Laine signs 2 year deal, 6.75 AAV

[Nik]

Patrik Laine signs a two-year deal with #NHLJets carrying a $6.75M AAV. He travelled back to Finland today from Switzerland, where he'd been skating with SC Bern, and will soon be en route to Manitoba.

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) September 27, 2019

[Nik]

Which is .166 cap % per point, for those of you keeping track at home.

[CarltonTheBear]

EW projected $5mil, so the market has officially changed!

[herman]

WE GOT ONE

[bustaheims]

If Laine starts caring about hockey again, this could be a steal. On the other hand, if he plays like he did for most of last season (basically all of it other than November)...

[Zee]

I was hoping this would drag into the season.

[Nik]

This deal may as well have been subtitled "I Don't Want to Be in Winnipeg".

[herman]

This deal may as well have been subtitled "I Don't Want to Be in Winnipeg".

Signs of Troubal

[CarltonTheBear]

Virtually identical to Panarin's 2-year deal ($6mil AAV) signed a few years ago. Panarin's had a 8.22 CH% while Laine's is 8.28%. Panarin arguably had slightly better stats to back that up with though. His deal brought him directly to UFA status as well while Laine will still have 2 more seasons of RFA eligiblity.

[herman]

He gets arbitration rights after this year, right?

[herman]

So of the big RFAs that have since signed:
Marner - 6 year term for the totality of his prime, semi-expensive today but cost controlled through expansion + start of new tv deal
Point - 3 years to try to shed Tyler Johnson's deal until Point re-ups for hopefully a long-term team friendly 12M
Tkachuk - 3 years, 9M QO which sets the mark for the Gaudreau negotiation at the same time
Laine - 2 years, leading to a protracted arbitration/trade me argument down the road

[OldTimeHockey]

If Laine starts caring about hockey again, this could be a steal. On the other hand, if he plays like he did for most of last season (basically all of it other than November)...

It could be a steal for the next two years and an absolute kick in the nads in year 3 to 10 when he goes for broke after "caring about hockey again" for two seasons.

[L K]

This deal may as well have been subtitled "I Don't Want to Be in Winnipeg".

Signs of Troubal

His agent will be Dustin-g up the housing markets?

[princedpw]

So of the big RFAs that have since signed:
Marner - 6 year term for the totality of his prime, semi-expensive today but cost controlled through expansion + start of new tv deal
Point - 3 years to try to shed Tyler Johnson's deal until Point re-ups for hopefully a long-term team friendly 12M
Tkachuk - 3 years, 9M QO which sets the mark for the Gaudreau negotiation at the same time
Laine - 2 years, leading to a protracted arbitration/trade me argument down the road

There’s an article in the athletic today on this:

https://theathletic.com/1237089/2019/09/28/how-much-did-the-maple-leafs-overpay-on-their-big-3-rfa-deals-and-will-it-even-matter/

One perspective is the leafs are blessed having won the Matthews lottery, taking one of the best #4 draft picks in memory, and striking a home run on their #8 pick, which often just wind up as a 2nd or 3rd liner or worse.  That gave them the best trio of rookies in decades statistically.  A consequence is that the leafs, unlike any other team, found themselves in a situation where they had a historic group of rookies come up as RFAs at the same time. We had to pay a little more for that than others did when they had guys come up one at a time because collectively, they had more power.  But the benefit is we have a top-5 team. It’s a good place to be.