Confirmed with Link: Draisaitl re-signs 8y 8.5M AAV

[Tad Mikowsky]

This is what I gathered. Let's ***** about 0.5-1M difference because his production last year isn't worth that. You guys are unbelievable...So all the work Draiaitl did in the post-season, leading his OWN line, and being our top producer means **** all? And is there no such thing as growth in a player at the age of 21? I should have just ignored this thread.

This is HFOiler man.

It's always like this.

 

[McDavyCrockett]

Better to wait them out and sign them to value deals like Gaudreau or bridge deals like Kucherov than prematurely hand largely unproven players large sums of money and hope it all pans out.

Some of you are entirely too sure that Draisaitl is a sure thing. He almost definitely would not have cracked 60 points this year if not for the best offensive player of a generation centering him.

Like I said, his playoff performance was a big contributing factor. He essentially had 93 points in 95 total games this past season.

Worth 8.5 M? Hell no, but Kuznetsov and Johansen established market value.

 

[Seachd]

There's another way, and Tampa Bay did it with Nikita Kucherov.

Pretty silly to think all players/agents will react the same in any situation.

We have no idea if waiting would have driven down the price.

 

[SK13]

Kucherov fired his agent after signing that contract. When this contract ends Yzerman will have to deal with a player that much closer to UFA who feels like they're owed money because they were playing on a cheap contract.

We've seen numerous times in Edmonton how that plays out.

I'm normally against bridge deals because of the risk/reward proposition, but because Draisaitl was coming in so high, there's little reason to pursue a long term deal without taking on ALL of the risk.

At best we're underpaying him by like half a million. At worst we've sacrificed like 2M in cap value for 8 years because they prematurely handed out one of the biggest contracts in the league to a player who may not be able to do it without Connor McDavid.

 

[Arpeggio]

It's an overpayment. Whatever, at least he's here and happy. No reason that Draisaitl and McDavid shouldn't spend their careers in Edmonton, given how well they've been treated.

 

[The Bored Man]

This deal is a clear overpayment until proven otherwise. Ugh.

 

[Giggli G]

I love how SK13 was the positive voice fighting against the likes of dashingsilverfox and Replacement during the decade of darkness. And now that we are actually good, he has essentially turned in a lesser version of them.

8 years is key, they always seem to increase the cap with the option even if revenues don't really increase.

This is an exciting day for the franchise.

 

[lakai17]

Expensive today but in a few years it will become a steal. So it's still a decent deal today.

We know the cap isn't going down so it has to continue its trend.

 

[Canovin]

The ball was always in Drai's court. Not sure why people thought otherwise

 

[McAsuno]

Like I said, his playoff performance was a big contributing factor. He essentially had 93 points in 95 total games this past season.

Even if we skim about 20 points off of that due solely to being on McDavid's wing at EV, that is still very valuable offensive production. Worth 8.5 M? Hell no, but Kuznetsov and Johansen established market value.

Bingo. Now Pastrnak and Eichel's camp will both look at all three of the signings to get what they want as well.

 

[SK13]

Pretty silly to think all players/agents will react the same in any situation.

We have no idea if waiting would have driven down the price.

In recent years EVERY player who has been taken into fall or even into the season has caved to the team. Every single one. They have no power.

Lindholm. Gaudreau. Kucherov. All great deals.

Leon Draisaitl is one of the poorest risk/reward deals signed this side of 2012, and it was done prematurely.

 

[McDavyCrockett]

Seriously this all goes back to Pronger, this club is so afraid of their players wanting out of town that they just smile and hand out the money. Now that we have McD and the new building we could actually negotiate at least a little...

This has nothing to do with Pronger.

The Pronger effect essentially ended with signing Souray/Penner and the insane offer we made to Hossa in the 2008 offseason.

 

[Sniper99]

It's a comment forum.

well duh, but its still a little early to be tossing out grades. Comment forum or not.

 

[CupofOil]

There's another way, and Tampa Bay did it with Nikita Kucherov.

Yeah but they would have gotten him a lot cheaper had they give him the long term contract back then. That's the risk with not locking up these high end RFA's before they explode onto the scene.

My issue is that it seems like Chia rushed this a bit. Had he waited Drai out going into training camp, I'm pretty sure he would have caved at some point.

 

[McDavyCrockett]

Expensive today but in a few years it will become a steal. So it's still a decent deal today.

We know the cap isn't going down so it has to continue its trend.

This deal will never be a "steal", don't kid yourself.

 

[SK13]

I love how SK13 was the positive voice fighting against the likes of dashingsilverfox and Replacement during the decade of darkness. And now that we are actually good, he has essentially turned in a lesser version of them.

I had plenty to criticize in those years and I did.

