How much AAV$ would you be willing to pay a hypothetical UFA McDavid this year?

[bobholly39]

Hypothetical - league breaks McDavids contract and makes him a UFA eligible to sign with any team.

How much money AAV$ per season would you be willing to have your team offer him to land him? How high would you go?

For the purposes of this thread:

- ignore the max individual player salary cap
- assume the salary cap next year rises as was expected (ie ignore any effects season ending early may have on it)

How high would you go? Explain why or why not and for what team specifically you have in mind.

Click to read more...

 

[bobholly39]

As a Habs fan I voted between 20 and 22.5. Hesitated between the option before (17.5 to 20) and that one. 22.5 and more is just overkill. In the end my thoughts were like this.

1. We haven't had an elite talent at that level (or even close) in well over 40 years - since Lafleur really, which is before my time. As a lifelong fan, I never got to witness one. We arguably haven't even had a single elite talent a tier below a tier below McDavid's level in the past 30 years...
2. At 12.5M$ (today's salary) - he is by far the most valuable asset in the league.
3. Habs have had ~8-10M$ in extra cap space 3 years running now.
4. So if you combine those 2 - the choice becomes stick with status quo as a Habs fan - or add the best asset in the league (McDavid @ 12.5) + remove out leftover cap space (an extra ~8-10M$ to fill rest of his salary).

I think it would be hard to put together a cup winning roster paying a single player 20M$+ - but it's probably not impossible. Not all cup winners are at max cap when they win. If the choice was pay 21M$ and get McDavid, or offer only 19M$ and miss out - i'd go 21M$.

 

[BlueBaron]

He should be the highest paid player in the league but after 14 mil its getting stupid. He is simply not worth that much more than the next guys. Does 6 or 7 points make him worth a top 4 D more than MacKinnon or any 100ish point guy? I don't think so.

There may be an argument that from a marketing point of view he is worth whatever you can pay him but if you want to win you have to be sane.

 

[Voight]

Paying him something like 20 million is ridiculous. yes he is easily the best player and can elevate his line mates to have more production but this sent the NBA you're not going to win a championship with 1 player.

Paying him 20 million gives you just over 60 million to fill out another 20 or so roster spots. You won't be able to afford many other quality players.

 

[bobholly39]

He should be the highest paid player in the league but after 14 mil its getting stupid. He is simply not worth that much more than the next guys. Does 6 or 7 points make him worth a top 4 D more than MacKinnon or any 100ish point guy? I don't think so.

There may be an argument that from a marketing point of view he is worth whatever you can pay him but if you want to win you have to be sane.

Paying him something like 20 million is ridiculous. yes he is easily the best player and can elevate his line mates to have more production but this sent the NBA you're not going to win a championship with 1 player.

Paying him 20 million gives you just over 60 million to fill out another 20 or so roster spots. You won't be able to afford many other quality players.

I think each team's perspective will be vastly different. Does 6 or 7 points more (or even 15-20 points) make him worth 10M$ more than MacKinnon? Nope, not really. But - MacKinnon isn't available. He's not UFA, and Colorado isn't giving him away, so why does this matter? The choices are McDavid or nothing - since you don't have the ability of adding MacKinnon.

Unless i'm mistaken - i'm responding to a Leafs and Hawks fan. I'd argue you guys have been spoiled with talent in recent years.

Toronto has Marner, Matthews and Tavares all top forwards each earning ~11M$.
Hawks won multiple cups, and have elite talent like Kane, Toews (maybe with slight decline) signed at top $$.

Does adding McDavid at 20M$ make any sense when you already have Matthews, Marner or Kane making half that? Maybe not - especially if your cap is screwed like Leafs.

But for a lot of teams (Habs being one of them) - they don't have elite forward talent, and some haven't had any for a long time, and are starved for it. If the choice is pay 20M$ to get McDavid - or keep status quo and don't get him - it becomes a choice really worth considering.

 

[Voight]

I think each team's perspective will be vastly different. Does 6 or 7 points more (or even 15-20 points) make him worth 10M$ more than MacKinnon? Nope, not really. But - MacKinnon isn't available. He's not UFA, and Colorado isn't giving him away, so why does this matter? The choices are McDavid or nothing - since you don't have the ability of adding MacKinnon.

Unless i'm mistaken - i'm responding to a Leafs and Hawks fan. I'd argue you guys have been spoiled with talent in recent years.

Toronto has Marner, Matthews and Tavares all top forwards each earning ~11M$.
Hawks won multiple cups, and have elite talent like Kane, Toews (maybe with slight decline) signed at top $$.

Does adding McDavid at 20M$ make any sense when you already have Matthews, Marner or Kane making half that? Maybe not - especially if your cap is screwed like Leafs.

But for a lot of teams (Habs being one of them) - they don't have elite forward talent, and some haven't had any for a long time, and are starved for it. If the choice is pay 20M$ to get McDavid - or keep status quo and don't get him - it becomes a choice really worth considering.

Sure Toronto has a lot of money committed to just a couple players but for example, Marner and Matthews combined make about 22 million - so instead of just McDavid you'd get two elite talents who are capable of scoring 90-100+ points.

We got Toews/Kane/Keith signed al reasonable numbers which helped us win three cups. Of course after we won, Toews/Kane doubled their salaries but thats part of rewarding your top guys.

