kind of a unique circumstance having his second season get so personally affected by COVID (both in terms of getting it himself and in terms of the wonky schedule), while his third season has been all but nonexistent so far because of injury.

You could possibly argue for tabling the extension till after the season but if Hughes breaks out you're paying another couple million under the cap and if he doesn't then the resulting bridge deal won't work for anyone. In this market you pretty much have to be proactive to keep your big names.

I would’ve approached Jack’s situation by not having him corner the team by feeling obligated to hand him a monster deal after proving very little. I’m maybe more of a "prove it and I’ll pay up" type of person instead of handing over a massive chunk of change and hoping my wish becomes reality.

Lou used to work that way and for once, I’m leaning on the old school approach on this matter. If we would’ve had to give him an extra million because he put up 100 points, so be it. If he would’ve felt the need to bounce after the bridge deal because of reasons X, Y, Z… let him leave, because I don’t want a player who doesn’t want to be here.

I think we played Russian roulette with both our 1st overall picks and so far, it’s not really going in our favour. I can see us doing the same with Bratt and thinking that we’ll be committing over 20M$ in cap space when the highest point total we’ve gotten so far from all 3 guys is 52 pts, in Nico’s rookie year, when he played alongside Hall in his MVP season, has me concerned more then anything else. I know it’s now a trend for NHL teams to throw a bunch of cash at promising teenagers but those who got paid proved way more then what Jack has done as of now.

 

[JimEIV]

That's nice.

Thank you.
I appreciate when you make a two word post.

 

[MadDevil]

Shame our coaching staff is utilizing him horribly since he’s back.

Have we ever had a coaching staff you haven't thought is terrible?

 

[britdevil]

Have we ever had a coaching staff you haven't thought is terrible?

Tbh, outside of Pete's first season, Lou dragging Jacques out of retirement and Brent Sutter's regular seasons, the coaching has been pretty terrible for a number of years.

Hynes and Johnny Mac being the absolute worst. Stevens and Oates was a disaster. Julien wasn't given a fair shake (thanks John Madden). Lou putting himself behind the bench never worked.

Ruff is an ok stop gap. But I find myself thinking that maybe that gap now needs to be closed ASAP.

 

[Triumph]

I thought Fitz would have had a little more leverage considering we just drafted Luke. What was the harm is waiting till the end of the year? I don’t get it. He lights it up, great then give him this monster deal

This deal is off the table at the end of the year if Jack lights it up. Maybe you get the same AAV but you certainly do not get 8 years.

if he was a PPG player then year give him an extra .5 mill or whatever a year, or a more tenable bridge deal. Was Jack gonna leave in three-four years right when his brother becomes a regular?

No, but there is a strong chance he is paid $10M+ a season. Easy to forget that Scott Gomez was paid $7.36M on a $44M salary cap as a UFA. Easier to forget that Jack Hughes is still only 20.

The downside far outweighed the positive in getting this done now. Essentially if Jack does not become a dominant force with production to match we are screwed. What happens when Mercer outperforms Nico and Jack’s ELC’s? Give him 10 mill a year?

I grant that the Devils have not been very active in the UFA market since Mike Cammalleri signed pen to paper, but this is ridiculous. The cap is $81.5M and is very likely to rise significantly before contract's end. I do think Mercer is an issue but you cross that bridge when you come to it. Everyone can see what kind of player Hughes is going to be. Maybe Mercer ends up with a lower AAV but a shorter contract. Who knows.

 

[njdevils1982]

Jack's value, like stocks, can only go up.

 

[devilsblood]

I think we played Russian roulette with both our 1st overall picks and so far, it’s not really going in our favour. I can see us doing the same with Bratt and thinking that we’ll be committing over 20M$ in cap space when the highest point total we’ve gotten so far from all 3 guys is 52 pts, in Nico’s rookie year, when he played alongside Hall in his MVP season, has me concerned more then anything else. I know it’s now a trend for NHL teams to throw a bunch of cash at promising teenagers but those who got paid proved way more then what Jack has done as of now.

Oy vei. It's been 1 whole day since Hughes signed his deal.

 

[Nubmer6]

Interesting tweet:



Just say'n

 

[HyperX]

Interesting tweet:



Just say'n

Liking all of that except for the Robert Reichel comparison lol

 

[Emperoreddy]

 

[Devs3cups]

Fitz seems to have a plan, and he’s sticking to it. I’ve liked what he’s done so far, that’s for sure.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Sure as shit is better than whatever it is Shero was trying to do.

