Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
Was he selling himself as a franchise player?
At the moment, Huberdeau's salary is the 11th highest in the NHL. Here are the players ahead of him:
McKinnon
McDavid
Panarin
Matthews
Karlsson
Pastrnak
Doughty
Tavares
Marner
Price
After the top four, I'm not seeing any franchise players on that list. A lot of franchises haven't got anyone that could be fairly described as a franchise player. Some franchise players are on older contracts, signed when the cap was smaller, and therefore making less money. Some guys who are definitely not franchise players were signed to big-money deals in the expectation of the cap going up sharply (which is scheduled to happen starting next year).
The Flames overpaid Huberdeau, not because they expected him to score 115 points every season, but because they were deathly afraid of the PR hit they would take by losing their best forward to free agency two years running. (This was a legitimate fear.) His agent was smart enough to advise his client to shut up and take the money. Should he have held out for less?
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They might not be/have performed like franchise players, but that entire list was players who were paid under the assumption they would be franchise players.
Maybe the label "franchise" isn't totally clear. I would 100% take Pastrnak at his current salary though. That's the type of player who will turn a franchise around. And unlike Huberdeau, he put up a season equally as impressive after signing the contract as the one that he put up before signing the contract.