Even if your team does not have an elite talent.... is it worth it to sink 1/4 of your cap space into one player? Sure he'd sell jerseys and tickets but you probably would not win a cup in that scenario. Hard to build a team when 1/4 of your cap room is accounted for a single player.

 

[BlueBaron]

I think each team's perspective will be vastly different. Does 6 or 7 points more (or even 15-20 points) make him worth 10M$ more than MacKinnon? Nope, not really. But - MacKinnon isn't available. He's not UFA, and Colorado isn't giving him away, so why does this matter? The choices are McDavid or nothing - since you don't have the ability of adding MacKinnon.

Unless i'm mistaken - i'm responding to a Leafs and Hawks fan. I'd argue you guys have been spoiled with talent in recent years.

Toronto has Marner, Matthews and Tavares all top forwards each earning ~11M$.
Hawks won multiple cups, and have elite talent like Kane, Toews (maybe with slight decline) signed at top $$.

Does adding McDavid at 20M$ make any sense when you already have Matthews, Marner or Kane making half that? Maybe not - especially if your cap is screwed like Leafs.

But for a lot of teams (Habs being one of them) - they don't have elite forward talent, and some haven't had any for a long time, and are starved for it. If the choice is pay 20M$ to get McDavid - or keep status quo and don't get him - it becomes a choice really worth considering.

Sure a desperate team might do it but then both they and McDavid know they probably will never win anything. I wouldn't even want a guy like that on my team. All indications are McDavid sees this already with his last deal and wants to win.

The fact is from an economics point of view he is worth whatever the market will bare. I think a better question is what is the most you could pay 1 player and be successful. I stand by my 14 mil number unless you are going to have a year like we did where you have 3 60 point ELC guys. Even then you know that will probably be your teams entire window, ever, which is an awful position to be in. Teams full of ELCs don't do great usually in the playoffs.

 

[GTA]

He should be the highest paid player in the league but after 14 mil its getting stupid. He is simply not worth that much more than the next guys. Does 6 or 7 points make him worth a top 4 D more than MacKinnon or any 100ish point guy? I don't think so.

There may be an argument that from a marketing point of view he is worth whatever you can pay him but if you want to win you have to be sane.

assuming a top 4 Dman is making ~6-7M and Mackinnon's market value is roughly what...$12M? Obviously you can't use his current contract as that is absolutely off market.

 

[BlueBaron]

assuming a top 4 Dman is making ~6-7M and Mackinnon's market value is roughly what...$12M? Obviously you can't use his current contract as that is absolutely off market.

You're right, I was using him as a generic 100 point player. I think 6-7 mil is top pairing money. I was thinking more like 4ish. Your numbers hold up though in the 20 mil scenario. I feel comfortable saying I'd rather have an 11mil MacK and a 9 mil Petro than a 20 mil McDavid.11 mil MacK +a 5.3 mil Slavin over a 16 mil McDavid.

This is not prime Gretzky we are talking about, he's not scoring 50% more than the next guy so why should he be paid that way? I would pay prime Gretzky a lot more because he produced like two super star players, not like one super star player +5%.

McDavid is great, best player in the game but massively overrated on HF.

 

[Aladyyn]

Paying him something like 20 million is ridiculous. yes he is easily the best player and can elevate his line mates to have more production but this sent the NBA you're not going to win a championship with 1 player.

Paying him 20 million gives you just over 60 million to fill out another 20 or so roster spots. You won't be able to afford many other quality players.

Is he "easily the best player" at this point? I don't think so. And the guys in that conversation generally don't even make 10M, let alone 15.

 

[bert]

Hypothetical - league breaks McDavids contract and makes him a UFA eligible to sign with any team.

How much money AAV$ per season would you be willing to have your team offer him to land him? How high would you go?

For the purposes of this thread:

- ignore the max individual player salary cap
- assume the salary cap next year rises as was expected (ie ignore any effects season ending early may have on it)

How high would you go? Explain why or why not and for what team specifically you have in mind.

By ignoring the max invididual player cap it defeats the purpose of the excersize. Relevant values dont matter anymore.

 

[VoluntaryDom]

assuming the team has cap space id pay him about 13-14M per year

 

[EXTRAS]

I would rather have a 12m dollar mackinnon or draistl than 18m dollar Mcdavid.

 

[bobholly39]

I would rather have a 12m dollar mackinnon or draistl than 18m dollar Mcdavid.

So would everyone else. But MacKinnon nor Draisaitl are UFA as per this hypothetical, only McDavid. You have to keep this in mind.

So your choice becomes - you either pay 18M$ to land McDavid - or you pass, and another team snags him up. Do you do this? How high would you go

 

[Lonewolfe2015]

Hockey is one of the most team oriented games out there. A single super star, as elite as McDavid is, does not make you a cup winner. Look at this logically... do you pay McDavid the equivalent of 3 players salaries (18mil, versus 6mil AAV) to score less? There's the intangible value of an amazing talent raising your team, the marketing value, etc. But if your goal is to win the cup, no you do not sign McDavid beyond like 13-14mil. If your goal is to get your club out of obscurity, then sure. Seattle signing a UFA McDavid would put them on the map day one which could alter the course of their franchise.