When Minnesota Wild star winger Kirill Kaprizov signed for a league-high $17-million cap hit, there was much debate about whether the Edmonton Oilers' Connor McDavid would beat that salary right away.
After McDavid ended up signing a two-year extension Monday worth $12.5 million per year, other top players signed new contracts that prove the Oilers captain didn't lower the bar Kaprizov rose.
Winnipeg Jets left winger Kyle Connor agreed to an eight-year contract with a $12-million cap hit.
Then, Vegas Golden Knights center Jack Eichel signed for eight years at $13.5 million annually. Only Kaprizov and Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl ($14 million) have higher cap hits than Eichel next season.
So instead of seeing McDavid take a team-friendly contract and gauging their value in relation to McDavid's cap hit, Connor and Eichel took advantage of a rising salary cap and Kaprizov's record-setter to get themselves much-deserved raises.
Ultimately, every NHL star has the right to decide what’s important to them – either to make their agents and the NHL Players Association happy by pushing close to earning 20 percent of the salary cap, or to make their team happy by accepting less money to help make the squad as competitive as possible in a cap system.
Of course, over time, the priorities for any star player may change.
When McDavid needs a new deal a few seasons from now, he may decide to chase the money and aim for a salary that's worth $20 million or more annually. But the fact that McDavid chose the more team-friendly option proves what Toronto Maple Leafs superstar center and captain Auston Matthews said when discussing McDavid’s new deal – that competing for a Stanley Cup can motivate players to look at the team above all else.
“I think for him, it's all about winning and setting himself up for the best opportunity to do that,” Matthews told reporters of McDavid and his new deal. “I know that my time around him, that’s the main thing that he obviously wants to do. That's what everybody wants to do is to win, and he's as committed as anybody to it.”
In the interest of accuracy, Matthews didn’t take a huge discount in his current deal, which pays him $13.25 million per year. Now, he also didn’t ask for 20 percent of the cap when it was well within his rights to make that request.
Indeed, Matthews only received a relatively modest raise of about $1.61 million when he agreed to his current deal, so while Matthews did become the highest-paid NHL player for a while, you can also make the argument that he took less to stay in Toronto and make the Maple Leafs as deep and talented as possible.
And Matthews was absolutely correct when he discussed every player’s particular financial situation being unique to them and their team.
“Everybody's situation is different,” Matthews said. “But in the end, I think you always want to try to find a happy medium between what helps the team and puts the team in a good situation as well as yourself. So I think that's kind of the way I tend to look toward it.”
For Kaprizov, Connor and Eichel, they got themselves raises that reflect a rising salary cap, and they didn't let McDavid's unique situation make them take, say, $10 million instead of a lot more. And time will tell whether any of them will end up winning the Stanley Cup anyway.
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