Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
Signed in 2019.
At present there are 13 players in the NHL with cap hits of $10 million or more: those you mentioned plus McDavid (2018), Karlsson (2019), Doughty (2019), Toews (2015), Kane (2015), Price (2018), and Kopitar (2016).
Not one contract with an eight-figure cap hit was signed in the off-season of 2020 or 2021. Unless league revenues somehow take a big upswing between now and the end of this season, I don't anticipate any such contracts being handed out in 2022 either. Those contracts were a product of a good economy and an expectation that the cap would continue to rise significantly. That expectation is gone with the ’Vid.
I expect to see a dynamic here that is quite similar to what Norman Spinrad once said about the publishing business:
For ‘writers’ read ‘players’, for ‘editors’ read ‘GMs’. The GMs who counted coup in the good times by handing out gobsmackingly huge contracts, if they haven't been fired already, are now in a phase where they count coup by shaving pennies off the budget wherever they can. They know that the cap won't rise fast enough to inflate away their dumb decisions, so if they have to do something stupid, they will do it in the opposite direction.
Since the advent of COVID, the hockey business has been going through a sharp contraction, and while it is likely enough to rebound in the long run, the short run will be painful indeed. Taylor Hall took one in the chops by selling into a buyer's market, taking a 25-percent haircut from his last contract. The NHL is still a gate-driven league, and until crowds at the games return to normal, we're not going to see a return to the days when GMs and owners were happy to hand out long-term cap-busting contracts.
|
Taylor Hall didn’t get a massive contract because Taylor Hall isn’t good enough to warrant it. He was going to be 30 when his deal started, he was on his fourth team in three years, he’s often injured, he’s a career -49, and there are lots of reasons to think his game will decline as he gets older.
He’s not a cerebral player - it took him three attempts to pass his boating license exam.
Gaudreau is going to be THE prize of free agency if he gets there - nobody but Malkin comes close, and Malkin obviously has age and health working against him.
The new TV deal with ESPN/TNT has just started.
COVID is abating, and a player who makes fans want to come to the building is going to be in demand as much as it ever was if not more so.
Seattle, Anaheim and Detroit can all give him $11M and still be $10M under the cap.
The New Jersey Devils, with $8M in cap space as we speak, have only to let PK Slewfoot go and they can give Gaudreau $9M without changing their internal budget at all.
So if he can get $9M to play in his own backyard, how are we getting him for the same amount?
The Devils just gave Dougie $9M.
More people are going to show up at the Prudential Centre to watch Johnny than Dougie.