Contracts for the Big-3

[Coco-puffs]

We really don't know anything about what's going on (nor should we), but it would be silly to suggest that if Matthews wants $13m, and Marner wants $9m, and Nylander wants $8m, that Dubas & co could really keep it all together without having to make some significant decisions on whether or not that's plausible.

I do believe that Matthews' next contract is essentially going to be as high as Matthews wants it to be (although considering the typical hockey player mentality, I don't think it goes above $12mil), but the Leafs do need to play a little hardball with Marner and Nylander. There's zero comparables out there right now that would give Nylander a contract with an $8mil AAV, and even if Marner has a monster year next season I think Draisaitl's deal is essentially the cap for him.

Agreed. 

Keep in mind:  Only 25 forwards in the NHL exceed $7M AAV.  Only McDavid, Eichel, Ovechkin, Draisatl, and Tarasenko are guys who got those deals coming out of their ELC's.  Looking further back, Crosby, Malkin, and Stamkos are the only guys who had post-ELC's above 7M AAV.  All superstars, and mostly centers.

Are Nylander and Marner top 25 forwards?  Neither are at this point.  Marner might put himself in that conversation this coming season.

There is the argument that you should look at cap hit percentage for comparables.  Then there are some comparables coming out of ELC's that got above 10% of the cap at the time:  Eberle, Hall, Backstrom, Kane, and Toews (going back to 2010).  Not that many, and almost all of those guys had bigger years in their ELC's than Nylander and Marner have had so far.

Edit:  Seguin and Nugent Hopkins also had very close to 10% cap hits coming out of ELC's. 

 

[nutman]

All three won't get as much as most are guessing. I think because its there first long term contract, we will get all three for much less then the common guess going around.  The next contract like the one JT  just signed will be the one that put our payroll to the test.  Mathews will not get JT money yet, and the other two will be around the same as Marleau, or Kadri.

 

[Coco-puffs]

We really don't know anything about what's going on (nor should we), but it would be silly to suggest that if Matthews wants $13m, and Marner wants $9m, and Nylander wants $8m, that Dubas & co could really keep it all together without having to make some significant decisions on whether or not that's plausible.

I do believe that Matthews' next contract is essentially going to be as high as Matthews wants it to be (although considering the typical hockey player mentality, I don't think it goes above $12mil), but the Leafs do need to play a little hardball with Marner and Nylander. There's zero comparables out there right now that would give Nylander a contract with an $8mil AAV, and even if Marner has a monster year next season I think Draisaitl's deal is essentially the cap for him.

Agreed. 

Keep in mind:  Only 25 forwards in the NHL exceed $7M AAV.  Only McDavid, Eichel, Ovechkin, Draisatl, and Tarasenko are guys who got those deals coming out of their ELC's.  Looking further back, Crosby, Malkin, and Stamkos are the only guys who had post-ELC's above 7M AAV.  All superstars, and mostly centers.

Are Nylander and Marner top 25 forwards?  Neither are at this point.  Marner might put himself in that conversation this coming season.

There is the argument that you should look at cap hit percentage for comparables.  Then there are some comparables coming out of ELC's that got above 10% of the cap at the time:  Eberle, Hall, Backstrom, Kane, and Toews (going back to 2010).  Not that many, and almost all of those guys had bigger years in their ELC's than Nylander and Marner have had so far.

Edit:  Seguin and Nugent Hopkins also had very close to 10% cap hits coming out of ELC's.

Also interesting how many of those guys are/were Oilers.

 

[Frank E]

We really don't know anything about what's going on (nor should we), but it would be silly to suggest that if Matthews wants $13m, and Marner wants $9m, and Nylander wants $8m, that Dubas & co could really keep it all together without having to make some significant decisions on whether or not that's plausible.

I do believe that Matthews' next contract is essentially going to be as high as Matthews wants it to be (although considering the typical hockey player mentality, I don't think it goes above $12mil), but the Leafs do need to play a little hardball with Marner and Nylander. There's zero comparables out there right now that would give Nylander a contract with an $8mil AAV, and even if Marner has a monster year next season I think Draisaitl's deal is essentially the cap for him.

Agreed. 

Keep in mind:  Only 25 forwards in the NHL exceed $7M AAV.  Only McDavid, Eichel, Ovechkin, Draisatl, and Tarasenko are guys who got those deals coming out of their ELC's.  Looking further back, Crosby, Malkin, and Stamkos are the only guys who had post-ELC's above 7M AAV.  All superstars, and mostly centers.

