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New York Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Building the worst possible roster of NHL contracts that's still somehow cap compliant
Six years ago, I wrote a post based on a premise that I thought was stupid, bordering on pointlessly absurd. If you know my work, that's really saying something. A few days earlier, I'd tried to build a roster using the best players and contracts that I could fit under the salary cap, which is not an especially dumb idea and was actually kind of fun. But then, somebody asked me to flip the script and build a cap-compliant roster of the league's worst contracts. At first, that seems fine. But then you get into it and realize that 'bad contracts' and 'cap compliant' don't work together at all, as you find yourself being priced out of some of the very worst deals because you don't have room for them. The whole thing didn't make one bit of sense. Advertisement Needless to say, I did it anyway, the readers made it one of my most popular posts of the season, and lately some of you have been bugging me to do it again. Fine, why not, it's August and nobody will remember this ever happened. I'll say two things for the concept. One, the timing is good, since Dom just finished the heavy lifting of walking us through the league's best and worst contracts plus everything in between. I really appreciate those pieces every summer because while any idiot can pontificate on contracts, it's nice to have some actual data to back up those opinions. And second, I do think there's some value in looking at 'bad' contracts that fall a little further down the pay scale. We all focus on the cap hits that look like eight-figure mistakes, and for obvious reasons. But while those types of misses at the top of the lineup can doom a team, so can overpaying on too many depth spots. And as we're about to see, teams sure do seem to love to do that. But first, a few ground rules™: All cap and contract info in this piece comes from the fine folks at PuckPedia. This is going to be ridiculous and way harder than it should be. In other words, perfect summer content. Let's do this. Right off the bat, the conflict driving this whole exercise comes into focus: We want to overspend, but not too much, because we have to save room for all the bad skater contracts to come. That isn't a huge issue here, because I'm not sure that any of the biggest goalie contracts are obviously bad. We already said we can't use Carey Price, while Sergei Bobrovsky only has one year left of his $10 million hit. And while I doubt Igor Shesterkin's deal will age well, especially without any clear next man up to drive the goalie market forward, I'm not going to spend $11.5 million of my space just so he can win the Vezina next year and make everyone laugh at me. Advertisement Moving down the list, Andrei Vasilevskiy was just the Vezina runner-up, Connor Hellebuyck won the Hart and Jake Oettinger's deal is fine. The first name that at least makes me pause is Jeremy Swayman, coming off a rough first year at $8.25 million, and Juuse Saros at $7.74 million should be even more tempting given I just said it was a bad contract. But while the Saros deal is scary, he's still a very capable NHL starter at the very least, which means we can do better. Well, worse. In the end, it came down to three names: Tristan Jarry, Elvis Merzlikins and Philipp Grubauer, all of whom have contracts well over $5 million that run for multiple years to come. Of the three, Grubauer is the oldest, the most expensive and has the worst recent numbers, so he's in. The other two feel like a coin flip with virtually identical contracts, but Jarry wasn't awful the year before last, while Merzlikins hasn't had a save percentage over .900 since 2021-22 and costs just a bit more. I'll go with him, meaning my two goalies are Philipp Grubauer ($5.9 million through 2027) and Elvis Merzlikins ($5.4 million through 2027). Cap space spent so far: With two players down and 18 to go, I've already spent $11.3 million on some very shaky goaltending, leaving me $84.2 million in space. Remember when Erik Karlsson and Drew Doughty signed their mega-contracts way back in 2019 and we all figured they'd reset the blue line market? Six years and one pandemic-inspired flat cap later, they're still sitting at the top of the defense list, with only Rasmus Dahlin even coming all that close. Doughty and (especially) Karlsson aren't worth their cap hits these days, but both have only two years left, so I'm not willing to eat a huge chunk of my cap on their deals. Moving down the list, I did run into two deals that feel like serious candidates for our roster. The first is Darnell Nurse and his $9.25 million cap hit that continues to throw a wrench into the Oilers' hopes, while the other is the new Ivan Provorov deal at $8.5 million that felt like a case of the Columbus tax taken to extremes. I think you could make a strong case that Nurse's deal is a far bigger problem for his current team, given where the Oilers and Blue Jackets each are in the championship cycle. But for our purposes, Provorov