Joined: Jul. 2021
Posts: 1,052
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Wow! A month ago I predicted Klingberg would be one of the most sought after free agents this year, because he was the only top pair defenseman available that wasn’t in his mid-30s. Supply and demand. Hampus Lindholm, who is a bit younger but doesn’t have Klingberg’s offensive numbers, had recently signed for 8 years at $6.5M AAV, so I expected Klingberg to get a higher AAV with a year or two less term. He probably expected that too, but eventually I realized that the demand wasn’t going to be there. All teams seemed to be in one of three categories:
• Playoff teams who couldn’t afford the cap hit he wanted, so they found other ways to get the help they needed
• Rising teams with young cores who don’t want to tie up cap hit for years on an older player
• Teams trying to tank for a rebuild who only want players with short-term contracts
I knew then that he was going to have to give up AAV or term, maybe even both. He got the AAV, but I don’t think it would have made sense for Anaheim to sign him for more than one year. This is a zero risk signing for them because they have tons of cap space and I don’t think their young defensemen are going to suffer from having to wait another year to move up in the depth chart.
It’s not necessarily a disaster for Klingberg, because he gets to try again next summer, but he goes into an uncertain situation with a new team, so his prospects for next year will depend on how well he fits in with Anaheim (or whoever they trade him to), but this was probably the best he could do. I suspect multi-year offers were probably closer to $5M AAV, and most of them were off the table by today because the teams found other solutions.
It was bad luck for him that Dallas made the playoffs. If he was the one who got traded to Boston at the deadline instead of Lindholm, he probably would have got the big contract and Lindholm might be back in Anaheim on a short-term deal.
Let this be a lesson to other potential UFAs that the grass isn’t always greener.