Are Nylander and Marner top 25 forwards?  Neither are at this point.  Marner might put himself in that conversation this coming season.

There is the argument that you should look at cap hit percentage for comparables.  Then there are some comparables coming out of ELC's that got above 10% of the cap at the time:  Eberle, Hall, Backstrom, Kane, and Toews (going back to 2010).  Not that many, and almost all of those guys had bigger years in their ELC's than Nylander and Marner have had so far.

Edit:  Seguin and Nugent Hopkins also had very close to 10% cap hits coming out of ELC's.

So, I may have been overshooting things with my well researched prediction, but I don't think I'm that far off with Marner at over $7m:

Here's my projection, based on nothing:

$11.25  X 7
$7.7 X 6
$6.67 X 6

The deals expire once guys are 28 years old: lots of UFA money/term still available, and staggered so that they can be handled individually. 

They'll do for Nylander and Marner what they did for Tavares with the max signing bonus and lock-out proof them, but only for that potential lock-out season/CBA ending year.  The other years will have a smattering of $3m-$4m in signing bonus component.

Matthews gets the full Tavares signing bonus laden package.

According to the NHL.com stats, Marner was well over a PPG guy in February and March, so there's some evidence there that as the season went on, he got more productive after his 4th line stints and stuff earlier on in the season.

Nylander didn't.  Nylander went 12 pts in 14 games in February, to 7 in 13 games in March.  April was only 3 games, although Nylander had a couple of good games, Marner not as much, but who cares it's 3 games.

Marner was also much more productive in the playoffs, but again, small sample size.

I think what I'm trying to argue here is that Marner should be considered a PPG guy, and didn't play with Matthews to get there.  Nylander is certainly not a PPG, while playing with Matthews.

Kadri and Marleau certainly aren't low caliber offensive guys to play with, but I have to think that Marner's deal is going to be significantly better than Nylander's.

I pegged Nylander at around Pastrnak money, but do we think he's worth a little less?

 

[Kin]

There is the argument that you should look at cap hit percentage for comparables.  Then there are some comparables coming out of ELC's that got above 10% of the cap at the time:  Eberle, Hall, Backstrom, Kane, and Toews (going back to 2010).  Not that many, and almost all of those guys had bigger years in their ELC's than Nylander and Marner have had so far.

But I think the Kane deal kind of shows one of the tricky things about these sorts of negotiations. Sure, if you're the Leafs you're going to be inclined to look at Kane's breakout third year and say that's the source of paying him what they paid him but if you're Marner's agent and being asked to negotiate a long-term deal right now you're probably going to be inclined to look at the comparison of the first two years of their respective careers being as that's all Marner's gotten the chance to actually play.

If you look at those two years there are ways to look at it as Kane having better production(simply in terms of points per game or total points, playing against the other team's top defense every night) or ways to look at it in Marner's favour(points per minute, especially PP time). Treating the Leafs' young players with relative kid gloves in terms of ice time is kind of a double edged sword in that respect.

So Kane's deal is kind of a thorny one for comparison here. If Marner wants a similar deal now you'd be talking about 8.8 aav and that's without buying any UFA years.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

I pegged Nylander at around Pastrnak money, but do we think he's worth a little less?

In my opinion, yes.

 

[Zee]

Tomorrow is the day guys, I feel it in my bones!

 

[Bill_Berg]

I wonder how much of the delay is literally due to vacations. If you need five people together in one room, and everyone is off doing things for the summer, you just need to get a string of a few days in which they're all available. But that may be in July, Aug, Sept...

I'm not sure who or how many people need to be in a room to negotiate a deal but I have to imagine July and August are fairly uncommon times for agents and their staff and front office people to be taking vacations.

Better now than mid season. Summer's are slow for the team I would think, late July and Aug anyway.

Plus it wouldn't just be vacations. There are charity ping pong tourneys and things too.

I don't know. It's just tough to come up with a reason for a contract to take months to work out, unless there was a disagreement.

 

[Frank E]

There is the argument that you should look at cap hit percentage for comparables.  Then there are some comparables coming out of ELC's that got above 10% of the cap at the time:  Eberle, Hall, Backstrom, Kane, and Toews (going back to 2010).  Not that many, and almost all of those guys had bigger years in their ELC's than Nylander and Marner have had so far.

