Banned
Joined: Sep. 2021
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Okay, so back at the 2018 trade deadline, the Lightning brought over Ryan McDonagh from the Rangers along with J.T. Miller in a big blockbuster trade. In 2018-19, McDonagh's first full year with the Lightning, he had a strong season playing 82 games, and putting up 9 goals and 46 points. It's worth noting that he was in a contract year, so he would have had extra motivation to perform well, and good on him, because it earned himself a 7 year 42.5 million dollar contract carrying an AAV of 6.75M
Since signing his new contract, McDonagh's offensive production has fallen off a cliff. McDonagh has played just 50 games in both the past two seasons and in both seasons, he has only recorded 12 points. Now before everyone scurries over to argue that McDonagh isn't relied on for offense but contributes more so defensively, let me tell you that I don't care what he contributes defensively. In my book, if I defenseman is making an AAV of $5 million or more this season, they should be contributing at least a little something offensively. Even though I'm not a big Lightning fan, it still bothers me that this guy is making more than defensemen like Tyler Myers and Nate Schmidt, two other guys who have gotten their far share of flack in recent years. Overall, I think this is one contract that isn't ageing well for the Lightning, and I still don't understand why they chose to protect him in the expansion draft, because I wouldn't have