Confirmed Signing with Link: [MTL] F Juraj Slafkovsky signs extension with the Canadiens (8 years, $7.6M AAV; begins 2025-26)

[1909]

Slaf saw this thread getting bumped and decided to wake up

1G 1A after two periods


Slaf missed some games this year because of his shoulder injury

Very few.

 

[Frank Drebin]

These "high risk" out of ELC contracts are almost always the smart play. I will fight anyone who disagrees with this contract for slaf. Come at me, bro.

Lets use a 3 year bridge as an example. Up for new contract in 28-29. Cap likely to be in the 105-110 range?

Lets say he tops out as a 40-50 point top 6 guy. Those players still command 5-6% of the cap. So we end up overpaying 1.5-2.5 for the duration of his contract. "How can you compete when you overpay your core players?" you might ask? If Slaf ends up being a middle 6 guy we don't compete. End of story.

There is major cap risk in bridging a player till he's 24 and in his prime. If Slaf is an impact first line star, say like a brady Tkachuk or William Nylander (completely different players but both are "stars"), why wouldnt his agent ask for 12 or 13% of the cap, which could very well be 5 or 6 million more than he is making now? In 4 years ideally this team is making a push for the cup. Suzuki will be 29. Caufield 27.

Both the bridge and the early contracts have risks. Much lower risks with a potentially much higher reward with the early contract than the bridge.

Thats why you don't see bridge contracts hardly at all unless the young, high pedigree player has really struggled to show anything at all.

 

[Heffyhoof]

Nice to see the fake concern fans from our board have found comradery on the main boards. There are some 'Habs' fans who post like they don't even remember he's still on his ELC.

 

[Treb]

Hughes is an inexperienced gm.

I'm not a big fan of giving so much money for so long to a young up and coming former 1st overall pick, as it's kind of playing Russian roulette.

Personally I wouldn't offer those kind of contract unless you're 100% sure about the youngster character and dedication to the game. It would be more the exception than the rule. Crosby, McDavid, Ovechkin and cie would be the few selected ones.

Anyway, giving an 8 year contract to a 20 yo is condemning yourself as a gm to get the player to sign his next contract as a 28 yo UFA, with his prime years getting to an end and having to sign him to another 8 years contract with big $$ attached to it.. Those are the worst scenarios in terms of contract signing timing.

Personally, if I was an NHL gm, 5 years would be the maximum length for players under 21. So you don't put them in a situation where they can become fat cats because they already have a big contract without having proved themselves for an extended period of time.

Plus, inevitably the salary is lower.

Prove that you belong to the elite and then you get your big 8 years contract, at 24-25-26...

Slafkovsky seems a lot less motivated this year. He looks like someone who think he's already arrived... he's kind of floating around compared to the second half of last season..

He seems to have fallen into a (60,8 mil) confort zone...

Anything over 3 years would have brought him to UFA.

 

[StreetHawk]

These "high risk" out of ELC contracts are almost always the smart play. I will fight anyone who disagrees with this contract for slaf. Come at me, bro.

Lets use a 3 year bridge as an example. Up for new contract in 28-29. Cap likely to be in the 105-110 range?

Lets say he tops out as a 40-50 point top 6 guy. Those players still command 5-6% of the cap. So we end up overpaying 1.5-2.5 for the duration of his contract. "How can you compete when you overpay your core players?" you might ask? If Slaf ends up being a middle 6 guy we don't compete. End of story.

There is major cap risk in bridging a player till he's 24 and in his prime. If Slaf is an impact first line star, say like a brady Tkachuk or William Nylander (completely different players but both are "stars"), why wouldnt his agent ask for 12 or 13% of the cap, which could very well be 5 or 6 million more than he is making now? In 4 years ideally this team is making a push for the cup. Suzuki will be 29. Caufield 27.

Both the bridge and the early contracts have risks. Much lower risks with a potentially much higher reward with the early contract than the bridge.

Thats why you don't see bridge contracts hardly at all unless the young, high pedigree player has really struggled to show anything at all.

Pros and cons on each. Really depends on where your club is at in the competition window. If still rebuilding, like MTL was when Suzuki and Caulfield signed their deals as they are in years 3 and 2 of their max term deal, you will eat away on that contract while trying to develop other players and return to the PO. With 5 and 6 years left after this season, how many more seasons of no PO for them? 1 or 2? Then they are due up for new deals in around age 30, at which point you have to buy out their declining years. Slaf came in at 18, so begins his deal at 21. Even if you need 2 more years to build with him, still leaves you with 6 left on his deal.
But, you do have the option to buyout at 1/3 and take a 1/6 dead cap so if you evenly paid the player with no SB, on a $7.5 mill deal, you'd only be eating $1.25 mill of dead cap for multiple years if you had to buyout before they turn 26. If it blows up in your face.

Now, if you bridged Suzuki and Caufield, you then be paying them more when they come off their bridges when they are around 26 years of age. That new deal, however, has the pro that it only gets them to 34, vs say 37/38 on a second max term, so you are almost getting all prime years, thus the higher AAV. And they'd have roughly the same amount of term left as Slaf would have. But, that comes with the risk that if the team is still struggling on the rebuild, that player may tire of losing and threaten to go to arbitration and hit UFA and thus you end up dealing them or risk them walking.

But, market also impacts that call. Ottawa, having gone through arbitration with Stone and ended up moving him has been max terming all of their kids. That makes sense for them vs teams who are more attractive destinations.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Even though this site is supposedly prospects savy, I see more dumb takes here than I do on Twitter. Crazy.

Then you better stay away from Reddit,

 

[Frank Drebin]

Nice to see the fake concern fans from our board have found comradery on the main boards. There are some 'Habs' fans who post like they don't even remember he's still on his ELC.

