He would be a top 3 defender on basically every team in the league.
Quoting: Rangsey
He's top 3 in Tampa. He's on the ice as often at Toews and Krug.
Quoting: imawesome
He played less than Hedman, McDonagh, and Shattenkirk last year, and pretty close to Cernak. This year I'd expect him to play top 3 minutes though.
Cooper goes to great pains to shelter Sergachev from top competition. He played just 26.2% of his 5v5 TOI against Elites last year (the highest of his career) which is third pairing comp - six other TBL defenders played harder minutes.
If it was an ordinary year Id agree. But so much uncertainty around the cap, revenue etc I think the owners and gms have an unspoken understanding. Prime time for a Cirelli offersheet right about now tho.
Not sure how people can say this is on the higher end... DeAngelo got this contract and he's not even worth half that lol. Sergachev is a bona fide top pair D.
So much for taking a discount to keep the team together and all the other bull**** people peddle on this site about Tampa and contracts. No tax and player buy in really helping them get essentially the same aav contract to two other Dmen with better contract influences (TOI and production being the #1 and #2 things that affect contract value in Dmen) as well as a high 3rd year for a QA all in a pandemic affected market.
Its a fine contract and like all young stars he's likely plays to it and outperforms it but this is at best market rate, and certainly the low end of it considering comparables.