henchman21
Mr. Meeseeks
- Feb 24, 2012
- 61,507
- 53,750
Some do... Cooley signed late just last year. It is pretty rare though.If we don’t have a signing by the end of this weekend that’s probably not good IMO. College guys don’t sign late into the summer too often IIRC.
Playing in the Avs' favor is realistically, the burned year is off the table anyway with timing. So it becomes more about what the plan next year looks like vs what he could do at DU. The simplest answer is the Avs max out his signing bonuses at 92.5 and AHL salary at 82.5 with a 10 games played bonus of 50k with the idea that they will get him his 10 games. He's simply not getting 225k in NIL next year. I could see 50k, but that is probably the realistic max.
Now playing against the Avs, and a weird quirk in the new ELC rules is if he goes UFA, he can get that current year max (975k salary and higher bonuses). So he might only make 50k next year. But the following year he could line up a 97.5k signing bonus each year, still have it expire in 2027, and the type A and type B bonuses elevate in maximum amounts by 150 and 500k. Behrens isn't getting B bonuses as he's not that level of player, but that extra 37.5k of A bonus is possible. Say he gets 50k for 10 games played and 250k for top 4D in ice time (assume he plays on a bad team like San Jose). He could make up all that 175k loss in one year with some creative promises and structuring. Even if he doesn't get the top 4, ice time, he could make up 55k really quickly and the NHL salary increasing to 975k vs 925k helps. If he played ~12 games he'd be around ~150k of salary at 975k.
TLDR... he probably needs a handshake agreement of some NHL playing time next year to get him to sign. If there isn't, the Avs might have a difficult time signing him next spring just do to how the ELC situation will work. The Avs would certainly have to burn a year.