Concern trolling is the most insidious form of trolling.
They trick you into believing that they care about your team, or young players troubles.

but they don’t
In fact your teams struggles gives them great pleasure

End concern trolling today

 

[BLONG7]

This kid....................is gonna be just fine.
Appreciate all the concern!! LOL

 

[NyQuil]

Two assists over the last 7 games.

On pace for 6 goals this season.

Everything ok with the kid?

 

[Treb]

Two assists over the last 7 games.

On pace for 6 goals this season.

Everything ok with the kid?

Yes, thank you for asking.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Two assists over the last 7 games.

On pace for 6 goals this season.

Everything ok with the kid?

you sound concerned

 

[NyQuil]

you sound concerned

I’m relieved. Everything is fine.

 

[HuGort]

Hughes has made a lot of mistakes. Gave Slaf big money to early. Whatever happened to bridge deals?

 

[The Devilish Buffoon]

Hughes has made a lot of mistakes. Gave Slaf big money to early. Whatever happened to bridge deals?

It might be a mistake in the sense that it could cost extra money over the long term versus if they took a different approach, but I don't see this deal being anything but a good one when the Habs are ready to compete & Slafkovsky is in his prime.

 

[HuGort]

It might be a mistake in the sense that it could cost extra money over the long term versus if they took a different approach, but I don't see this deal being anything but a good one when the Habs are ready to compete & Slafkovsky is in his prime.

Once they filthy rich some lose incentive

 

[The Devilish Buffoon]

Once they filthy rich some lose incentive

That is definitely true, but I think in many cases that is overcome by year 2, 3, 4 of no success.

It is a longterm investment, but if it means you can add another $5mil player instead of a $2mil player (for example) for a real run in years 6, 7, 8, it can pay off very nicely.

I don't watch him as closely as you do but I think Slafkovsky has too much going for him to fail.

 

[HuGort]

That is definitely true, but I think in many cases that is overcome by year 2, 3, 4 of no success.

It is a longterm investment, but if it means you can add another $5mil player instead of a $2mil player (for example) for a real run in years 6, 7, 8, it can pay off very nicely.

I don't watch him as closely as you do but I think Slafkovsky has too much going for him to fail.

Slaf had decent 30 games and Montreal buried him up in money

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

These "high risk" out of ELC contracts are almost always the smart play. I will fight anyone who disagrees with this contract for slaf. Come at me, bro.

Lets use a 3 year bridge as an example. Up for new contract in 28-29. Cap likely to be in the 105-110 range?

Lets say he tops out as a 40-50 point top 6 guy. Those players still command 5-6% of the cap. So we end up overpaying 1.5-2.5 for the duration of his contract. "How can you compete when you overpay your core players?" you might ask? If Slaf ends up being a middle 6 guy we don't compete. End of story.

There is major cap risk in bridging a player till he's 24 and in his prime. If Slaf is an impact first line star, say like a brady Tkachuk or William Nylander (completely different players but both are "stars"), why wouldnt his agent ask for 12 or 13% of the cap, which could very well be 5 or 6 million more than he is making now? In 4 years ideally this team is making a push for the cup. Suzuki will be 29. Caufield 27.

Both the bridge and the early contracts have risks. Much lower risks with a potentially much higher reward with the early contract than the bridge.

Thats why you don't see bridge contracts hardly at all unless the young, high pedigree player has really struggled to show anything at all.

A prime example of this would be PK Subban. He supposedly wanted a long term deal; something around 5.5x6. Bergevin, in his infinite stupidity, insisted on the two year bridge. Not only did it ruffle feathers in subsequent negotiations but Subban went on to win the Norris and basically vastly increase his bargaining power.

What could have been a reasonable deal for, at the time, a star player. Turned into a massive 9M contract that ultimately became a boat anchor when he fell off.

 

[Al Lagoon]

He's only 20 and won't even be 30 when that deal runs out. Good job Montreal.

Sure sounds better than paying 40 year old Juan Soto 51 million.

Makes me thankful for the cap. Soccer and baseball money is far beyond the obscenity of hockey money.

 

[Shark Finn]

Hughes has made a lot of mistakes. Gave Slaf big money to early. Whatever happened to bridge deals?

They are burned.

 

[GreytWun]

He's only 20 and won't even be 30 when that deal runs out. Good job Montreal.

Sure sounds better than paying 40 year old Juan Soto 51 million.

Makes me thankful for the cap. Soccer and baseball money is far beyond the obscenity of hockey money.

Check Basketball salaries, there is a bunch of players making over 50 million. At least with baseball it’s only 1 player and they play 162 games.

 

[Bouboumaster]

Hughes has made a lot of mistakes. Gave Slaf big money to early. Whatever happened to bridge deals?

Kent Hughes saw what happened with Bargain Bin when he tried that shit with Subban decided to not get f***ed when the bridge deal end

 

[New Jerseys Devil]

He's only 20 and won't even be 30 when that deal runs out. Good job Montreal.

Sure sounds better than paying 40 year old Juan Soto 51 million.

Makes me thankful for the cap. Soccer and baseball money is far beyond the obscenity of hockey money.

That Juan Soto is going to look good in orange and blue though!

 

[Casper The Soy Ghost]

Hughes has made a lot of mistakes. Gave Slaf big money to early. Whatever happened to bridge deals?

He banked on Slafkovsky becoming a 1 st line powerforward and he hoped that this deal would look like a steal in a few years. It's far too early to tell.

Maybe they wanted to avoid a Subban situation as well.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Signing him long term was obviously the correct decision at the time. And there is plenty of time for him to become worthy of that salary with the cap increasing.