has three additional years to worry about on a seven-year deal, so I'll take him and save a bit of space in the process. Ivan Provorov is our top defenseman. And I'll pair him with Brady Skjei, whose seven-year, $7 million UFA deal with the Predators already looks awful just one year in. Advertisement That's a top pair that will cost us north of $15 million, so we'll have to go a bit cheaper on the other options. Luckily, we have plenty of options, because GMs love middling blueliners. We could look to Detroit for Ben Chiarot or Justin Holl, but both those deals expire next year. Kevin Bahl is at least worth a look, but at 25 he's got enough upside to defend that deal. Instead, I decided to go with a pair of $4.5 million UFAs: Cody Ceci, who signed with the Kings this summer for four years, and Ryan Graves, entering year three of a six-year deal in Pittsburgh. For our bottom pair, there are still plenty of bad deals out there to choose from. But with some of the league's worst contracts going to forwards, I feel like we want to save our cap space as much as possible. Can you go cheap on bad contracts? In theory, no, but here we are. Give me Carolina's Sean Walker and his four more years at $3.6 million, and the Islanders' Scott Mayfield, who has them on the hook for $3.5 million for another five years. Cap space spent so far: We just added six defensemen at a cap cost of $31.6 million, an average just north of $5.25 million each. With our two goalies, that brings our team total to $42.9 million, leaving $52.6 million to spend on 12 forwards. That's… not a lot, actually. We're going to face a cap crunch up front. What a completely unforeseeable problem. The temptation is to dive right into the league's worst deals, but I know from last time that won't work. The key up front is going to be finding bad contracts that are also reasonably cheap, which of course is ridiculous but here we are. So rather than starting with my top line, I'm going to do this backwards and chip away at the depth first. So how's this for a fourth line: Tampa's Yanni Gourde between Utah's Brandon Tanev and Montreal's Jake Evans. The good news is this line only costs us about $7.7 million: $2.33 million for Gourde, $2.5 million for Tanev and $2.85 million for Evans. The bad news is these three combined for just 28 goals last year — and the worse news is we're on the hook to this bunch for 13 total years, six of them to Gourde. Oh, and two of those guys are already 33. That group works well enough for our purposes, so let's move up and try the same approach on the third line. We'll start with a player the Maple Leafs traded for this summer in Dakota Joshua, who still has three years left on a deal that carries a $3.25 million hit. He'll have a pair of $3 million wingers in the Blue Jackets' Mathieu Olivier, who's just starting a new six-year deal, and the Islanders' Pierre Engvall, who somehow still has five years left on that seven-year extension that I could have sworn he signed a decade ago. That's north of $9 million for three forwards coming off a year that saw them combine for 61 points, over half of those by Olivier. I know what you're thinking: This forward group features game-breaking offensive talent, but are they gritty enough? Not yet, but we're about to fix that. Let's welcome a pair of heart-and-soul forwards to the lineup, with Boston's Tanner Jeannot and Edmonton's Trent Frederic. Jeannot makes $3.4 million on a five-year UFA deal from this summer that got rave reviews, while Frederic got the maximum eight years and $3.85 million from an Edmonton team with no other pressing needs. We'll play them with Yakov Trenin, whose UFA deal with the Wild from last summer still has three years left at $3.5 million, which might feel a bit rich for 15 points of production, except that makes him the top scorer on this line. Advertisement With that, we've filled out three forward lines with dicey down-the-lineup contracts, none of which top the $4 million mark. That means we've got money to spend on our first line. What could go wrong? Let's start with two of the prize catches from the UFA class of 2024: Boston's Elias Lindholm and Seattle's Chandler Stephenson. Lindholm's debut season with the Bruins saw him top out at 47 points, which doesn't quite live up to his $7.75 million price tag, but that's fine because he still has six more seasons to figure it out and forwards often get better after turning 30. Stephenson is even older but a bit cheaper, coming in at a bargain-value price of $6.25 million for the next six years. That leaves us with one spot to fill and just over $10 million to work with, and I'm guessing you can figure out what that means. Yes, we'll finish our roster with one of those players we wanted all along: Calgary's Jonathan Huberdeau, who'll carry a $10.5 million cap hit through 2031. Cap space spent so far: We spent a total of $52.18 million on our forwards. Adding that to the $42.9 million we'd already spent on the back end, that bring us to a grand total of $95.1 million, just under the $95.5 million cap. We did it — and with more cap space to spare than the Flyers