Best Contract Today?

[Mestaruus]

Pavelski or "Other" option. Like a person said above me Spezza for that cheap or Corey Perry for almost no cost/risk as well.

 

[FlameChampion]

Well Duchene was one that was less than I thought it would cost. I still dont think hes a 8million player for 7 years.

I think its probably the best contract listed as far as the choices go, but I still have doubts it will work out.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

I accidentally answered Nyquist before realizing Panarin was an option.


The answer is easily the Breadman. He's an elite talent and the best on the market by far. Doesn't matter what his price was you get him you win the day. It is significantly better to overpay(And I dont even think the Rangers did) an elite talent by a little then overpay lesser players.


Rangers win by getting Panarin. The Preds and Jackets also did well in getting good players at good value points, and personally I quite like the Donskoi deal for the Avs with what he brings to the table as well. Both term and cap hit are solid for that one.

 

[Leafs at Knight]

Panarin. Yea he's overpaid by a bit, but the Rangers got easily the best player available (not counting Bob of course)

 

[b1e9a8r5s]

Lehner

 

[BowDownToVasilevskiy]

Duchene

 

[Mathew Barzal]

Panarin. The amount of homers in this thread is amusing though.

 

[Machinehead]

Not f***in Bobrovsky, that's the only thing I'm sure of right now.

Other than him, none of the dollar amounts look outrageous today. No bargains, no ludicrous overpays.

If I had to pick one, Zuccarello.

 

[I am not exposed]

Am I the only one who thought the Pavelski deal was bad. Even though he's a really good player, seems pretty overpaid as he's about to turn 35. I can see a buyout in the 3rd year.

 

[North Cole]

2013-14 82 games
2014-15 82 games
2015-16 82 games
2016-17 81 games
2017-18 82 games
2018-19 75 games

So many question marks it's filling up my entire computer screen.

Ha, did you the three of them together to come up with this?

 

[Painful Quandary]

I had to go with Nyquist on this one.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Duchene by quite a bit. One of the first FA periods I can remember where the number of good contracts was pretty close to the number of bad ones.

 

[Trap Jesus]

The Pavelski contract is perfect IMO. He's a high 30s goal scorer (really good value for $7 million) and they signed him for the perfect amount of time.

 

[biturbo19]

Probably Duchene, as long as he stays engaged and doesn't get "distracted" in Nashville. That's really solid value in today's market, for a potential top-line Center.

Zuccarello's seems pretty reasonable by UFA standards too. $$$ figure is palatable, and term isn't too outrageous.

 

[Hisch13r]

Zuccarello and then Duchene followed by Panarin and the rest are a crapshoot if we're going by contract value and not purely production

Zuccarello's deal is awful

 

[majormajor]

It's interesting as a Jackets fan to see this poll outcome, with most people here voting for Duchene's deal, and Panarin's deal getting a fraction of the votes.

In the lead up to free agency, with Jackets fans knowing they had little chance of keeping either, we had a healthy debate about whether it would be better for the Jackets to let Duchene sign elsewhere. I personally didn't want him at $8.5m x 8, for the same reasons that Dom Luszczyszyn argued against signing Duchene. He's not as good as his points would suggest and his points are usually not very high. He's going to be second line quality for most of the deal.

At the same time as that debate, the Jackets were mounting their giant 100 million dollar offer for Panarin. It was just about unanimous on the Jackets board. You can read the thread. Even when we thought it was a $13m x 8 per year offer we were in favor of it. He makes a much bigger difference than you'd expect given his points, the opposite from Duchene. The Rangers got the best contract this summer.

 

[majormajor]

Probably Duchene, as long as he stays engaged and doesn't get "distracted" in Nashville. That's really solid value in today's market, for a potential top-line Center.

Zuccarello's seems pretty reasonable by UFA standards too. $$$ figure is palatable, and term isn't too outrageous.

You might get 1C quality from Duchene once or twice in that seven year deal. Other than that it's not pretty. I know Duchene gave the Preds a discount but he's still going to be an overpaid 2C for most of it.

Zuccarello's cap hit is reasonable but 5 years for him is the ridiculous part. He'll be using a walker in three years at this rate.

 

[ricky0034]

the Duchene deal seems pretty reasonable when you consider that unless i'm missing someone the second best Center on the market was probably Valtteri Filppula

I mean just think about that gap for a second

 

[biturbo19]

You might get 1C quality from Duchene once or twice in that seven year deal. Other than that it's not pretty. I know Duchene gave the Preds a discount but he's still going to be an overpaid 2C for most of it.

Zuccarello's cap hit is reasonable but 5 years for him is the ridiculous part. He'll be using a walker in three years at this rate.

I mean, you realize it's Unrestricted Free Agency, right? You're never going to land an impact player that way, without some really ugly consequences down the road somewhere. That's how it works.

As long as Duchene stay focused, i don't see why he can't continue to be that #1b Center type player for the Preds for most of that contract. He's still only 28. Sure, there are gonna be at least a couple years tacked on the end that will be really unfortunate...but that's the price to play in the UFA game.

Same for Zuccarello. Yeah, it's gonna have a couple years at the end where he's a dead weight old man who no longer has the wheels to compete at his size. But it's at least a reasonable cap number and probably only a few years beyond where he'll be worth it.

If we're really talking "best contract" on Free Agent Frenzy day...it's usually the contract that doesn't get signed. But that's not really the spirit of this question. If you want to actually make your team better...you pay the free agency price, and you eat those bad years knowing full well they're going to suck. You're never just going to get a great free asset with no caveats or drawbacks.

 

[majormajor]

I mean, you realize it's Unrestricted Free Agency, right? You're never going to land an impact player that way, without some really ugly consequences down the road somewhere. That's how it works.

Compare it to the Pavelski deal or the Donskoi deal.

That or Artemi Panarin being 2x the player that Duchene is.

Either way the Duchene contract is not the best, it's closer to the worst.