Logan Cooley may not have received the massive contracts now being handed to his peers, but that doesn’t mean he made the wrong decision.
Let’s be honest: $80 million is a lot of money.
So is $10 million a year.
Logan Cooley may look around the NHL today and see Leo Carlsson, Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini commanding salaries approaching $19 million annually, and perhaps wonder what his next contract might have looked like if he had waited.
He shouldn’t.
Cooley didn’t make a bad decision. He made a decision based on the information available to him at the time. The fact that the NHL’s salary landscape changed dramatically afterward doesn’t suddenly make an eight-year, $80 million contract a mistake.
If anything, there are plenty of reasons for Cooley to feel good about where he landed.
Carlsson’s $18 million annual salary with the Anaheim Ducks reset expectations for young stars. Bedard followed at $15 million with the Chicago Blackhawks, while Celebrini’s $18.8 million extension with the San Jose Sharks pushed the ceiling even higher.
Those numbers are staggering.
But context matters.
Celebrini is a unique case. The 2024 No. 1 overall pick has quickly established himself as one of the NHL’s premier young players, making his contract a reflection of both his talent and his enormous long-term value to San Jose.
Bedard is in a different situation. The Blackhawks are building around him, and his contract represents the price of securing a franchise centerpiece.
Carlsson’s deal is perhaps the most important comparison for Cooley because the two players are much closer in age, experience and trajectory.
But even then, Cooley has something Carlsson doesn’t have: eight years of financial security in Utah.
And there is nothing wrong with that.
Cooley has already secured enough money to change the financial trajectory of his family for generations. He can buy the nice house. He can drive the nice car. He can eliminate debt, invest intelligently and build wealth that has nothing to do with what happens on a hockey rink.
At some point, another $8 million a year stops being life-changing.
The more interesting question is what Cooley’s contract allows the Utah Mammoth to do around him.
That $8 million difference between Cooley and Carlsson is not sitting in a bank account. For Utah, it represents meaningful room to build a better hockey team.
The Mammoth don't need Cooley to score 100 points by himself. They need Cooley, Clayton Keller, Dylan Guenther and the rest of the core to give them enough talent and enough financial flexibility to build a Stanley Cup contender.
That is the tradeoff.
Maybe Cooley could have waited and eventually earned $18 million or $19 million per season. Maybe the market would have rewarded him handsomely.
But there was risk in waiting, too.
Injuries happen. Production fluctuates. Careers take unexpected turns. The salary cap can rise, but so can uncertainty.
Cooley chose certainty.
And he chose it while still just 21 years old.
That decision becomes even easier to defend if Utah turns its financial flexibility into something tangible.
Because ultimately, this isn't a competition over who has the biggest number on a contract.
It's about what those contracts help players accomplish.
If Carlsson makes $18 million and Cooley makes $10 million, nobody will care about the difference if the Mammoth are lifting the Stanley Cup while the Ducks are watching from home.
If Bedard makes $15 million and Chicago misses the playoffs, Cooley isn't going to lose sleep over the extra money in Bedard's bank account.
And if Celebrini becomes everything everyone expects him to become, good for him. He's earned an extraordinary contract.
But Cooley has already earned his own version of success.
He bet on himself, secured $80 million and positioned himself to spend the next eight years trying to build something in Utah.
That's a pretty good place to be.
And if the Mammoth win a Stanley Cup during those eight years?
What exactly is Cooley supposed to regret?
That another player had a few more dollars in his bank account?
He'll probably just shrug.
Cool story, bro.
I have a Stanley Cup.