currently have. Here's what we ended up with: That roster is… well, it's certainly a list of NHL players, isn't it folks. On the surface, sure, this team doesn't look very good. One area of concern is offense, where our 18 skaters combined to score just 173 goals last year. That's a team-wide average of just over two per game, which may be an issue given our two goalies gave up 253 goals in a combined 78 starts. Our leading scorer is Huberdeau, with 28 goals and 62 points. Our second leading goal-scorer is Olivier, who had 18. All told, we have just seven guys who managed double-digit goals last year, one of whom is noted sniper Skjei. Advertisement So sure, it's not a great roster today. But let's look to the future. This time next year, we'll have freed up a total of (runs numbers) no cap space whatsoever. Yeah. Not a single contract on this roster expires next year, so we're stuck with this bunch until 2027. But we lose both goalies that year, which is always good roster management. As for the skaters, three are signed through 2028, four more through 2029, and three more through 2030. That means that five years from now, in the distant future of 2030, we'll still have over $49 million in cap hit committed to eight players, including our entire first line. We're somehow on the hook to Frederic through 2033, which won't even be a real year. In total, we've committed to 95 years' worth of contracts. But the cap is going up, so it's probably fine. Also, we're old. The average age of this team is 30.15, and our youngest player is Frederic, 27. And by the way, when I say we're stuck with the guys, I mean it — only one player on the entire roster doesn't have some form of trade protection, that being Trenin. Sean loses his NTC in 2027. Every other player has no-trade coverage of some form through the entire life of their deal. In return for our commitment, we've locked in six of Dom's ten worst contracts, including the top four. And we've spread the love around the league reasonably well — the Blue Jackets lead the way with three players, while the Bruins, Kraken and Islanders both have two, and 11 teams have one, meaning almost half the league (15 of 32 teams) is represented. I can't decide if this entire exercise was depressing or liberating or maybe both. At the very least, I hope it made you feel better about your own team's cap situation. Remember, it can always be worse. So much worse. (Top photo of Philipp Grubauer and Chandler Stephenson: Steph Chambers / Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
Yahoo
02-08-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Broncos have given contract extensions to 5 key players over the last year
The Denver Broncos are building their roster the right way. Draft well, then reward high-performing players with contract extensions. Broncos general manager George Paton gave extensions to three members of his 2021 draft class last year: cornerback Pat Surtain (2021 first-round pick), guard Quinn Meinerz (2021 third-round pick) and outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper (2021 seventh-round pick). Paton and head coach Sean Payton have also rewarded carryover stars from the previous regime. Left tackle Garett Bolles (2017 first-round pick) was given an extension last year, and wide receiver Courtland Sutton (2018 second-round pick) just signed an extension earlier this week. That's five key players Denver has re-signed in a one-year span. Broncos contract extensions G Quinn Meinerz CB Pat Surtain OLB Jonathon Cooper LT Garett Bolles WR Courtland Sutton Of course, not every draft class will be perfect, and supplementing the squad with calculated free agent signings is another key part of roster building. Two years ago, the Broncos signed defensive end Zach Allen. He's played well enough to earn a contract extension, one that could be on the way soon. In addition to Allen, Denver will likely also give an extension to outside linebacker Nik Bonitto (2022 second-round pick). The recent extensions (and upcoming deals) point to a job well done by Paton. The Broncos are drafting well enough to give their picks extensions, and key free agent signings have played well enough to be re-signed. That's a recipe for success. Social: Follow Broncos Wire on Facebook and Twitter/X! Did you know: These 25 celebrities are Broncos fans. This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: Denver Broncos: 5 key players got contract extensions since 2024
New York Times
18-07-2025
- Business
- New York Times
How Joe Dumars' first offseason with Pelicans affects their long-term financial picture
