article: Nylander Saga: Sign of Things to Come with Future RFAs?

[Phil]

The William Nylander saga may just be the tip of the iceberg on the NHL landscape.

 

One player agent mentioned to me earlier this season that there would be two to three Nylander-style contract stalemates next fall.

 

?Absolutely,? said another agent this past weekend. ?In fact, it could be more than that.?

 

Gulp.

 

Many people on both sides of the fence are eyeing this year?s crop of high-end youngsters on expiring entry-level deals with tremendous fascination. Patrik Laine, Brayden Point, Auston Matthews, Mikko Rantanen, Mitch Marner, Matthew Tkachuk, Kyle Connor, Sebastien Aho, Timo Meier, Brock Boeser, and there are more, are all on expiring entry-level deals.

 

?This is a unique grouping of top young players and they?re all having great years,? said an Eastern Conference team executive over the weekend. ?The agents are not in a rush and I think everything will be a reaction off of the first of these guys to sign. Not sure they?ll be willing to do bridge deals either but some teams will have to.?

 

?It is the next big battleground for the league,? one Eastern Conference team executive texted back Saturday. ?The days of good players signing second contracts in the $6-6.7 M range looks to be over. Nylander is fighting to get above Pastrnak. The whole market will reset over the next few months.?

 

?There?s a total market shift happening right now,? said one player agent over the weekend.

 

Why?

 

Many on both sides point to Leon Draisaitl?s $8.5-million a year deal in Edmonton and to Jack Eichel?s $10-million per year deal in Buffalo, both coming out of entry-level deals.

 

That?s the obvious financial comparison.

 

But there?s perhaps a bigger picture explanation, too. One agent said he?s planning on studying this further over the next few months but he wonders if there simply isn?t a deeper list of high-end, entry-level players coming into the league and making the kind of immediate impact we normally would have seen only a handful of players make.

 

?Where maybe it used to be Crosby and Ovechkin being able to do that as entry-level players from their class, now we?re seeing a slew of them,? argued the agent.

 

https://theathletic.com/675134/2018/11/26/lebrun-william-nylander-saga-could-be-sign-of-more-to-come-with-future-rfa-contract-talks/

 

 

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[Vodka Drunkenski]

Get rid of the cap so we can buy them all

[josh]

While I'd love to see the NHL get rid of the cap, I dont see it happening.

 

I'd love to institute some form of mandatory arbitration for RFAs. If no deal is completed by, say, October 1, they go to mandatory arbitration, or mutually agree to release the player, making him/her an UFA.

 

Dunny talks about the baseball contracts, but I don't know enough about their system

[Dunny]

You just described it. Everybody makes money in baseball. Revenue sharing and a luxury tax are miles better than a hard cap.

 

NHL RFA system is clearly broken.

[Phil]

Probably because the owners have an unspoken law agreeing to not pay young players in favor of overpaying old ones. That's changing. Clearly.

[Dunny]

Not really, they aren't paying old players, but the young players are subject to their years of control and the arb system.

 

That's not changing.

 

Harper will get mega bucks, but that's because he started so early and thus is a FA earlier than typical.

[Kevin]

When was the last time a RFA was offer-sheeted? Penner? Why isn't this happening regularly? You would think that would start forcing the issue but clearly there is an agreement among the owners to not do that. I applaud the players for taking this type of action when clearly the deck is stacked against them.

[Pete]

When was the last time a RFA was offer-sheeted? Penner? Why isn't this happening regularly? You would think that would start forcing the issue but clearly there is an agreement among the owners to not do that. I applaud the players for taking this type of action when clearly the deck is stacked against them.

Because no one wants their guy to get offer-sheeted, so they don't do it to others.

 

Also the compensation for a player worth an offer sheet is usually too high.

 

Would you trade 5 firsts, or whatever it is, for Nylander?

[Kevin]

Because no one wants their guy to get offer-sheeted, so they don't do it to others.

 

Also the compensation for a player worth an offer sheet is usually too high.

 

Would you trade 5 firsts, or whatever it is, for Nylander?

 

Of course not but again the rules that are in place are pretty one-sided. If the players continue to do what Nylander is doing what will the owners recourse be? Trade? Wait them out? Just another obstacle in this labor agreement that is going to lead to yet another lock-out at the expiration of this current agreement.

[Phil]

When was the last time a RFA was offer-sheeted? Penner? Why isn't this happening regularly? You would think that would start forcing the issue but clearly there is an agreement among the owners to not do that. I applaud the players for taking this type of action when clearly the deck is stacked against them.

 

Weber.

[fletch]

You just described it. Everybody makes money in baseball. Revenue sharing and a luxury tax are miles better than a hard cap.

 

NHL RFA system is clearly broken.

 

Except in baseball, no one but the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, or any of the big market teams can consistently contend.

 

You have the Florida Marlins model, where you compete with young players, then trade them all off because you can't resign them.

 

Or the Kansas City Royals model, where you catch lightning in the bottle and make one good run.

 

The MLB model would work great for the Rangers, because instead of competing with 30 other teams for the Cup, we'd narrow the list to about 5 teams.

[Pete]

Of course not but again the rules that are in place are pretty one-sided. If the players continue to do what Nylander is doing what will the owners recourse be? Trade? Wait them out? Just another obstacle in this labor agreement that is going to lead to yet another lock-out at the expiration of this current agreement.

Agreed. The rules make it prohibitive and both players and clubs are suffering.

[LeetchFan]

HTF did Eichel get $10 MM a year? I know it's the Pegulas, they like to spend $$$, and he's the only star on the team....but still.....$10 MM a year ?

 

They must have been paranoid if they didn't give him 100% of his opening demand, he'd leave as an RFA or UFA.

[LeetchFan]

Get rid of the cap so we can buy them all

Need to pay a luxury tax for going over it.

 

Maybe 100% tax on the excess over $75-$80 MM and 200% tax on $80-$85 MM. Money goes to league to redistribute to lower-revenue teams for FA signings or scouting and international signings.

 

It's not good for the league to have stars decay in small markets or small media centers. Think Edmonton, especially after Gretzky left.

[Future]

HTF did Eichel get $10 MM a year? I know it's the Pegulas, they like to spend $$$, and he's the only star on the team....but still.....$10 MM a year ?

 

They must have been paranoid if they didn't give him 100% of his opening demand, he'd leave as an RFA or UFA.

B/c he's really, really, really good.

 

If he went to the open market, he would have gotten more than that.

[Zuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc]

Yeah, I see no problem with locking Eichel up for 10m. Been many worse contracts the last years

 

 

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