Confirmed with Link: Pageau - 3 years, $9.3M (3.1 AAV)

[Benjamin]

He's just cheaper than I was expecting but Ill also expect a 5 year deal.

 

[Hale The Villain]

Why sign a deal that takes him right to UFA?

Should have locked him up long-term (5+ years) for a bit more money, or let him go to arbitration to have the contract expire as an RFA. Would have had much less leverage.

When Pageau is a UFA 3 years from now he'll demand a significant pay raise. Wonder if we'll have the money to sign a 3rd/4th line C for 4-5M a year.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

Why sign a deal that takes him right to UFA?

Should have locked him up long-term (5+ years) for a bit more money, or let him go to arbitration to have the contract expire as an RFA. Would have had much less leverage.

When Pageau is a UFA 3 years from now he'll demand a significant pay raise. Wonder if we'll have the money to sign a 3rd/4th line C for 4-5M a year.

There's no benefit going 2 years instead of 3 if that is what you are suggesting. His qualifying offer would be 3.3M, and he would have arbitration rights. His year 3 salary is 3.4M. They'd be setting themselves up to pay him more in year 3 than they would have if they just signed this 3 year deal that took him right to free agency. Going 2 years would be an added hassle for little benefit.

Going to arbitration would be a risk. The Sens might get him for cheaper, but they also might get him for more. Not only that, they can't opt to structure the contract with a cheaper first year to (possibly...assuming they still have a budget...) fit into whatever budget constraints the team might have this upcoming season. The only reason to go to arbitration would be that the Sens feel Pageau will be significantly cheaper via arbitration. Going to arbitration just to keep him an RFA would have been an awful idea for the reasons I listed above about how RFA/qualifying offers/arbitration works.

Whether or not we should have gone 5 years is a legit argument, but it's one that's hard to pin point until we know what he was asking in exchange for his UFA years. Contract numbers are more likely to stagnate than they are to go up, and we aren't a cap team so there is less incentive to lock a player into a cap hit.

 

[DrunkUncleDenis]

Why sign a deal that takes him right to UFA?

Should have locked him up long-term (5+ years) for a bit more money, or let him go to arbitration to have the contract expire as an RFA. Would have had much less leverage.

When Pageau is a UFA 3 years from now he'll demand a significant pay raise. Wonder if we'll have the money to sign a 3rd/4th line C for 4-5M a year.

It's 3 seasons from now, who cares. Everyone gets so wrapped up in this "OMG he's gonna be UFA" stuff. We just locked him in to 3x3, we can all re-evaluate his performance at the end of year 2. Maybe he is expendable by 2020, and if we did 5 years, we'd be stuck with a guy making over 3.5 per for 2 years that we don't want him anymore.

 

[Indrew]

Let someone else overpay for Pageau in 3 years. We got him for the rest of his prime at a great rate. Success!

 

[DrunkUncleDenis]

Let someone else overpay for Pageau in 3 years. We got him for the rest of his prime at a great rate. Success!

Exactly.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

It's 3 seasons from now, who cares. Everyone gets so wrapped up in this "OMG he's gonna be UFA" stuff. We just locked him in to 3x3, we can all re-evaluate his performance at the end of year 2. Maybe he is expendable by 2020, and if we did 5 years, we'd be stuck with a guy making over 3.5 per for 2 years that we don't want him anymore.

It's a consequence of EA Sports games, people don't really understand how RFA status works because those games don't have arbitration or actual qualifying offers that give players a minimum contract based on their past season salary. People overrate RFA status when it doesn't matter all that much with the culture of most players extending early into their last contract year.

There's no benefit to keeping him an RFA because his qualifying offer would be 3.3M (year 2 salary) and we got him for 3.4M in year 3. Why take all that risk over trying to save 100k in salary?

The real debate here is should we have bought up UFA years. I think there's a legit argument either way, but it'll be hard to say without knowing what he was asking for.

 

[Sun God Nika]

for only RFA years its not a steal, but not a rip off. Happy to keep Pageau.

 

[Indrew]

The peak years for forwards just happen to fall into their RFA years, so if an agent gets their client less money when they are 24 just because their rights are still owned by a team, they should be fired.

25 year old Pageau will be better than the 28 year old version.

If only teams were willing to put pressure on their counterparts by using offer-sheets.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

for only RFA years its not a steal, but not a rip off. Happy to keep Pageau.