But I think the Kane deal kind of shows one of the tricky things about these sorts of negotiations. Sure, if you're the Leafs you're going to be inclined to look at Kane's breakout third year and say that's the source of paying him what they paid him but if you're Marner's agent and being asked to negotiate a long-term deal right now you're probably going to be inclined to look at the comparison of the first two years of their respective careers being as that's all Marner's gotten the chance to actually play.

If you look at those two years there are ways to look at it as Kane having better production(simply in terms of points per game or total points, playing against the other team's top defense every night) or ways to look at it in Marner's favour(points per minute, especially PP time). Treating the Leafs' young players with relative kid gloves in terms of ice time is kind of a double edged sword in that respect.

So Kane's deal is kind of a thorny one for comparison here. If Marner wants a similar deal now you'd be talking about 8.8 aav and that's without buying any UFA years.

You're talking about a deal done 8 years ago on a guy that had a 30 goal  - 88 point season, came in 9th best in the league in scoring, 7th in Hart Trophy voting...that deal is going to be some kind of benchmark for Marner's?

 

[Coco-puffs]

There is the argument that you should look at cap hit percentage for comparables.  Then there are some comparables coming out of ELC's that got above 10% of the cap at the time:  Eberle, Hall, Backstrom, Kane, and Toews (going back to 2010).  Not that many, and almost all of those guys had bigger years in their ELC's than Nylander and Marner have had so far.

But I think the Kane deal kind of shows one of the tricky things about these sorts of negotiations. Sure, if you're the Leafs you're going to be inclined to look at Kane's breakout third year and say that's the source of paying him what they paid him but if you're Marner's agent and being asked to negotiate a long-term deal right now you're probably going to be inclined to look at the comparison of the first two years of their respective careers being as that's all Marner's gotten the chance to actually play.

If you look at those two years there are ways to look at it as Kane having better production(simply in terms of points per game or total points, playing against the other team's top defense every night) or ways to look at it in Marner's favour(points per minute, especially PP time). Treating the Leafs' young players with relative kid gloves in terms of ice time is kind of a double edged sword in that respect.

So Kane's deal is kind of a thorny one for comparison here. If Marner wants a similar deal now you'd be talking about 8.8 aav and that's without buying any UFA years.

You're talking about a deal done 8 years ago on a guy that had a 30 goal  - 88 point season, came in 9th best in the league in scoring, 7th in Hart Trophy voting...that deal is going to be some kind of benchmark for Marner's?

And had 28 pts (2nd on his team to Toews) in 22 GP to win the Stanley Cup.

 

[Frank E]

There is the argument that you should look at cap hit percentage for comparables.  Then there are some comparables coming out of ELC's that got above 10% of the cap at the time:  Eberle, Hall, Backstrom, Kane, and Toews (going back to 2010).  Not that many, and almost all of those guys had bigger years in their ELC's than Nylander and Marner have had so far.

But I think the Kane deal kind of shows one of the tricky things about these sorts of negotiations. Sure, if you're the Leafs you're going to be inclined to look at Kane's breakout third year and say that's the source of paying him what they paid him but if you're Marner's agent and being asked to negotiate a long-term deal right now you're probably going to be inclined to look at the comparison of the first two years of their respective careers being as that's all Marner's gotten the chance to actually play.

If you look at those two years there are ways to look at it as Kane having better production(simply in terms of points per game or total points, playing against the other team's top defense every night) or ways to look at it in Marner's favour(points per minute, especially PP time). Treating the Leafs' young players with relative kid gloves in terms of ice time is kind of a double edged sword in that respect.

So Kane's deal is kind of a thorny one for comparison here. If Marner wants a similar deal now you'd be talking about 8.8 aav and that's without buying any UFA years.

You're talking about a deal done 8 years ago on a guy that had a 30 goal  - 88 point season, came in 9th best in the league in scoring, 7th in Hart Trophy voting...that deal is going to be some kind of benchmark for Marner's?

And had 28 pts (2nd on his team to Toews) in 22 GP to win the Stanley Cup.

Yeah, I looked at that after I posted it, good point. 

 

[CarltonTheBear]

You're talking about a deal done 8 years ago on a guy that had a 30 goal  - 88 point season, came in 9th best in the league in scoring, 7th in Hart Trophy voting...that deal is going to be some kind of benchmark for Marner's?

And had 28 pts (2nd on his team to Toews) in 22 GP to win the Stanley Cup.

Yeah, I looked at that after I posted it, good point. 

