Joined: Jul. 2021
Posts: 1,038
Likes: 541
This is a fair deal, but I’m surprised that both the player and the team wanted to sign for 8 years now. Everyone agrees that he has the potential to be a superstar, but the fact is he’s not there yet. He looks like a natural goal scorer, but he’s never scored more than 24 goals in a season. He certainly has streaks of brilliance, but he can also disappear for several games, and he takes a lot of bad penalties. He’s only 21, so he certainly has the potential to get better and more consistent, but he hasn’t yet had the kind of season that shows he’s worthy of an elite level salary. I was expecting him to sign a shorter term deal for less per season to try to prove that he’s worth $9-10M AAV long term on his next contract, but $7.75M AVV seems high enough for the player to give up the chance to prove he’s worth more for the security of a longer term commitment, and low enough for the team to accept the risk that he won’t live up to his potential.
Maybe in a couple of years it’ll look like a steal, but at this stage of the player’s development it’s a fair deal. As a Hurricanes fan I’m glad they were able to get it done.