Free Agency and Trade Thread - Post deadline wasteland
- Thread starter Warden of the North
- Start date
- Status
WTFMAN99
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
- 33,254
- 11,287
I think it is probably worthwhile at this point to play hardball or see where other RFAs end up on their next contract.
Then again, Dubas is an idiot so who knows.
Here's some more
Signed RFA going to UFA after a bridge
Gaborik- 3 Years 14.39%
Hossa- 3 years 15.38%
Havlat 3 years 13.64%
Heatley 3 years 11.54%
2nd Contract
Nash
5years 13.85
Pure UFA
Heatley 14.91 (6 year)
Iginla 17.95 (3 year)
Iginla 13.92 (5 year)
Kucherov got 9.5 because he was willing to sign for it and gave up millions. It was an absolute steal. No amount of petulance changes that or makes it the norm.
WTFMAN99
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
- 33,254
- 11,287
Aren't all of these examples like 1-2 CBAs ago though? Landscape has clearly changed since then.
Pastrnak 6 years at 6.66M
Mark Stone 8 years at 9.5M (all UFA years)
Tyler Seguin 8 years at 9.85M
McDavid 8 years at 12.5M
Draisaitl 8 years at 8.5M
Eichel 8 years at 10M
Kuznetsov 8 years at 7.8M
All of these look significantly better for their respective teams.
ACC1224
Super Elite, Passing ALL Tests since 2002
- Aug 19, 2002
- 74,301
- 40,218
I guess it depends on how happy he wants to keep the room.
I get playing hardball but it can back fire when you do it against the wrong player.
WTFMAN99
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
- 33,254
- 11,287
People can cite the RFA offer sheet route etc but giving out the 2nd highest AAV in the league to Matthews and not getting max term is brutal. Proper math came up to 12.5M x 8 years.
That is what we get for putting JR at the wheel at a critical juncture.
The landscape now more closely resembles that of 06-09 (cap hit)/ 06-13 (actual dollars).
06-09 stars got paid. The cap hit % spread was huge with many many players getting 12%+
09-13 stars got paid, the dollars they received for the "legitimate" portion of their contracts lined up with the percentages of the 06-09 stars, but the cap hits got smaller and smaller (relatively speaking) due to back diving deals.Crosby got paid an average of 10.8 per year over the 1st 8 years of his deal against an 8.7 cap hit. These backdiving deals skewed the market for a long time as cap hits are what people talk about, what they use to compare.
13-18 stars got shafted, as the cap hits of the backdiving years still loomed over them in team and league wide payscales.
But the farther we get from those years the less effect they will have. The more stars will say I want the money those guys got. It's being slowed down by the US tax situation and McDavid's saintly desire to win above all else, but history has shown us what teams will pay these star players if they demand it.
WTFMAN99
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
- 33,254
- 11,287
McDavid received 16.67 CH%
So let's move it to 15% on an 83M cap because Matthews hasn't won Hart Trophies, Art Ross Trophies, McDavid's durability or even went to an Eastern conference final. That comes to $12.45M, let's bump it up to an even 12.5M (15.06%) because why not, he's our franchise player.
rumman
Registered User
- Sep 10, 2008
- 14,227
- 10,456
why start playing hardball now? why piss off 1/3 of your future franchise players when you just opened the vault to the other 2/3's? No doubt kid idiot will muck this contract up too.
No argument.
Now scale that to 5 years in way that doesn't completely invalidate the idea that Kucherov's contract is FMV for UFA years over that same time frame
WTFMAN99
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
- 33,254
- 11,287
5 years? I forget where I grabbed the numbers at this point but I believed I got to something like $8.7M (don't quote me 100% but I know it didn't touch 10M) for 5 years, it has been a longggg time since he re-signed that contract with us. I'd really need to go back in time, I had kind of moved on from Matthews contract.
Either way, I wouldn't want to keep trying to make our players amongst the richestest at their position without favorable term. Kane has 10.5M and he's the bar as far as I am concerned, multiple cups and individual awards. Kucherov is also another amazing player. 8 years at 9.5M is what Kucherov makes and most of those years at UFA, just the reality of his contract now if you want to argue he's underpaid, sure. I'd be willing to jump to 10M for 8 years, the 500k bump per year is an extra 4M in his pocket. Other then that, Dubas actually needs to dig in a bit with these contract negotiations, he gave out the 2nd highest AAV to Matthews and only 5 year term to show for it. If he gives our the highest AAV for a RWer and only has like 6 years to show for it, the boy clearly isn't cut out for being a GM.
The task was to give a Matthews a 5 year rate that didn't completely invalidate the idea of Kucherov's being fair market value.
If you want to reconcile the ideas of Matthews being fair both 9x5 and 12.5 x8 it means that you're implicitly valuing those 3 UFA years at 55 million dollars or 18.3 per year. Kucherov's contract covers those same years. Even if you apply a steep (20%) C vs. W discount that leaves those 3 years at 15 million for Kucherov. (9.5*8-45)/5= 6.2. Think Kucherov signs a 5 year deal worth 6.2? Kucherov is not half a million underpaid, he's at least 2, arguable more.
WTFMAN99
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
- 33,254
- 11,287
Not gonna lie, I feel like we're going in a circular motion here lol.
I'll just simply leave it as, Matthews contract is bad, term was unfavorable for the cap hit. Marner's contract shouldn't be more than Kucherov's and certainly not for lesser term. You can ultimately use whatever numbers you'd like to justify anything different, it is your right but I am just not on the same page for reasons I had outlined previously.
