What The Offseason Indicates About The Effects of a Rising Cap

[UWSaint]

Ego

While I fear you are correct, I think it is also possible that’s these moves make buying the franchise more attractive. Less fixer upper, more white box.

[Meds]

I'm thinking that we'll be referring to this post for a while. (and likely we'll see some people from the media stealing from it )

Looks like Mike Grier has this here HTMB on his bookmark bar….

[UWSaint]

I'm thinking that we'll be referring to this post for a while. (and likely we'll see some people from the media stealing from it )

Looks like Mike Grier has this here HTMB on his bookmark bar….

I think Grier probably is one of the guys who has figured it out – though let’s be honest, if a player is ever going to earn a max AAV contract, Celebrini is on a very short list of players that you can make an argument for.

Let's unpack Celebrini's contract under this thread's analysis. 18.8M starts in 2027-28, when the cap is projected to be 113.5M. That's 16.6% of the cap. Assuming a 9% increase each season after, it rests in year 5 of the deal at 11.7% of the cap. Average percentage cap hit (which I haven't calculated exactly) is in the 14-14.5% range.

The deal eats up one UFA season, I think (Players are eligible for unrestricted free agency at age 27 or when they've played 7 full NHL seasons).

There’s a pretty limited universe of comps – centers who have established themselves as quality 1C’s within 2 years after their draft in the past decade or so. Auston Matthews and Conor MacDavid fit. Mackinnon doesn’t fit the bill (took him longer to ramp up, year 5 is when he took off; same for Barkov). Jack Hughes took off during year 3 – and signed his deal early that season before that level up was fully established. Carlsson is similar to Hughes in terms of the productivity arc (and didn’t sign his extension until after completing a successful season); Bedard didn’t sign his deal until after the ELC expired, but is arguably in the group. He’s probably the third closest comp.

Celebrini’s deal was signed to cover the same service and age years as Matthews' first post-ELC deal in Toronto (though Matthews was signed in February of year 3). Matthews' cap hit was 14.2% of the cap at the start of the deal (and for years 2 and 3), and was 13.9% in year 5. To be sure, the Maple leaves weren't expecting a flat cap, but in hindsight, was it really the Matthews contract that created a lopsided roster construction in Toronto, but a series of Oiler like moves. Fact is, Toronto put together a consistently good regular season team whose roster flaws caught up to them in the playoffs.

Matthews was a point a game player in his second season; Celebrini got 115 points (and 45 goals). Matthews was great and will be a hall of famer -- but Celebrini is on his way to being a legend – potentially will be in the top 10 of all time conversation when all is said and done. But as addressed above, the "weight" of this contract on the Sharks should be very similar to (in hindsight) what the Matthews contract was. That’s outstanding for the Sharks under the assumptions made in this thread.

McDavid is probably a better player comp for Celebrini in terms of the level of demonstrated talent by the end of year 2. I respect people who think that McDavid’s in his own category, but even they might concede that the gap between McDavid and Celebrini after year 2 is no greater than the gap between Celebrini and Matthews after year 2. Here, it is harder to compare apples to apples because McDavid signed an 8 year deal, but like Celebrini, he did so in July, one full season before the ELC expired. McDavid's 12.5M salary had an initial cap hit of 15.7%, and in subsequent years was 15.3%, 15.3%, 15.3%, 15.2%, 15%, 14.2%, and 13%. So first 5 years, the hit never got below 15.2%, and over the course of the contract averaged being 14.9% of the cap hits. So a bigger hit than the expected hit on Celebrini’s – but also 3 more years. Did McDavid's salary keep them from being competitive? Nope.

I think for what Matthews brought, the deal was worth it. Edmonton got a bargain with the McDavid contract considering his production (which outpaced Matthews and most importantly showed up in the playoffs). Celebrini's contract is in line with these contracts -- if he doesn't improve, this is a very good deal. He could be a 35-65 guy and this is still worth it. If he improves and the guys who think McDavid’s in a league of his own make room for another? The Sharks end up with a better deal than McDavid's post-ELC contract. Imagine that.

But at the end of the day, the point of this post is to show that what the Sharks are doing with Celebrini is very similar to what the Oilers did with McDavid and the leaves with Matthews at the time their post-ELC extensions were signed.