Never mind the haters focusing on slight overpay. The sens got their guy signed long term, this is awesome news! Kudos to Pierre dorion for getting this shit done.
Like this one I got elsewhere :
"
He's a 50 point player making over 8 million a year and the majority of the contract is rfa years. He won big time."
Here's my reply to this (feel free to use these points) :
So much wrong with one little sentence.
- Brady has paced at least 52 pts per 82 GP in each of his first 3 seasons at 19, 20 and 21 y/o, an age where most players don't even play in the NHL regularly
- That was on a rebuilding team, a scorched earth rebuild...
- 1st year with rookie Colin White and Mark Stone until deadline
- 2nd year with Connor Brown and JG Pageau until the deadline
- 3rd year with rookies Josh Norris and Drake Batherson
- Above is who he mainly played with, there was also a bunch of lesser players (like Chris Tierney or even JC Beaudin)
- In comparison, Nick Suzuki paced 47 pts at 20 y/o and 60 pts at 21 y/o, playing with better linemates (or at least more experienced in Toffoli, Anderson, Drouin). He just signed 7.875 AAV with 10 M$ in signing bonuses
- Everybody and their dog knows that Tkachuk wasn't only going to get paid for offensive production. He's a modern day power forward who bulldozes his way through, basically an unicorn. He already has an heavy impact on games, scoring or not.
- The market has changed/evolved, star players are now being paid out of their ELCs when going long term (or not, see Elias Pettersson) but also based on projection
- The expectation is that Tkachuk will be more than a "
50 point player", he'll be 22 y/o this season
- It will also start being easier for him to put numbers as the quality around him improves.
I'm sure there'd be more points to make but this covers the essential I think
But there's one more very important point : SIGNING BONUSES MONEY
It doesn't look like there's any of it which changes a lot of things compared to other stars contracts.
Some sort of calculation is done to make up for all interest shortfalls for not having signing bonuses (recent Barkov contract is 90% is SBs)
With just 1 M$, you can make 50k-100K in interest per year, very low risk, or even higher with more risk. If you're rich, of course you hire the best
The thing is Eugene Melnyk doesn't budge on this, he rather have his corporation making all the interests than paying his players every 2 weeks and NOT the summer before the season. He doesn't spend to the cap, he doesn't care if it brings the AAV up
Signing bonuses are extremely valuable and also "lockout proof"
Conclusion : both sides probably caved in as the season is starting. Tkachuk most likely wanted a good portion in signing bonuses but Sens wouldn't budge (Melnyk). As a result, Tkachuk got a bigger AAV and probably got 1 year less in term, so might not be too old to sign another good contract