It's been an active summer for the New Orleans Pelicans, and there's been a wide variety of opinions over some of the bold moves Joe Dumars has made in his first offseason as the team's lead executive. There could be a few more minor moves in the coming weeks, but for the most part, the Pelicans are done building a roster that will have big expectations going into the 2025-26 season. Advertisement With the heavy restrictions introduced in the latest CBA, roster-building is more complicated than ever. Teams hoping to strike a balance between winning now and building for the future are facing great difficulties, especially if their star players aren't quite ready to compete at the highest levels. The Pelicans seem to be one of those teams stuck in the middle: They have enough young talent to have a bright future, but not enough high-end difference-makers to ensure postseason success. To evaluate some of the recent decisions New Orleans has made and how it may affect the team's financial future, I turned to The Athletic's salary cap expert Danny Leroux to get his thoughts on the Pelicans' future and what the next steps may be for them as they attempt to straddle the line between up-and-comer and playoff contender. Guillory: Thanks for taking the time to do this, Danny. Your expertise is always appreciated. Taking a big-picture look at the Pels' current cap situation, what jumps out to you? Leroux: How close they are to the luxury tax both this year and next. There is nothing inherently wrong with an expensive roster but it means the Pelicans will have to bank on decent health and internal improvement to get better. As things stand, the Pelicans have little room under the tax threshold for this season to sign additional players or to make an imbalanced trade. It appears that their roster is close to set. However, things inevitably happen over the course of an 82-game season that necessitate adjustment. Joe Dumars will not have every avenue available if the Pelicans cannot take on additional salary between now and the end of the season. It is a similar story for 2026-27 because after trading CJ McCollum for Jordan Poole, the Pelicans are pretty close to the projected tax line, not helped by the official league projection having a seven percent increase rather than the 10 percent many of us expected. Even without a 2026 first-round pick and potentially declining their $8 million team option on Kevon Looney, my current projections do not have them with enough space under the tax to use the full $15 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception. Of course, things can and likely will change over the next 11 months. Still, that is jarring. Advertisement Guillory: The Pels' biggest recent move was locking down their best defender, Herb Jones, to a three-year, $68 million extension, which includes a player option for the 2029-30 season. Jones, the team's best defender, was one of the many Pelicans who suffered major injuries last year. He's still working his way back from shoulder surgery in February, though the hope is he'll be ready for the start of training camp. His shoulder bothered him almost all year, eventually resulting in a move to repair his torn rotator cuff. Compared to some of the other top perimeter defenders in the league, where do you think this contract stacks up? Do you think his shoulder issues played a role in both sides landing on this deal? Were you surprised to see him sign an extension rather than chasing a bigger deal in unrestricted free agency? Leroux: Assuming reasonable health, Jones's extension should look very good in time. Using the current projections, his salary on the extension should account for about 12 percent of the salary cap in those seasons. For reference, a player making about $17 million last year represented 12 percent of the cap, roughly what Rui Hachimura and Kevin Huerter made in 2024-25. Considering Jones's defensive ability and the scarcity of wings in the NBA, his contract should age well as it carries him to his age-30 season. I absolutely think Jones' shoulder issue and availability played a factor in his decision to extend. While it surprised me because Jones could not have hit free agency until 2027 even before this, it was a reasonable decision for him to make as well because this transferred a ton of risk from him to the Pelicans. A lot can happen in two seasons and it would be fair for Jones to see the marginal difference between $68 million and, let's say, $80 million or so as not as impactful for his life as the downside risk if things go poorly. Advertisement One of the most fascinating dynamics as the NBA moves into an even more lucrative state is that players such as Jones will have a choice of whether to maximize their career earnings or be satisfied with life-changing money on an earlier commitment. The middle class of the league will always be more subject to injury luck, the team-by-team financial landscape and other variables than stars. I expect to see more extensions like this one, particularly when the maximum-allowable constraints leave less room for either side to push in negotiations. Guillory: I think the Jones dynamic on this team and how much his contract gives them additional flexibility in the future will be fascinating. I believe the same is true for Trey Murphy, who is set to make $25 million this season as the first year of his four-year, $112 million extension begins. Murphy averaged a career-high 21.2 points last season and his role should increase even more now that the Pelicans have moved on from Brandon Ingram and McCollum. Murphy's development might be the most important thing in New Orleans outside