Value of: Players with 4-5 years remaining on an 8 years contract, where are the steals?

[zar]

Easy answer… the no state income tax ones and the ones where many RFA years were included in the contract years.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Alexander "sasha" Barkov is the definition of the steal. Period.

he's making 10m he's suppose to be as good as he is.

 

[PlayMakers]

So whenever a "star/prospect" player is signed to a long term contract, unmistakently you will get the STEAL comment "that contract will be a steal in 3 years" etc... Below is a list of all 25 current players with 4-5 years remaining on an 8 years contract. Do you see many that qualify as a steal?
**credit: data found on puckpedia**

1	Barkov, Aleksander		29	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$10,000,000	2029-30	UFA
2	Jones, Seth		29	D	Yr 3 of 8	8	$9,500,000	2029-30	UFA
3	McAvoy, Charlie		26	D	Yr 3 of 8	8	$9,500,000	2029-30	UFA
4	Tkachuk, Matthew		26	L	Yr 3 of 8	8	$9,500,000	2029-30	UFA
5	Point, Brayden		28	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$9,500,000	2029-30	UFA
6	Nurse, Darnell		29	D	Yr 3 of 8	8	$9,250,000	2029-30	UFA
7	Zibanejad, Mika		31	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$8,500,000	2029-30	UFA
8	Forsberg, Filip		30	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$8,500,000	2029-30	UFA
9	Heiskanen, Miro		25	D	Yr 4 of 8	8	$8,450,000	2028-29	UFA
10	Hertl, Tomas		30	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$8,137,500	2029-30	UFA
11	Hughes, Jack		23	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$8,000,000	2029-30	UFA
12	Norris, Joshua		25	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$7,950,000	2029-30	UFA
13	Suzuki, Nick		25	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$7,875,000	2029-30	UFA
14	Svechnikov, Andrei		24	R	Yr 4 of 8	8	$7,750,000	2028-29	UFA
15	Couturier, Sean		31	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$7,750,000	2029-30	UFA
16	Rielly, Morgan		30	D	Yr 3 of 8	8	$7,500,000	2029-30	UFA
17	Landeskog, Gabriel		31	L	Yr 4 of 8	8	$7,000,000	2028-29	UFA
18	Lindholm, Hampus		30	D	Yr 3 of 8	8	$6,500,000	2029-30	UFA
19	Parayko, Colton		31	D	Yr 3 of 8	8	$6,500,000	2029-30	UFA
20	Pulock, Ryan		29	D	Yr 3 of 8	8	$6,150,000	2029-30	UFA
21	Nichushkin, Valeri		29	R	Yr 3 of 8	8	$6,125,000	2029-30	UFA
22	Pelech, Adam		30	D	Yr 4 of 8	8	$5,750,000	2028-29	UFA
23	Eriksson Ek, Joel		27	C	Yr 4 of 8	8	$5,250,000	2028-29	UFA
24	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan		31	C	Yr 4 of 8	8	$5,125,000	2028-29	UFA
25	Kotkaniemi, Jesperi		24	C	Yr 3 of 8	8	$4,820,000	2029-30	UFA

Covid. Flat cap.

When people said that, the cap was going up every year. The obvious assumption was those long term deals will take up less of a percentage of the cap as the cap rises. Then Covid hit and the cap stopped going up. Hence, no steals.

I think if you look at the 8 year deals for star prospects that were signed in 2012-2015, that were in years 5, 6, 7, 8 when Covid hit, then you'll see plenty of steals.