Teams are always optimistic when they sign their free-agent target in early July. After all, if they weren’t, they wouldn’t sign the player. But history shows that many teams, if not most, regret the work they do in the first week of July, and it’s not uncommon for them to spend months, if not longer, trying to undo the damage they’ve done to themselves in free agency.
Teams sign UFAs based on their past and future production, often overlooking important data such as age, injury history, playing style, and expected decline. With all that being said, which contract signed this summer by either a UFA or an RFA is likely to age the worst over the length of the deal?
When trying to project which contract will age the worst, there are many factors to consider beyond the items listed above (age, injury history, playing style, etc.). Other key considerations include AAV, deal length, role, potential return (positive or negative), and fit. With that in mind, let’s look at the contenders.
The first player on the list is defenseman Jacob Trouba, who signed a four-year deal in free agency with the San Jose Sharks, carrying a price tag of $8.25MM. If you are keeping score at home, that is $250K more per season than his last contract, the one that saw him dumped by the New York Rangers to the Anaheim Ducks as a cap casualty. You might think he was traded years ago, but it was just 20 months ago that the Rangers squirmed out of that deal, and it might be 20 months from now when the Sharks are tasked with the same objective.
PHR wrote earlier this week about the Trouba signing, outlining that Trouba is a reasonable NHLer at this stage of his career. But he is signed well into his mid-30s and plays a physical, hard-hitting style that has usually led to a decline in players of the same style. In fact, Trouba is already showing signs of wear, having fallen to a second-pairing role and, on a good day, is average at that.
His cap hit might not limit flexibility this season, but as the Sharks lock up their stars, they might not be able to insulate them the way they otherwise would have if they didn’t shell out such an extravagant contract on Trouba.
The next name on our list is another defenseman, Bowen Byram of the Chicago Blackhawks, who will be paid like a franchise defenseman on his new deal, making $12.5MM annually over the next six years. Byram’s deal is all about potential, because he has never produced like a top defenseman and has dealt with injuries earlier in his career. His skill set is terrific and very apparent when you watch him play.
But his stats have never matched his talent, and now, with these new expectations placed on him, there could be a big letdown in Chicago. The good news about Byram is that he is still very young (25) and could grow into his own over the next year or two with elevated responsibilities.
Third on the list is yet another defenseman, Rasmus Andersson of the Vegas Golden Knights. Andersson was acquired in mid-January from the Calgary Flames and remains an effective defender, though he has seen some wild ebb and flow from one year to the next. The Golden Knights are paying Andersson for the good years and hoping he will bring stability to their back end and avoid the bad years.
After giving up a big package for him at the deadline, it would have been tough to let him walk, but a seven-year commitment to a 29-year-old is risky, especially for someone who already has a lot of miles on his body and will be asked to continue to log heavy minutes. The back half of this deal will likely be negative value, and with the cap crunch in Vegas, they can ill afford for this deal to be a miss.
Time will tell if it is.
Next, we have forward Leo Carlsson of the Anaheim Ducks, who signed a five-year offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers in early July, only to have the Ducks match it less than a week later. Carlsson’s deal carries significant risk, the biggest being the possibility that he doesn’t produce like a superstar or develops more slowly than expected. Anaheim cannot afford that, especially given that Carlsson’s deal has driven up prices for all of their other young players.
The counterpoint is that Carlsson has the talent to develop into a superstar, and if he reaches his potential, he will be a bargain. But given the high cap hit and the trajectory of the salary cap, he might never be a bargain if his development stalls or he falls short of expectations.
Finally, we have defenseman Vincent Desharnais of the Washington Capitals. Desharnais signed a four-year deal with the Capitals worth $4.2MM per year and is unlikely to live up to the deal’s value. While he is a strong shot suppressor, he won’t do much offensively, having posted seven points in 53 games last year.
He did eat up a good chunk of ice time (18 minutes per game), but it’s unlikely he will play that much on a solid Capitals team. The salary cap has clearly changed the salaries being given out to UFAs, but Desharnais is a third-pairing defender, and it’s hard to see him living up to his AAV.
The escalating salary cap has made some bad contracts easier to absorb, and it’s entirely possible that all of the contracts listed above provide positive value thanks to the cap going up. However, it’s also possible that the rising cap doesn’t eliminate the consequences of handing out inflated contracts to players who can’t live up to the cap hit. Some of the cap hits on this list might not look too bad in the first years of the deal, but the true test won’t come until beyond the 2026-27 season.