I am going to laugh when players like Barzal, Point, Laine, Aho, Rantanen etc all sign more club favorable deals than what Marner signs for. I thought he didn't do terrible on the Nylander contract, it wasn't far off the Pastrnak deal taking into account inflation etc.
What you're leaving is a state of complete dissonance. You cannot logically reconcile all three of
Matthews @ 8.7x5 = Fair
Matthews @ 12.5x8 =Fair
Kucherov @ 9.5x8 = Fair
Patrick Kane is the single best comparable for both Marner's second contract and Kucherov's 3rd.
2nd contract 11.09% x 5 = 9.2 (83 million dollar cap)
3rd contract 15.22% x 8 = 12.1 (79.5 million dollar cap)
WTFMAN99
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
- 33,254
- 11,287
I remember where I got my numbers for Matthews 5 year deal, Steven Stamkos 5 year deal.
7.5M x5 years, 11.66% of cap.
232 pts in 243gp = 0.954 pts/game
Matthews 201 pts in 206 GP = 0.955 pts/game
11.66% of 83M = $9.67M or round up to $9.7M because his pts/game is slightly higher.
I used Stamkos too when I was in denial about the Tampa tax factor. It sucks to be at disadvantage but when you've got Stamkos signing at 8.5 in the same offseason Benn goes 9.5 and Kopitar 10, Kucherov 9.5 4 years after Kane went for 10.5 , McDonagh 6.75 with Carlson getting 8, OEL 8.25, DOughty 11, JVR 7 (winger on less term). you've got to connect the dots.
Everything points to Tampa operating at a 10-20% discount off of league norm (with which the high quality of their players has in turn stalled league norm)
Nithoniniel
Registered User
Thought of that, but I'd take a ton of guys in his cap percentage span as well.
WTFMAN99
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
- 33,254
- 11,287
Okay so if we do a 10% addition to 9.7M I had calculated I am getting 5 years at 10.64M, keep in mind though that because we made huge signing bonuses to Matthews he isn't getting hit as hard by taxes due to that American athlete tax loophole thing.
We're never going to win a cup if every star player on the team tries to extract every possible cent out of this team. Now because of the Matthews contract we are going to need to play hardball with Marner and "win" that negotiation.
Dubas needs a win on a contract negotiation with our players because if I am Marner, Johnsson or Kapanan's agent, I am dying to press Dubas this off-season.
People who complain about slightly overpaying our stars are the worst.
He has already done a good job of signing depth to insulate our top heavy lineup (Moore, Rosen, Petan, Gauthier, Sparks, Borgman)
Nithoniniel
Registered User
Yeah it's pretty weird. I've seen people up in arms because they think Matthews should have taken $1M less, and in the next thread they are defending Marleau's contract. It sometimes feels like people think it's more important not to overpay our stars than our depth, which is just absolutely backwards.
SeaOfBlue
The Passion That Unites Us All
- Aug 1, 2013
- 35,591
- 16,775
In the case of Marleau, it's probably more that they don't care about Marleau leaving so if he's overpaid for another year, who cares. Matthews is supposed to be here long term, if not forever, so that affects the overall structure of the team.
I use Malkin as the Matthews comparison. Malkin as a 20/21 year old had 80 goals and 111 assists (191 points) in 160 regular season games. ~1.194PPG. He also had 26 points in 25 playoff games. Matthews has 69 goals and 63 assists (132 points) in 124 games as a 20/21 year old. ~1.065PPG. Not great playoff numbers, no cups. Matthews played the year after getting drafted though, while Malkin did not.
Other things to consider: Matthews is almost certainly better defensively, and has over 10% better in the faceoff dot (Malkin is actually trash). Additionally, Malkin was also averaging over 19 minutes in ice time in his 20 year old year, and over 21 minutes in his 21 year old season. As you would expect, Malkin also got ~2.5x the amount of PP time as Matthews did in those years. If you go simply off of PTS/60, they are about equal, and imagine if Matthews got the same PP time as Malkin. Malkin was able to put up 40 points in his 21 year old year on the PP. Matthews only has 19 (but multiply that by 2.5 and it's well over Malkin's).
Matthews got 14.63%, while Malkin got 15.34%. Keep in mind that Matthews also got huge signing bonuses, while Malkin got none, but Malkin was able to get a NMC on his deal because that was allowed back then. So let's call that a wash. I think Dubas wanted to use Malkin as his Matthews', but actually got over 0.5% of a discount (probably due to injury and the lack of playoff production). If Dubas can play his cards right and set this up exactly like the Malkin situation, Malkin signed for a lower cap percentage on his second deal. Matthews will probably get a larger cap percentage than he's getting now on his second deal, but I think he can keep that under a 1% straight increase, which would be excellent for what Matthews hopefully becomes.
Only thing that would possibly kill us is if Matthews really wants to play in Arizona, or some team offers him McDavid money in UFA. Hopefully, unlike the Islanders did with Tavares, we create an environment which he wants to stick around in for the long haul. Tavares, in the 9 years he was there, only made the playoffs 3 times (and they only made the semi's once of those three times). The Leafs are already going to match the number of playoff appearances the Isles have (and will likely make it every time for as long as Matthews is here), and I would hope we make it to (and past) the SF more than once in the next 6 years. Plus we don't have arena issues, attendance issues, nor marketing and fanbase issues (well besides having some stupid fans, but you'll find that everywhere you go).
Don't hold your breath, he's an American kid who apparently grew up a Rangers fan
The writing is on the wall with that one
- Status