Let’s hope fitz’s gamble here pays off.

 

[Patrik26]

That's nice.

Did your keyboard break?

 

[Guttersniped]

If Jack had been a 25 goal 65 point player through his first couple years(prorated) we don't get him at this deal.

McDavid makes $12.5. Is McDavid way better? Yes, but that's 50% more aav. And he signed it a couple years ago.


Matthews makes $11.6
Draisaitl makes $11.3
Marner makes $10.9
Eichel makes $10.
Werenski makes $9.5
McAvoy makes $9.5
Fox makes $9.5
Nurse makes $9.25
Heiskanen makes $8.4
B. Tkachuk makes $8.2
Chabot makes $8.

This is just the young guys list, and I skipped a few guys, but to sign this deal and be so far from the top makes me think good deal for the team.

Now he does need to figure out how to put points on the board consistently, but he doesn't need to be amongst the league leaders to make this a solid deal for the team.

Term and the number of UFA years involved are important here. Hughes' is signed for 8 years and gives up 4 UFA years and at that price that's isn't a superstar deal, it's a step down.

I added some players to the list, no one earlier than 2017-18 (so no MacKinnon) and edited out a few older ones. The last part shows the percentage of the cap on the date they signed (from Cap Friendly). For some deals that dropped quickly, such as when the cap jumped from 75m in 2017-18 to 79.5m in 2018-19, but obvious the later deals are stuck in frozen capville.

The global pandemic is, you know, kind of unprecedented and not foreseeable. That's why it's not "analytical" to quote raw point totals and whine like a baby about Nico's contract, it's less sexy because he signed in October 2019 and shit got real different soon after that. The cap should be much higher, not only was there a new national TV deal coming, the cap made that 4.5m jump I mentioned from Vegas' first season, so Seattle coming in was going to do the same thing. Instead the pandemic threw a lot of gasoline in the escrow grease fire.

I still have no real problem with Nico's deal. Yes, I would like more goals and I do expect more. You literally have to ignore how hockey works to undersell the value of centers though, they're incredibly valuable.

I'm actually not counting on Hughes deal being some amazing steal anytime soon but he's being paid as a lower tier star here. I don't care who says "Super Star", he took less money then Brady f***ing Tkackuk, while giving up an extra UFA year. FYI, you can't compare anyone to McDrais, they actually breaks the cap system, the Oilers can't pay them what they're worth under a cap system. (Basketball particularly suffers from this problem where the elite guys are grossly underpaid for production and a large group of vets below them are grossly overpaid.)

Some of these deals below are clearly better, based on production. This is kind of cheap though, if his agent thought he was 90-100 player he wouldn't have let him sign this contact. The length is critical because the predictions I hear is that, assuming we don't fall into a Mad Max style-dystopia, is the cap will go up slightly, or not at all in the very near future, while the escrow mess continues and then it will have a big bounce after. (The CBA end in 2025-26, but that's larger discussion.) 8m will be the new 6.5m soon enough. I don't actually think that highly of Brady Tkachuk and I had no problem with his deal either, except they only got 7 years out of him. I'm also on team @My3Sons here* and question of how fandom is served by gloomy concern trolling of our young players. Talk about wet blankets.

RFAs are doing short three deals or big money deals that are pricey no matter the length. And bridge deals blow. It's not like we need one of the main benefits of a short bridge deal in the next year or two: cap space. It's the same reason I don't understand bemoaning not getting value from Hughes while he was on his ELC in terms of cap or contracts. Of course I would have liked more production, because that's fun and stuff, but not particularly for the contract efficiency of all things, we had plenty of cap space, so it wouldn't have helped us much there. The point is to make him cheaper later. It's not like Lou didn't want to commit to Barzal, he just didn't have the cap space to buy more years.