of Zion Williamson's health because of what he means to this team in the present and the future. Murphy has shown All-Star potential, and if there's a world where New Orleans decides to move on from Williamson, having Murphy around will be a pretty good starting point for a rebuild. Not to mention, Williamson and Murphy are an excellent fit on the court when both of them are healthy and playing well. Even though there are a lot of folks who question if the Pels have what it takes to be a playoff team in the West, I truly believe this is going to be a good team if Williamson, Murphy and Jones are on the floor together. Now that we're one year removed from Murphy signing his new deal, how much value does he and his contract bring to this roster? Do you think we'll end up looking back at his deal and say the Pels got him at a bargain? Leroux: I have been a Murphy fan for a while because guys his size who can reliably shoot are extremely hard to find, particularly if they can bring more to the table as he does. For his career, Murphy has converted 38 percent of threes or 8.2 per 36 minutes, which is great in terms of frequency and success. His on-ball game is not perfect but NBA teams can and should have other players on their roster who can fulfill those responsibilities. For me, the key question for the next few years of Murphy's career is what kind of player he will be defensively. My instinct is that he will end up more in the passable-to-positive range rather than great, but that is more than enough for him to be a valuable player and carry a positive-value contract at those terms. Advertisement Guillory: You mentioned the Poole acquisition. He's technically eligible to sign an extension as of Oct. 1, but I would be surprised if the Pels commit to giving him a new deal this early in the process. The Poole acquisition was a polarizing move around the league because so many people have soured on him as a player who contributes to winning after a rough two-year stint in Washington plus a grim ending in Golden State. We can argue about his fit in New Orleans. I'm more interested in how he'll affect this team's plans financially. How surprised were you to see the Pelicans exchange McCollum's $30 million expiring contract for the two years, $65 million remaining on Poole's contract? Do you think it'll be easier to move Poole's expiring contract a year from now than it would've been to find a different suitor for McCollum's contract in this current climate? Leroux: Poole is a fascinating player who I experienced close-up during his time on the Warriors since I am based in San Francisco. It has become somewhat lost because of everything that happened since, but he was an important part of the Warriors' 2022 championship as a dynamic guard who can play with and without superior offensive players. That best-case scenario is still there, but the fundamental problem for Poole is that he is not quite good enough as a lead guard, too flawed defensively, to be relied upon in a high-level playoff series. With that said, the Pelicans still need players who can both generate and convert opportunities even with a (hopefully) healthy Zion Williamson plus Jeremiah Fears and others on the Pelicans roster. What surprised me most about the trade was what I talked about at the outset: Adding his $34 million for 2026-27 means the Pelicans will be so close to the tax that they cannot use the midlevel exception without shedding salary. It is fair to argue Poole is a better player than they would be able to get for $15 million next summer, but being this tight up against the tax this early without knowing how the 2025-26 season will go is daunting. That the Pelicans may not have a high enough ceiling to worry about Poole's flaws and they need shotmakers with Dejounte Murray out is a fair counter. However, their inconsistency of vision and evaluation is one of the lingering issues I have with their offseason. They are adding win-now players but currently have a flawed group of available guards combined with a center rotation of Yves Missi (who I like), Looney and rookie Derik Queen. Those bigs will be tasked with providing the defensive foundation since Jones cannot do it himself. Poole's $34 million for next season is likely to be a negative-value deal, if not truly immovable. One of the lessons of the last year-plus from a CBA/cap perspective is that lucrative contracts are trickier to move because of the apron restrictions. Even if front offices are interested in Poole at that price, matching salary and agreeing on assets is always a delicate dance. It's not as if the Pelicans would be amped up to use his contract to take on a longer one at similar money unless that player was an upgrade considering what that would mean to their long-term books. I expect Poole to show some growth this season but it is hard to see his flaws disappearing. I would have retained McCollum and seen what I could get at the deadline, then weighing the added flexibility for 2026 created by letting him walk and the offers available in players and assets that likely would have required taking on long-term money.
