[sureLoss]

http://www.si.com/nhl/2016/07/20/joh...-new-contracts

​“We don’t talk numbers and stuff like that,” Monahan says. “We let our agents do that. They’ll talk to us, and if we had the same agent, it would be different. But we have different agents, and we’re both letting them do their job. We want to play in Calgary together. We think we have a good chance to win there and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Still the unassuming, baby-faced winger who gets mistaken for a paperboy, is currently taking nighttime online classes to finish his degree at Boston College. Gaudreau shows little interest in discussing a payday that will likely eclipse $7 million. “Honestly, I don’t really know what’s going on half the time,” he says between photo and autograph sessions at Hartley’s camp. “I let my agent do all the work. I’m not a big guy with contract stuff. Whatever he thinks is the best contract, that’s what I’m going to sign. I don’t really enjoy going through this stuff, but it’s part of the job. Hopefully it gets done here soon so I can get back to hockey.”

Monahan, who finished second behind Gaudreau in goals (27) and points (63) for Calgary last season, took a similar approach. Picked sixth overall in 2013, Monahan has seen peers like Seth Jones (six years, $5.4 million average annual value), Aleksander Barkov (six years, $5.9 million AAV), and Nathan MacKinnon (seven years, $6.3 million AAV) re-up over the past six months. Now, it’s his turn.

“It’s going to be different, for sure,” Monahan says. “At the end of the day, to be honest, I don’t even look at it as the money. We just play because we love to play. Getting paid to play is pretty cool, but at 21 years old, my friends are still doing their thing, in school and stuff. It’s pretty easy for me to not think about the money, live my life and enjoy what I do. It’s easy to keep my mind off the huge business side of my job.”

Indeed, if Gaudreau and Monahan discuss anything about their prospects as long-term teammates, the assumption that they’ll re-sign already comes baked into the equation. “We don’t really talk about contract stuff together,” Gaudreau says. “We don’t feel like getting into that kind of stuff. Just how excited we are, how we have a young team, guys like [Sam] Bennett and Michael Ferland and [2016 first-rounder Matthew Tkachuk. It’s a bright future for our team.”

Standing near the poster that the campers made, decorated in hand-drawn Flames logos, Gaudreau looks onto the ice, where another session has just kicked off. He seems anxious to join the drills. “I could just be out here, going through camp for the whole year, playing hockey, and I’d still enjoy it,” he says. But if he has to endure all this contractual stuff, at least it helps to have a friend experiencing it too. “It’s a great city and we want to win in Calgary,” Gaudreau says, “so it’s great to have two minds like that working alike and being on the same page.”