Chicago Blackhawks
Hall of Famer
Precedent or Trend: More Thoughts on Frank Nazar’s Blackhawks Extension
Source: https://www.bleachernation.com/blac...houghts-on-frank-nazars-blackhawks-extension/
Let’s start our week with a couple pieces — one written, one podcast — that continue to digest and discuss the seven-year extension the Blackhawks gave Frank Nazar last week. I want to bring these two together because they touch on a similar idea that I think is intriguing for us to consider, not only as we look specifically at the deal the Blackhawks gave Nazar, but other deals that are in the works in Chicago and elsewhere as well.
On Sunday, Ben Pope shared a column at the Chicago Sun-Times in which he talks about a couple good topics. First, he praises Kyle Davidson’s front office for doing a nice job thus far in negotiating good contracts with internal free agents, pointing to the deals to Nazar, Alex Vlasic and Ryan Donato.
Pope reminds us that the Blackhawks added Chris O’Hearn to the front office mix mid-season; he was known as a good negotiator during his time with the Wild. Here’s an important part of that from Pope:
Pope then touches on a subject that comes up in a special weekend edition of the “32 Thoughts” Podcast that was put together at the NHL/NHLPA media tour in Italy this past week.
In this episode, Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas talk about the Nazar extension. Friedman notes that he heard some NHL front offices view the contract as potentially “a precedent-setting deal,” going on to say “It just shows if teams really believe in these guys, they’ll make their bets. And it’s very clear Chicago is going to make their bets.”
There has been a school of thought that more young players might prefer to take shorter term deals in the coming year(s) because of the expected increases in the salary cap ceiling. But that hasn’t necessarily proved to be true.
Circle back to the more locally-focused piece from Pope. He brings up the Carolina Hurricanes’ tendency of signing guys for term early, highlighting this summer’s eight-year deal with forward Jackson Blake that carries a $5.12M AAV coming off a 34-point rookie campaign. They also signed forward Logan Stankoven, who they acquired from Dallas in the Mikko Rantanen trade, to an eight-year deal with a $6M AAV in July.
Where the conversation about precedent becomes interesting is seeing some other situations where
Other young players to get more significant term this summer include Calgary’s Matthew Coronato (seven years, $6.5M AAV, in May), new Mammoth forward JJ Peterka (five years, $7.7M AAV, in June) and Toronto’s Matthew Knies (six years, $7.75M AAV, signed in June).
Those are all likely higher AAVs than we expected given the amount of NHL experience from each of those young players. But the years given buys into the theory that the exploding cap ceiling will make the later years of the contracts more affordable.
Meanwhile, there are still some situations where young players don’t get term. The Minnesota Wild opted for a bridge deal with center Marco Rossi (three years, $5M AAV) last week. Michael Russo at The Athletic has reported the Wild offered Rossi a five-year deal with the same $5M AAV last summer that the player declined, hoping for more. That evidently backfired. The Wild have already given long-term extensions with significant cap hits to forward Matthew Boldy and defenseman Brock Faber, however.
We’ve talked about the long list of Blackhawks who need to get paid in the coming months, a list that includes Connor Bedard, Spencer Knight and Kevin Korchinski next summer (and Wyatt Kaiser still right now). If this is indeed a precedent-setting deal for the Blackhawks, the negotiations with the list of upcoming RFAs will be interesting to consider.
Talia Sprague-Imagn Images
Source: https://www.bleachernation.com/blac...houghts-on-frank-nazars-blackhawks-extension/