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Leon Draisaitl just eclipsed Austin Matthews AAV by securing an 8 year 14mAAV deal. The German has become a tour de force but a reasonable follow up will be, what is CMD going to get?!! I haven’t seen the bonus schedule but imagine it’s fairly generous. With the Tavares court case and a rumored move to see Capitol Gains hit near 40% up north it may not be as sweet as in the past but it’s money in the bank with an expiring CBA.

Where this immediately pushed me to was not the money, but what are the agents pushing as the assumed cap growth? We’ve heard speculation from Bettman and others, but a deal like this would seem to bank on 100m being a reality sooner rather than later. In perspective, that was a number that was tossed around after Matthews and CMD signed their first extensions. The hockey world thought it was coming.

Fast forward to Seider and Raymond. Some agents famously argue for % of cap along with comparables. For an 88m cap, a 9M deal is just over 10%. If the cap moves to 100m it drops just over a full percent down to 9%. You then look at rosters and point out who’s getting what in terms of cap consumption. There’s a problem with this model, and the NHL has already run into it. The irony is, players literally pay the price.

Escrow, that dreaded word that has only eluded paychecks twice since inception. Move the cap up and for whatever reason revenues are down, players take the hit. 3 years of 20% locked in post shut down. Several years at or above 10% before that. There are likely players that can sit down and realize they played a contract year for free with enough hits.

The Draisaitl number caught me a little off guard. This wasn’t a deal I had pegged to eclipse Matthews. For upcoming deals, CMD had that honor. Especially since he gave more term up last time.

So, what do you think? Does this and the signings we’re seeing signal to a potentially over-optimistic forecast by agents? Articles about cash bonuses as preparation for a possible work halt are circulating in the dark parts of the hockey web. All that we’re seeing in the NBA’s new deal (7B total), the WNBA (2.5B total) make the NHL’s US broadcast total look a bit sad at around 550m. Some chunks of that have changed. Still, will the changing market support what these agents are getting? Let me know. As always, thanks for stopping by. You make this blog continue to go and that is always appreciated.

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