If you like Suzuki, you should like Dubois. He's similar to Horvat and Larkin types. Are you saying it's not worth trading for him cause he is not a 100 pts center and he's a 80 (+/-) range type? Are you looking at other areas Dubois is strong at other than points? Like his ability to really be a physical force in the offensive end in the playoffs?
Jets don't have leverage. They can swing their hammer at the nail as much as they want. It's not going to cost more than Trouba or Horvat trades.
Brisson is his agent yes but Gorton/Hughes are our management. If Dubois really does want to play for the Habs, we are not going to give into a $9M+ contract demand and the extension comes as part of the trade and that is likely to be around what Hintz, Larkin, Horvat got. 8x $8.5M (+/-).
$7M-$8M is not probable. I hope that is possible and Gorton/Hughes use their leverage well in terms of telling Brisson/Dubois what the allocated cap space is but don't think that will work out well. Lowest I can see it going is $8M
Twisted's colours are bleeding through.
He's a Dubois hater, period, whatever the reason.
Dubois isn't that great...
His agent will bleed Montreal...
In fact, objectively, any team would want Dubois in its top-6.
Brisson is tough, but fair and looks to make his client happy above just trying to squeeze every last penny out of every GM as depicted.
Brisson is Jack Hughes' agent and just extended his client for 8 years at 8M, in New Jersey, a State with worse tax laws than Quebec (worst in the league) for the average tax payer (but hockey players aren't the average tax payer).
I don't expect Dubois to sign for 8 X 8M because he is a RFA for only one more year before becoming an UFA, so there won't be as many RFA years eaten up in the 8 year contract as Jack Hughes, but 8.5M is definitely possible as an AAV.
8M would be a hometown discount I'm not counting on, but 8.5M, within the cap structure would be justifiable compared to Suzuki's contract because Suzuki got his payday on his 2nd NHL contract, also with a lot of RFA years bought out.
A lower cap hit will also apply to Caufield on a long term contract, IMO, because of those extra RFA seasons being bought out.
What Brisson can do for his client, that also justifies a more moderate Cap hit, is front-loading the contract (so the actual net dollar amount over time is more, factoring in money in the pocket today VS money in the pocket later), as well as structuring it for maximum tax protection under Canadian and Quebec tax law with strong emphasis on bonuses.
Hughes' contract had very little front-loading (9M in the first year and 8.5M instead of 8M for years 2, 3 and 4, I believe) and little bonus-structure to the contract, with only 2M in signing bonus the first year, and nothing else beyond that.
PLD's AAV of 8M (just for argument's sake, because the calculations are easier, but I think it will likely fall in at 8.5M, like the Horvat AAV that, BTW, also has zero bonus structure and no front-loading in a hight ax State) could, comparatively speaking, be structured:
12M + 12M + 12M + 12M + 4M + 4M + 4M + 4M.
That first extra 4M, in year one, after taxes, properly invested (a safe investment with around a 5% return), by the end of year eight, could easily be worth 6M, before taxes, so a 1.9M gain over the 64M total contract.
Year two's extra 4M, by the end of year eight, could easily be worth around 1.6M more, before taxes.
Year three's extra 4M, by the end of year eight, could easily be worth around 1.3M more, before taxes.
Year four's extra 4M, by the end of year eight, could easily be worth 1.1M more, before taxes.
That's like adding 6M (5.9M rounded up to 6M for the rounding out of the returns along the way) to the 64M, eight-year deal, making it equivalent to a 70M contract over 8 years or, an AAV of 8.75M instead of 8M.
An actual 8.5M AAV, structure with maximum bonuses, would be a contrat equivalent to somewhere between a 9.25M and 9.5M AAV.
Brisson could also insist on a bonus-laden structure like Carey Price's contract, where, at its height, more than 85% of the real salary was paid as bonuses somewhere in the summer, before the start of the season (13M of 15M front loaded, in Carey's case).
The advantage of such structuring, other than the different taxation of bonuses, according to Canadian and Quebec tax law, is that the amount is still forked over to the player in case of a future labour holdout/lockout.
The question always is whether the owner is willing to give those conditions to a player on their contract?
They were for Price.
They weren't for Radulov.
That contract structure with the Russian, as explained by Duvernay-Tardif's agent, would have made Radulov's contract more tax friendly than any contract he could have structured under Texas tax law.
Molson and company were just not ready to fork money out before revenue came in for Rads.
I'm pretty sure that homeboy Dubois would be considered a fair candidate form such treatment if it meant getting him extended to a decent Cap hit for the long term throughout his prime years.
Such a contract structure, compared to Suzuki's contract structure, could even go as far as justifying an 8M Cap hit.
Suzuki has 10M of his total contract in Bonuses, of which none are given during potential conflict years between the owners and the players (possible lockout), for a total of a little over 15%.
With a Price treatment of a little over 83% in bonuses, Dubois, on a 64M contract, would see 53M in bonus money, as opposed to Suzuki's 10M on a 63M contract.
If MON ownership is willing to structure Dubois' contract properly (Hughes knows how to do it -- he just needs approval to do it), they can make an argument for an 8M or 8,5M cap hit, tops, within the market's parameters and present a tax situation that is more advantageous than what players like Jack Hughes and Bo Horvat are getting from their recent long term extensions in the same salary range.
MON has the financial backbone to arrive at such a contract structure. They just need the will to structure it that way and, once they factor in the payoff from acquiring a proven top end local talent throughout his prime years, there shouldn't be much hesitation as to agreeing to structure Dubois' contract as described.
Sorry that the post is so long, but I wanted to explain, in laymen's terms, how Hughes could get Dubois to sign at a reasonable Cap hit that wouldn't challenge the current cap structure for the Habs and would allow to add more talent under the cap ceiling after signing both Caufield and Dubois.
If Caufield's contract is also structured this way, I believe he could be signed long term for 7.5M, slightly under Suzuki's price tag, but, now, maybe I'm getting greedy.
