I’d be shocked if ROR gets the same AAV as Miller. Millers coming off a 99 pt season and was over a PPG two of the last 3 seasons. I know ROR brings a lot more to the table in terms of the details of the game and his Faceoff/general defensive value is high. But the big point production is where the big bucks are, I think he ends up signing for 7 or even potentially the army 6.5 lol
There are also big bucks in being a guy who is considered truly elite defensively while still producing at top line levels. Mark Stone turned two seasons of point per game play into a $9.5M AAAV based on his reputation as an elite shutdown guy. Before those two seasons, he was a 60-65 point guy. Bergeron got his $6.875M AAV in 2013 (which is the equivalent of $8.82M against today's cap) after 5 straight years as a 60 point guy. Couturier got $7.75M until he's 37. In the 4 years leading up to his contract, he had 252 points in 276 games. ROR has 250 points in 287 games in the last 4 years.
ROR has a Selke win and hasn't finished lower than 5th in Selke voting in any of the past 4 seasons. He's received at least some votes for Selke every year since he was 19 years old. If he can get his production back up to a 65+ point pace, then he'll undoubtedly still be in that 'arguably the best two way player in the game' tier that gets big bucks.
He's also a playoff monster, which gets guys paid. He has a Conn Smythe on his resume to go along with the Cup ring from 2019. He's produced at a 71 point pace through his playoff career and a 77 point pace if you exclude his rookie season where he was an 18 year old 3C in Colorado. Playoff sample sizes are small, but he's been nearly a point per game guy in the 5 playoff appearances he's made since his rookie year. He was getting heavy defensive usage in each of those years and was still a takeaway machine. Last season's regular season production is the only blemish on his resume and he followed it up with an insanely good playoffs where he had 12 points in 12 games while starting 73% of his shifts in the defensive zone. His line at 5 on 5 outscored MacKinnon's line 4-3 in 80+ minutes they went head to head. Playoff performances like that (and a playoff MVP) get guys paid in this league.
I agree that his overall value should be a bit below Miller, but I don't think the gap is massive. Guys like him pretty consistently get paid at/near elite offensive producers.
I also don't think that his value is as simple to determine as "X% of Miller's AAV on a term that is 2 years less since he is 2 years older." Total dollar value of a contract is the number that players care about the most, so chopping off two years of the deal chops off $15M+ of that total value. Army might use that contract as the comparable, but once you start changing your comp that drastically, then every agent in the world will respond by telling you that clearly the comp just isn't that good. Army might use it as his line in the sand, but I'd be stunned if ROR's UFA market value is capped at $40M total dollars because Miller got $56M on his extension. Especially since Kadri just got $49M on a 7 year deal that starts when he is 32.
I think Miller gave Vancouver a bit of a discount and that contract will absolutely
help our negotiations with ROR. I think it will prevent him from getting more than $56M total dollars, which was probably on the high end of his UFA value anyway. But I don't think it brings him into the $30M-$40M range of total value.
My hope is that it opens the door on some discussions around a 6 year deal in the $7-$7.5M+ range. That gets you right in the middle of Kadri and Miller by AAV and puts the 'age at expiration' in between the two of them. ROR should still argue that he would likely get more than Kadri in UFA and I think he is right about that. But a deal like this would be asking him to leave a reasonable amount of money on the table to stay here instead of taking an insane discount from his UFA value.
I could absolutely live with paying ROR an AAV below $8M until he is 38. Especially since we'd have a lot of money coming off the books for the last few years of the deal. Binner, Faulk and Krug would all come off the books with 2 years remaining on a 6 year ROR deal and Schenn would come off with 1 year remaining. I don't think Thomas/Schenn is good enough down the middle to contend unless the D gets drastically better. I don't believe that we have a prospect in the organization to adequately fill the top 6 center hole created by an ROR departure over the next 3 seasons, and you aren't filling that hole for less than $7-8M in UFA.
I don't think that concerns about years 4+ of an ROR extension should be the reason to let him walk. Our cap structure says that the window to contend is right now. ROR at $7-8M AAV should give us a good enough top 6 center group until he turns 35. Thomas should surpass him as the true 1C at some point in that window, but I don't care all that much about the order. Spending $16M or less on a top 6 center duo of Thomas/ROR is good cap allocation even if ROR has regressed to simply being a really good defender that gets you average 2nd line production. By the time ROR regresses below that, the cap should have increased a lot and a couple other anchor contracts will either be expired or very moveable.
My #1 preference would be to throw him 8 years of term to get the AAV as low as possible. But I'm not comfortable with that much term unless it is at or below the "Army $6.5M special" that offers only limited trade protection (and no NMC) in the last 2-3 years. At that AAV, I'm happy to play the LTIR game in the back of the contract. But if we're not willing to take that much term risk, then my next preference is a 6 year term that keeps the AAV around what he currently makes.