Pretty much this. I'm a bit surprised at the salary, I figured it'd be less, but I guess when looking at players like Smith who clearly took a discount it can give a skewed view of what to expect. It's a fair price for a very very good middle 6 C but I would not call it a steal....Turris, that's a steal. Pageau, that's a fair contract for both sides.

 

[Viletho]

Fair deal for a fair player. That's what he is worth.

 

[Sun God Nika]

cap friendly is saying the expiry status is UFA https://www.capfriendly.com/players/jean-gabriel-pageau

thats not good, should have signed his RFA years cheaper if he is promised a pay day when this contract is done.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

Pageau being a ufa at the end of the contract isn't the end of the world. I would have liked to get a couple of his ufa years in the contract, but given his size and how he plays that's always a bit of a risk.

Fair contract at the end of the day.

 

[starling]

RFA VS UFA is overstated when players can and almost always do extend a year early.

The team loses a little bit of leverage by going straight to UFA, but they get some added cost certainty for that 3rd RFA year.

If the Sens went two years and both sides were far apart, the result would end up being the same, Pageau would go to arbitration and get a 1 year deal that would take him straight to free agency, except the Sens would be at the mercy of an arbitrator and would not have him cost controlled like his now. If the Sens aren't far apart in 2 years well it doesn't matter anyways because they can extend a year early and avoid unrestricted free agency.

If his salary was the same, his qualifying offer would be 3.3M since that is his year 2 salary. So that would be the LEAST the Sens could pay him for year 3 if he was on a 2 year deal.

There's really not as much benefit of keeping him as an RFA as people perceive in this situation. The real discussion point about this contract should be whether or not the Senators should have bit the bullet and locked him in long term. There's not much benefit to locking him in at 5+ years if the Senators think he has peaked, but if Pageau has another level and becomes a legit top 6 50 point two way C, he's going to have a significantly higher price tag after these three years are up than he might have had to lock in long term right now.

With how expensive his RFA years turned out to be, I think a 3 year deal was probably the right move, but it's hard to say without knowing what price was put on his UFA years. I'm not sure Pageau has that extra offensive gear. On the right team that is willing to use him in that role, maybe he could pump up his stats, but I'm not sure if he'll get that opportunity here.

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.

 

[OmniSens]

3 years guys... 3 YEARS! Stop freaking out. Worry about it in 2.

This is a cheap deal for what he brings to the team.

 

[Micklebot]

I think the true benefit to going longer term at a slightly here price tag is that if in the final years of his contract (say year 4 or 5) he's outperforming his cap hit (but not his salary) he becomes a greater trade asset because contenders can add him for their cup runs. We, as a budget team that doesn't spend to the cap, could care less if in 5 years we're paying him 4.6 mil but with a cap hit of 3.5 instead of a cap hit of 4.1, so it's really no different to us to sign him for 2 years at 8.2 mil after this deal is done, vs if we signed him now for 5 years with a 3.5 cap hit.

What we do by choosing the shorter term is give ourselves the flexibility to change our minds after 3 years; if it doesn't look like he'll be worth that 8.2 mil over years 4 and 5, or we think we can replace him internally with more efficient options, we have that flexibility. The trade off is we might not recoup as much trading him at the end of his contract as we might have otherwise.

Edit: Should have read the whole thread, DanielPalfredsson covered this already,

 

[playasRus]

When Pageau is a UFA 3 years from now he'll demand a significant pay raise. Wonder if we'll have the money to sign a 3rd/4th line C for 4-5M a year.

Why would anyone want to pay their 3C or 4C that much though? If another team is willing to do that, let them.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

Why would anyone want to pay their 3C or 4C that much though? If another team is willing to do that, let them.

4M-5M is supposedly a "significant pay raise" 3 years from now when he is a UFA, but there's a good chance his salary ask to buy up UFA years was probably north of 4M already.

I think people should wait and see if any numbers about a long term deal leak out, because if Pageau is getting 3.4M in his final RFA year, there's a good chance his UFA ask for salary per season was north of 4M. So if 4M-5M in 3 years might not be a significant pay raise from what he was asking for...it might be the actual number. In which case, yeah, it made sense to go 3 years instead of buying UFA years up at that price this early.

 

[Caeldan]

Also. Pageau at 3.1M for all RFA years means that Dzingel got an easy hard cap (not that I'd have considered giving him that much).

This is a fair deal, and we'll have an opportunity to extend before he hits UFA when we see how he's developed. It's not like we could have got him or someone like him for much cheaper.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

Why would anyone want to pay their 3C or 4C that much though? If another team is willing to do that, let them.

