[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by Groot

Since a lot of people make the Tarasenko comparable (which is the closest without a doubt), and there's this talk about RFA vs UFA years, here's what Tarasenko is making each year of his 60 million contract.

2015-16 $8,000,000 RFA
2016-17 $8,000,000 RFA
2017-18 $7,000,000 RFA
2018-19 $7,000,000 RFA
2019-20 $9,500,000 UFA
2020-21 $5,500,000 UFA
2021-22 $9,500,000 UFA
2022-23 $5,500,000 UFA

The only reason they kept it to a 7.5 million AAV was because he took a discount on two of his later UFA years, making them lowest in the contract. So if we followed the above and had Johnny making 8 for 2 RFA years, 7 for 3 RFA years, then 9.5, 5.5, 9.5 for his UFA years, that brings his total contract value to 61.5 million or an AAV of 7.6875. As Tarasenko had two discount years, drop one of Gaudreau's RFA years to the same 5.5 Tarasenko is taking in his UFA years, and it brings his contract to the same 60 million, 7.5 AAV. Even though I initially voted lower, I can't see it being below 7.5 looking at how Tarasenko's RFA and UFA years break down.

Is the breakdown of the contract at all relevant to the discussion though? I get what you are trying to do, but looking at it year by year and trying to disiminate what each year is actually worth is a fools game. It doesn't matter. All that matters is the Total amount paid divided by the years.

Other than that, you can assume the player will want to get paid as much money as possible in the front end of the contract, and the team would prefer to defer as much money as possible to the back end of the deal. But to try and look at each year and use the actual pay outs in the year and attempt to assign value to them is completely irrelevant.