McDavid makes $12.5/ 8 years (4 UFA years)/ 2018-19/ 16.67% (July 5, 2017)
Matthews makes $11.6/ 5 years (1 UFA year)/ 2019-20/ 14.64% (Feb 5, 2019)
Marner makes $10.9/ 6 years (2 UFA years)/ 2019-20/13.38% (Sept 13, 2019)
Eichel makes $10.0/ 8 years (4 UFA years)/ 2018-19/ 13.33% (Oct 3, 2017)
McAvoy makes $9.5/ 8 years (6 UFA years)/ 2022-23/ 11.66% (Oct 15 2021)
Fox makes $9.5/ 7 years (4 UFA years)/2022-23/ 11.66% (Nov 1 2021)
Rantanen makes $9.25/6 years (2 UFA years)/2019-20/ 11.35% (Sept 28, 2019)
Makar makes $9/ 6 years (1 UFA year)/2021-22/ 11.04% (July 24, 2021)
Kaprizov makes $9/ 5 years (2 UFA years)/ 2021-22/ 11.04% (Sept 21, 2021)
Draisaitl makes $8.5/ 8 years (3 UFA years)/ 2017-18/ 11.33% (August 16, 2017)
Aho makes $8.46/ 5 years (1 UFA year)/ 2019-20/ 10.38% (July 1, 2019)
Heiskanen makes $8.45/ 8 years (4 years)/ 2021-22/ 10.37% (July 17, 2021)
B. Tkachuk makes $8.2/ 7 years (3 years)/ 2021-22/ 10.07% (Oct 14 2021)
Chabot makes $8.0/ 8 years (4 years)/ 2020-21/ 9.82% (Sept 19 2019)
Hughes makes $8/ 8 years (4 years)/2023-24/ 9.82% (Nov 30, 2021)
Kuznetsov makes $7.8/ 8 years (6 UFA years)/ 2017-18/ 10.40% (July 2, 2017)
Q. Hughes makes $7.85/ 6 years (1 UFA year)/ 2021-22/ 9.63% (Oct 1 2021)
Svechnikov makes $7.75/ 8 years (4 UFA years)/2021-22/ 9.51% (Aug 26 2021)
Suzuki makes $7.85/ 8 years (4 UFA years)/ 2022-23/ 9.33% (Oct 12. 2021)
Ekblad makes $7.5/ 8 years (4 UFA years)/2017-18/ 10.27% (July 1 2016)
Pettersson makes $7.35/ 3 years (0 UFA years)/ 2021-22/9.02% (Oct 1 2021)
Hischier makes $7.25/ 7 years (3 UFA years)/2020-21/ 8.90% (Oct 18 2019)
Clayton Keller makes $7.15/ 8 years (4 UFA years)/ 2020-21/8.77% (Sept 4 2019)
Kyle Connor makes $7.14/ 7 years (2 UFA years)/ 2019-20/ 8.76% (Sept 28 2019)
Barzal makes $7/ 3 years (0 UFA years)/2021-22/ 8.59% (Jan 9 2021)
M. Tkachuk makes $7/ 3 years (0 UFA years)/2019-20/ 8.59% (Sept 25 2019)
Pastrnak makes $6.67/ 6 years (2 UFA years)/2017-18/ 8.89% (Sept 14 2017)

*who am I kidding, I'm always on Team @My3Sons

 

[Guttersniped]

Did your keyboard break?

Nope

 

[Nubmer6]

Did your keyboard break?

You just made me spit coffee out my nose.

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

I thought Fitz would have had a little more leverage considering we just drafted Luke. What was the harm is waiting till the end of the year? I don’t get it. He lights it up, great then give him this monster deal, if he was a PPG player then year give him an extra .5 mill or whatever a year, or a more tenable bridge deal. Was Jack gonna leave in three-four years right when his brother becomes a regular?

The downside far outweighed the positive in getting this done now. Essentially if Jack does not become a dominant force with production to match we are screwed. What happens when Mercer outperforms Nico and Jack’s ELC’s? Give him 10 mill a year?

I do agree in a sense. I would've much rather paid him 9 mil / 8 yrs after he actually shows he can put up the production this season. I don't think he would've gotten 10 mil+ no matter his production unless he went full mcdavid level ofc which I think I can safely say won't happen.

 

[Call Me Al]

this is worth the risk. after the pandemic cap restrictions there should be a big bump considering all the new revenue, with tv deals and expansion. there will even be another tv deal by the end of the contract so they should have flexibility to add a lot of pieces around him, and you have to bet on hughes being a franchise player.

it still won’t handicap them and we have enough young talent coming up on cheaper deals that we should be able to add real significant pieces when they are ready to compete.

if hughes is what we all hope he is then by year 4 of this deal it could be mackinnon level good