Kane signed that 5-year contract just a few months into the 09/10 season (the final year of his ELC). So he didn't have the full 88-point season and subsequent playoff run yet. Probably safe to guess he could have earned a little more if he waited until the offseason to negotiate.

 

[Coco-puffs]

You're talking about a deal done 8 years ago on a guy that had a 30 goal  - 88 point season, came in 9th best in the league in scoring, 7th in Hart Trophy voting...that deal is going to be some kind of benchmark for Marner's?

And had 28 pts (2nd on his team to Toews) in 22 GP to win the Stanley Cup.

Yeah, I looked at that after I posted it, good point. 

Kane signed that 5-year contract just a few months into the 09/10 season (the final year of his ELC). So he didn't have the full 88-point season and subsequent playoff run yet. Probably safe to guess he could have earned a little more if he waited until the offseason to negotiate.

Good catch!

 

[Frank E]

You're talking about a deal done 8 years ago on a guy that had a 30 goal  - 88 point season, came in 9th best in the league in scoring, 7th in Hart Trophy voting...that deal is going to be some kind of benchmark for Marner's?

And had 28 pts (2nd on his team to Toews) in 22 GP to win the Stanley Cup.

Yeah, I looked at that after I posted it, good point. 

Kane signed that 5-year contract just a few months into the 09/10 season (the final year of his ELC). So he didn't have the full 88-point season and subsequent playoff run yet. Probably safe to guess he could have earned a little more if he waited until the offseason to negotiate.

Shut it Carlton...damn it.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Shut it Carlton...damn it.

Sorry man, I know how difficult and time consuming it must have been for you to look up all those stats.

 

[Frank E]

Shut it Carlton...damn it.

Sorry man, I know how difficult and time consuming it must have been for you to look up all those stats.

And you know how much I hate doing that.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Shut it Carlton...damn it.

Sorry man, I know how difficult and time consuming it must have been for you to look up all those stats.

And you know how much I hate doing that.

I gave you an A for effort. If you weren't entirely wrong that would have been a solid post.

 

[Frank E]

Shut it Carlton...damn it.

Sorry man, I know how difficult and time consuming it must have been for you to look up all those stats.

And you know how much I hate doing that.

I gave you an A for effort. If you weren't entirely wrong that would have been a solid post.

 

[Kin]

Better now than mid season. Summer's are slow for the team I would think, late July and Aug anyway.

Plus it wouldn't just be vacations. There are charity ping pong tourneys and things too.

I don't know. It's just tough to come up with a reason for a contract to take months to work out, unless there was a disagreement.

Maybe I'm completely talking outside of myself here but everytime I watch movies about hotshot big time agents or executives they make it a point to essentially always be reachable by phone, vacation or no(and honestly, I'd think contract negotiating season would be the busiest time for them). I genuinely wonder if there's ever a time where someone like Dubas can really take an extended vacation where he's not at least available for consultation.

Like I was saying earlier, I'm not sure most players would get involved unless absolutely necessary so they can probably play all the beer pong hey want.

 

[Kin]

You're talking about a deal done 8 years ago on a guy that had a 30 goal  - 88 point season, came in 9th best in the league in scoring, 7th in Hart Trophy voting...that deal is going to be some kind of benchmark for Marner's?

But even beyond you being wrong about the timing of when that deal was signed, let's say you're right and Kane only signed that deal after his ELC expired. Marner's agent is still being asked to negotiate a long term(one assumes) deal on the basis of his first two seasons. If Marner's agents are inclined to really make a push for their client you'd have to think they'd probably look at him as being likely to also have a big third year(especially playing with Tavares) and want to factor that growth into the contract.

So let's say Marner goes out and has a really good year. Not quite Kane level but, say, 80 points or so. Then let's say the Leafs have a decent run in the playoffs and Marner plays well, albeit not as well as Kane.

Then, yeah, I think absolutely Kane's contract is going to be seen as an interesting comparison. Sure, he wasn't quite at Kane's level(presumably pushing things a little lower cap % wise) but the Leafs would probably be trying to buy UFA years that the Blackhawks didn't(presumably pushing things higher cap % wise).

My point here was never Marner is as good as Kane or Marner is going to make the same demands as Kane but just that there's lots of ways to peel an orange and agents are always going to be looking at the ways to present their clients in the best light. Marner and Kane have had pretty similar production throughout their first two seasons despite the fact that Kane had almost twice as much PP ice time as Marner did in that span(660 minutes to 360 minutes).