New old bread is back.
Same exact shit as last year. Guys not close to the player he was when we signed him and at this point, he isn’t going to suddenly become that guy again. He’s 31 years old and the second highest paid player in the league. He isn’t going to magically become as aggressive about attacking the middle of the ice or carrying the puck and challenging defenders as he was when he was 24-28 years old making less than half the money.
Relative to the price tag - and given how one dimensional his contributions are - he’s significantly more of a detriment than he is an asset. Would you guys want Johnny Gaudreau or Jonathan Huberdeau at 11.65M? I wouldn’t want either at their current cap hits (9.75 and 10.5 respectively) and they both are 1-2M cheaper than Panarin.
Bread just has zero business being the second most expensive player in the world. I have a hard time even ranking him in the top 20 players. #2 contract in the world stinks.
McDavid, Draistaitl, MacKinnon, Matthews, Crosby, Barkov, Hughes, Stamkos, Tage
Tkachuk, Tkachuk, Rantanen, Pastrnak, Kucherov, Marner, Kaprizov, Robertson
Fox, Makar, Hedman, Josi, McAvoy
That’s 22 without getting into goalies and without getting into whether or not Aho, Hintz, Zibanejad, Nylander, Connor, Gaudreau, Dahlin, etc. have passed him (they have). Somehow the only player in the entire world who has a higher cap hit is Connor McDavid.
And guys like Makar, Tkachuk, Hughes, Fox, Barkov, Matthews all signed extensions after Bread. Makar is “the” D man of the generation to most. Tkachuk is a 25 year old physical winger with 64 goals and 156 points the past two years (compared to Bread’s 31 year old, softer than clouds 33 goals and 142 points). Barkov and Matthews are consensus opinions for top 3-5 centers in the world.
The Bread contract is a cancer. He should be making 3M less. He doesn’t contribute anything besides points, but he’s 15th in points per game, and outside of the top 100 in goals, over the past two years, and you can put Fox, Makar, Hedman and Josi over him as well considering they’re D. Adding goalies and guys who may produce a bit less but provide more overall, he should realistically have something like the 25-35th cap hit, around 9M. Not 11.65M, which will age like milk while better 25 year olds in their prime are taking 8 year contracts for 9-10M to be much bigger impacts.
I know that’s not how the market works but it doesn’t change the fact that even at his peak season, no one-dimensional winger is actually worth 12M. You just don’t win with contracts like that.