Don't confuse me taking issue with horrific illogical posts by cynical people with being some sort of apologist. When they sign Jussi Jokinen or extend Oscar Klefbom to good deals - I'm all for that. But when they do things I think are dumb, risky and impede the teams ability to win in the future: I'm going to criticize that.

 

[Staghorn]

Like I said, his playoff performance was a big contributing factor. He essentially had 93 points in 95 total games this past season.

Even if we skim about 20 points off of that due solely to being on McDavid's wing at EV, that is still very valuable offensive production. Worth 8.5 M? Hell no, but Kuznetsov and Johansen established market value.

He had a top 10 scoring regular season, followed up by having a pretty much dominant playoffs when it counted most. Furthermore, in the playoffs when it counted most, he wasn't always paired on McD's wing, and showed he could be dominant and take over games - again when it counted most.

It was an expensive deal, but now you have two top 10 scorers under 21 years old anchoring your team for the next 8-9 years. Talk about a LUXURY that NO OTHER TEAM HAS.

 

[rboomercat90]

Nice to have Leon locked up for 8 years but Chia isn't so good with negotiating long term deals, that's for sure. Florida and Winnipeg are REALLY lucky to get Schiefele and Barkov locked up at those numbers, REALLY lucky. This gives the Bruins even more reason to hate Chia with an even tougher Pastrnak negotiation on the horizon.

Glad to have McDavid and Drai locked up, but the cap crunch train is approaching fast and it's going to hit hard. 21M locked up into two players. Didn't really expect that going into the offseason.

A lot of fans were out to lunch on what it was going to cost to resign these guys. All season long the consensus on this board was that the team wasn't in any kind of cap trouble and wouldn't need to dump contracts for this season. The good news is we don't have anybody else coming right away that's going to surprise us.

 

[McDavyCrockett]

Bingo. Now Pastrnak and Eichel's camp will both look at all three of the signings to get what they want as well.

Eichel's contract number just started at 9.5 after this signing.

I'm kinda in the mood for some meltdowns so I'm gonna head on over to the Sabres forum.

 

[russ99]

He had a top 10 scoring regular season, followed up by having a pretty much dominant playoffs when it counted most. Furthermore, in the playoffs when it counted most, he wasn't always paired on McD's wing, and showed he could be dominant and take over games - again when it counted most.

It was an expensive deal, but now you have two top 10 scorers under 21 years old anchoring your team for the next 8-9 years. Talk about a LUXURY that NO OTHER TEAM HAS.

Yeah, those are the players you lock up long term.

Next summer may be thorny, but I see Chiarelli making more Jokinen-type inexpensive veteran signings until the farm starts to produce quality forwards.

 

[McAsuno]

He had a top 10 scoring regular season, followed up by having a pretty much dominant playoffs when it counted most. Furthermore, in the playoffs when it counted most, he wasn't always paired on McD's wing, and showed he could be dominant and take over games - again when it counted most.

It was an expensive deal, but now you have two top 10 scorers under 21 years old anchoring your team for the next 8-9 years. Talk about a LUXURY that NO OTHER TEAM HAS.

And both McDavid and Draisaitl are only going to get better. Now that's scary.

 

[dustrock]

I love the fact that worrying about the cap situation when Chiarelli is our GM is seen as being overly negative.

I love this team, I love Drai as a player. But these deals can be crippling to the long-term success of the team.

Because we have Lucic, Nuge, and Russell contracts as well.

And Talbot is up for an extension.

Yes, obviously, it's not like double what he should be getting, but I can't believe some people don't have reservations about this deal.

He's going to be a great player, but will be top 10 in scoring every year and dominate in the playoffs? If you think "absolutely", then great, it's a great deal.

I know it's not an equivalent, but Pisani had 14(!!!) goals in the magical '06 run. Did anyone think he was going to score 40 goals in the next regular season?

Don't overreact for 1 good year!

 

[Spawn]

He had a top 10 scoring regular season, followed up by having a pretty much dominant playoffs when it counted most. Furthermore, in the playoffs when it counted most, he wasn't always paired on McD's wing, and showed he could be dominant and take over games - again when it counted most.

It was an expensive deal, but now you have two top 10 scorers under 21 years old anchoring your team for the next 8-9 years. Talk about a LUXURY that NO OTHER TEAM HAS.

They're also signed at a combined cap hit that no two other players in the league exceed.

 

[Debonair]

Eichel's contract number just started at 9.5 after this signing.

I'm kinda in the mood for some meltdowns so I'm gonna head on over to the Sabres forum.

if 9.5 was the number over 8 for Eichel it would have been done already.

 

[AUAIOMRN]

I feel like we're locking ourselves up as a "very good" team, but hurting our ability to become a "great" team. We are going to have to rely on the growth of what we have now because there won't be much room to add anything else.