Look at Bonino's contract. 4M is par for the course for an "elite" 3C as a UFA.

The thing with Pageau is, assuming his ask was in the 4M range for UFA years, unless the Senators think he has a huge amount of upside, more so than what he has shown, there's not much point in going longer than 3 years because if he stays the same level of player his asking price in 3 years is likely to be similar to what his asking price for UFA years was this time around. The only change to that might be if the cap shoots up in the next 3 years....which isn't looking like a valid concern right now. If anything, UFA deals seem to be cooling off.

We get more flexibility this way, we're not a cap team who'll benefit from a lowered overall cap hit, and the odds of him costing significantly more than his previous UFA ask are probably low (assuming it was in the 4M range).

Now if we hear he would have signed over his UFA years for well under 4, a 3 year deal would have been a bad move. I am guessing purely based on his RFA numbers, that 4M+ was probably the UFA ask.

 

[Sens Rule]

Why would anyone want to pay their 3C or 4C that much though? If another team is willing to do that, let them.

Pageau was 4th among forwards in TOI per game in the playoffs. Behind only Turris, Stone and Hoffman. He played 2 seconds more per game than Brassard.

This is a very reasonable contract for a player as valuable as Pageau. He may technically be considered the teams "3rd line" centre but he is far more valuable than that title would make it appear. He will get more icetime than wingers on the two scoring lines. He will get assignments like shadow Ovechkin or take faceoffs vs Crosby.

Pageau is a straight up beast of a player. I think there is more offence possible from him as well. In the playoffs he decided (or was told to) get in front of the net and he got so many deflection goals (and many more near misses). Pageau can do pretty much anything. The playoffs showed he can freaking be the gritty guy in the slot in front of the net despite being the smallest guy on the team.

I love this signing very much. I would not be surprised if Pageau becomes a regular 20g 50p player... but even if he gets 30 points a year for 3 years he is well worth this contract.

 

[Filatov2Kovalev2Bonk]

This deal is more than fine. It's market value for a good bottom six guy and Pageau is sick shorthanded and can still drive the Habs crazy.
Good work.

 

[Micklebot]

4M-5M is supposedly a "significant pay raise" 3 years from now when he is a UFA, but there's a good chance his salary ask to buy up UFA years was probably north of 4M already.

I think people should wait and see if any numbers about a long term deal leak out, because if Pageau is getting 3.4M in his final RFA year, there's a good chance his UFA ask for salary per season was north of 4M. So if 4M-5M in 3 years might not be a significant pay raise from what he was asking for...it might be the actual number. In which case, yeah, it made sense to go 3 years instead of buying UFA years up at that price this early.

Almost certainly. I think most would have been pleased with a 5 year deal at 3.5, and that would mean the last 2 years would have average 4.1 per assuming the rest of the deal remained the same. Heck, even looking towards the high end of Hale's hypothesized 4th and 5th years at 4-5 mil, had we locked him up for 3.75 per over 5 years, those last two years would have cost us about 4.75 each.

What we gave up is a cheap cap hit in the last couple years, but as a budget team, it's less about the cap and more about the dollars. What we really lost is a more valuable trading chip in years 4 and 5 (he'd be worth more at the deadline at a 3.75 mil cap hit in years 4 and 5 if he continues to progress)and the potential that we have a steal of a deal should he really break out and be worth more than 4-5 mil in those 2 extra years.

Anyways, glad we have Pageau locked up for the next couple years at a very fair deal.

 

[Sens Rule]

This deal is more than fine. It's market value for a good bottom six guy and Pageau is sick shorthanded and can still drive the Habs crazy.
Good work.

When I think of players on this team throughout it's history that give me pride in the team just from wearing the uniform every single game it is a short list really. Alfie, Karlsson, Fisher, Pageau. Also I guess Hossa and Neil.

Either way Pageau is everything I want in a player. He has bigger balls than freaking anyone else in league. He is a pest but he rarely gets a penalty. He finishes every check. You can play anyone with him and they are effective. He is intimidated by no one. He freaking punched Byfuglien in the face after he laid a hard hit on Stone. He is told to shadow Ovechkin and gets Ovy slashing and cross checking him and taking penalties because Pageau is so all over him.

I freaking love Pageau! I do really think he can take it to the next level offensively too.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

His low offensive production probably helps keep the salary lower than he deserves really.

He actually had a significantly slower year offensively last year than he did the previous year. Seems to be a trend with Boucher at the helm though.