Connor Bedard signed his entry-level deal. Superstars always outperform entry level contracts. THN breaks down which teams bet big and hit home runs with their players on their second deals.
Connor Bedard, who turned eighteen on July 17th, signed his entry level contract with the Chicago Blackhawks. Similar to other superstar players, it is expected that Bedard will significantly outperform the value of his contract. Even if Bedard were to hit every Schedule A and B bonus available to him, he is likely to be worth more than the $4.45 million cap hit he will cost. He will certainly be worth more than his cap hit from a merchandising and revenue perspective.
It is pretty difficult to underperform an entry-level contract. A two-way deal that pays less than a million dollars if no bonus thresholds are met. The problem arises when players sign their second and third deals. There are two ways to approach it.
The first and most traditional way is a long-term extension where the team gets the player for seven or eight years. With stars, teams want long-term security. This ensures the team retains the player through the majority of their peak performance years. In most cases, the team attaches a higher salary than the player is worth in the first year, betting that they will significantly outperform their compensation for the majority of the deal. The school of thought is: if the player is outperforming their deal by the third year and does so for the remaining term, the team has made a good bet.
The second approach is a bridge deal. This is reserved for when the team is unsure of a player's trajectory OR when the player wants shorter term because they want to capitalize on the market and earn a more lucrative deal around the age of 26. This removes almost all likelihood that the player will outperform their lucrative deal and risks the player becoming a free agent in their prime should the team not cave to the contract demands. It is a very dangerous approach to take with superstars, and is better served for lesser established players.
Quite a few budding stars will start their second contracts this season in the NHL. Tim Stützle, Cole Caufield, Dylan Cozens and Matt Boldy signed long-term extensions. Will they reward their respective teams by ending up on this list in the near future? K'Andre Miller, Noah Cates and Bowen Byram signed short-term deals. Will their teams regret bridging them?
With that in mind, THN betting took a look at some of the best bets made by teams. Entry-level contracts are not included because they are governed by NHL rules. The player must have played at least one full season on the contract to count. Any player with an extension that starts in the 2023-24 season is not eligible because we have not seen their performance relative to current contract.
Format: Name, Length of Deal, Cap Hit (percentage of cap on signing date)
Leon Draisaitl: 8 years x 8.5 Million (11.33%)
This one is quite obvious. The Oilers bet BIG on Draisaitl when they signed him to an eight-year extension in 2017. Anyone who kept receipts can show you that a lot of eyebrow were raised at the time. It was a gamble on whether or not Draisaitl would be worth his contract. In two full seasons, he accumulated 128 points in 154 games. That isn't bad, but it isn't 8 years-68 million dollars, either. Peter Chiarelli made quite a few errors in his time as GM of the Oilers, but the Draisaitl contract may be his best piece of work.
Fast forward and we can comfortably say that Draisaitl has outperformed his contract by a fair margin. He's won a scoring title, a league MVP and was selected by his peers as the best NHL player in 2019-20. The contract represented a cap hit percentage of 11.63% when signed. It currently represents % of the cap. Draisaitl is a perennial 100+ point player, one of the best passers in the NHL and a lethal shooter. He worth closer to 15% of the salary cap, which would equate to $12.525 million annually. As far as betting goes, the Oilers went high risk and were rewarded handsomely.
Tage Thompson: 3 years x 1.4 Million (1.72%) & 7 Years x 7.142 Million (8.66%)
Kevyn Adams took a low-risk bet when he signed Thompson to a three-year, $4.2 million dollar deal that accounted for $1.4 million (1.72%) of the cap. Thompson was a key piece of the Ryan O'Reilly trade with St. Louis and 12 points in 66 games with Buffalo. In 107 NHL games prior to signing the contract, Thompson registered 21 points. He spent time in the AHL where he was a point-per-game player prior to signing his three-year deal.
