Can the Stars take inspiration in Kevin Fiala deal for Jason Robertson?
25-year old winger signed a 7-year deal in Los Angeles making just under 8 million a year. Could it be a potential comparable for the deal Jason Robertson gets? And could they fit everybody else in?
Thanks to some fine ground work by The Athletic’s Saad Yousuf in his salary cap primer article we’ve got the general idea of how much the Stars have in cap space to spend this summer on their player personnel. It explains the ins and outs of the LTIR and basically sets you up when it comes to basics of operating under the cap.
However, I always take these claims with a grain of salt. When somebody says, this team has X amount of cap space to spend according to CapFriendly – does the person look beyond the figure that is appearing on the front page of the site?
Because if not, then yes. Stars do have $19,560,834 in projected cap space then. What people don’t usually tell you is that they are counting on players like Tanner Kero or Fredrik Olofsson to make the team, which we can say is highly questionable. The better practice would be to put the surefire players on the team who we can predict will be part of the opening night roster and go from there.
We’re not trading anybody yet. Who can we predict will make the opening night roster then? This is my current projection, based on the player fits and potential options out there. Players highlighted in bold are signed for the next season. Those who are not are in the need of a new deal.
Jason Robertson - Roope Hintz - Joe Pavelski
Jacob Peterson - Tyler Seguin - Denis Gurianov
Jamie Benn - Wyatt Johnston - Ty Dellandrea
Joel Kiviranta - Radek Faksa - Luke GlendeningMiro Heiskanen - John Klingberg
Esa Lindell - Thomas Harley
Ryan Suter - Jani HakanpaaJake Oettinger
Scott WedgewoodScratches: Marian Studenic, Joel Hanley
This is a projected roster of 22 players and as we can see, 17 of those are already signed. Those 17 signed players with cap overages from the previous season account for a cap hit of $63,196,666 which basically leaves you $19,303,334 to spend on those missing 5 guys you need to start a season.
If we do the easy ones first, let’s offer both Marián Studenič and Scott Wedgewood 2-year contracts worth around $850,000 and $950,000 respectively. Wedgewood expressed his desire to sign on a longer term and this would be a first one-way contract for him in his career. Studenič is a fine, speedy 13th forward capable of playing up and down in the lineup, when needed.
So now we have around 17.5 million dollars in cap space to sign the three musketeers missing. This isn’t the first type of this article that I’ve done and the reason why I’m doing this one specifically revolves around yesterday’s Kevin Fiala trade to Los Angeles and the contract he immediately signed with the Kings.
I’ve been advocating long enough for a bridge deal for both young studs in Jason Robertson and Jake Oettinger to keep the cap hit low and push for the maximum extensions once the hefty contracts of Jamie Benn, Esa Lindell or Radek Faksa are expired.
But what if there’s a way to sign, let’s say Jason Robertson, to a long-term deal, while also not handicapping Stars cap-wise?
Take Kevin Fiala’s deal as a first potential comparable. Fiala signed for 7 years at 7.875 million annual average value. Yes, it was the trigger of the thought but Kevin Fiala is already 25 years old and has been around for a while. Fortunately, I think there's an even better comparable around. His name is Andrei Svechnikov.
He signed an 8-year deal worth 7.750 million in AAV just last summer, after being almost a point-per-game player for the Carolina Hurricanes at the age of 22. That’s what Jim Nill should be aiming for. Getting Jason Robertson signed for a maximum term before somebody tries to offer sheet him, while still having some cap flexibility for Jake Oettinger and preferably, John Klingberg.
The sweetheart cap hit of Jason Robertson for the last 3 seasons was $795,000. To keep things simple, let’s make him an offer 10-times more than that, having him penciled in just under that 8 million dollar threshold. 8 years, 7.950 million in AAV. Little more than Svechnikov, former 2nd overall pick in 2018 NHL Draft.
That’d leave you with a cap space of $9,553,334 to sign Jake Oettinger and John Klingberg.
If Jim Nill had signed Jake Oettinger to an extension during Christmas last year, we wouldn’t even have to have this discussion about how we can fit both under the cap.
I honestly don’t know why he didn’t pull the trigger sooner on either Robertson and Oettinger, waiting for the last minute thus letting the players maximize their value in the process.
Saad Yousuf projects Jake Oettinger to get a raise worth around 3 million and I think, thanks to his incredible playoff performances, you have to offer him at least half-a-million dollars more. Say 3.5 million for 3 years, essentially bridging him to an expiry of Jamie Benn’s contract. That leaves you with just $6,053,334 to sign John Klingberg.
It’s not much, to be honest. But remember, Stars still have Anton Khudobin on the books. I’ve advocated after Ben Bishop’s trade to Buffalo that now the front office should focus on moving Anton Khudobin’s contract, too. Now, we’ve come to this once again. It’s really a no-brainer as I really think it's in the Stars best interest to just shed Khudobin's contract along with a pick to a team trying to reach the floor (like Anaheim) - thus saving cap space for a much more needed guy like John Klingberg definitely is.
If the Stars let Khudobin be buried in the minors, he still costs them 2.2M and you need a new backup. We’ve already projected Wedgewood costs almost a million dollars on a multi-year deal – which means that either way they'd be still paying around 3.3M for a backup – with or without Khudobin on the big team roster.
Via trading him they could essentially save 2.2M dollars AND have a viable backup option in Wedgewood. That's the money they need for Klingberg. So why not just do it?
Why hope for Khudobin to recover when we know he will probably not be worth the 3.3M price tag? Isn't that money better allocated elsewhere?
(Notice I didn't go crazy here trying to argue for a buyout for Suter, even though I could).
If the Stars manage to trade him, the price would probably be a mid-round pick, or a prospect like Riley Tufte. That’s a reasonable price to pay for being able to afford your 1B defenseman. Once they do that, they could have approximately $8,261,667 in cap space to re-sign John Klingberg, which is plenty and then some.
That leaves you even a potential wiggle room in case one of Jason Robertson’s or Jake Oettinger’s agents go the hard way and try to aim for a higher value for their players.
The reason why John Klingberg is not re-signed is clear. There is a potential threat of the offer sheet for the aforementioned duo of young players. So why not create proactively some more cap space in the process?
Why wait any longer and play it safe when you have the clear route of making this team better now and potentially for 8 more years with just one simple move?
I hope we’ll see some answers in the coming days.
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