Fast forward, Thompson has been Buffalo's best player for two consecutive seasons. He scored 68 points in 78 games during the 2021-22 season and followed it with a 94 point performance in 2022-23. Paying $1.4 million for a 6'6", right-handed centre that scores 68 points is a steal. That player scoring 94 points and nearly 50 goals is astonishing. Thompson's contract is comparable to Michael Rasmussen (29), Barrett Hayton (43) and Dillon Dube (45). Those players produced at an appropriate level for their contracts and combined to score 117 points. Thompson's overall performance is closer to the value of other elite forwards such as Sebastian Aho, Elias Pettersson and Sasha Barkov. That is to say, Thompson was paid a bottom-six player salary with top line performance.
Adams bet big on Thompson's second deal. He inked him to seven year-50 million dollar deal after Thompson scored 68 points in 2021-22. It was an eyebrow raiser given the lack of track record to draw open. Should Thompson register more than 70 points in each of those seasons, he will outperform the value of his deal in every season. Given his performance this past season, Thompson may be worth nearly $ 11 million dollars in the first few years of his deal. But he will only make $7.1 million (8.66% of cap). It is a rare case of hitting the jackpot twice.
Jack Hughes: 8 years x 8 Million (9.82%)
Tom Fitzgerald made a bet that everyone knew would be a winner the second it was made. Sure, Jack Hughes had a few seasons with concerning injuries, but everyone could see the talent he possessed. Had Hughes exhibited last season's performance in the third year of his entry level deal, New Jersey may be paying him an extra $2 million per season. Thanks to injuries and COVID shortened seasons, Hughes never played more than 61 games in a season. In 166 games over his ELC, he registered 108 points. 56 of those points came over 49 games in 2021-22, when he took a major step towards super stardom.
That was enough for Devils brass and everyone else to understand the talent level. However, Hughes had yet to play a full season. It was risky for the Devils to bet on a player who had not consistently performed over a full NHL season. Given his stature, the injury concerns were legitimate. Hughes agreed to sign an eight-year extension when many expected a shorter term, which would have allowed him to capitalize on a third contract in his prime. Hughes guaranteed himself $64 million instead of a bridge deal that likely would've paid him about $35 million over four or five seasons. Should Hughes continue to perform at the level demonstrated last season (there is no reason to believe otherwise), he will own one of the most valuable contracts in the NHL for the next seven seasons. This contract may be Nathan Mackinnon 2.0 if the cap hits $100 million. Mackinnon's second deal represented 8.63% of the salary cap when signed. Hughes' deal accounted for 9.82% when it was signed.
Cale Makar: 6 years x 9 million (11.04%)
Nathan Mackinnon owned the best contract in the NHL until it expired 17 days ago. He will now be compensated appropriately. Cale Makar is the best defenceman in the NHL with the 9th highest cap hit for his position. In 2021, teams handed out lucrative contracts for defencemen. Seth Jones, Dougie Hamilton, Darnell Nurse, Zach Werenski, Charlie McAvoy and Adam Fox all signed long-term extensions. Every player has a higher cap hit than Makar. Hamilton and McAvoy outperform their contracts, but not to the same extent as Makar. Fox mirrors Makar in value and makes 500K more. Makar outperforms Jones, Nurse and Werenski by an order of magnitude.
It is not outlandish to suggest that Makar would outperform the contracts of Erik Karlsson and Drew Doughty if he made upwards of $11 million per season. Signing Makar to a deal that will expire after his age 28 season allows Colorado to own the NHL's best defenceman through the majority of his prime. While Makar will earn a lucrative contract in his age 29 season, Colorado will have the luxury of underpaying a perennial Norris-trophy candidate in their Stanley Cup window. In a time where right-handed defencemen are overpaid to an egregious extent, Joe Sakic managed to ink the league's best right-handed rearguard to a value contract. That's the kind of deal that allows you to extend a contention window.
Other Notable Players
There are more than four value contracts in the NHL. Those are the most obvious. Most stars like Adam Fox (NYR), Connor McDavid (EDM), Matthew Tkachuk (FLA) and Jason Robertson (DAL) outperform their deal by fair margins. Other players include Martin Necas (CAR), Jaccob Slavin (CAR), Zach Hyman (EDM), Jared McCann (SEA), TJ Brodie (TOR), Shea Theodore (VGK) Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy (BOS).