Despite some saying otherwise, Huberdeau's new deal is a train wreck compared to the Tavares contract
I'll never forget the day the Leafs signed John Tavares. Most Leafs fans won't. I was at work and hadn't checked my phone. It was my dad, a guy who is as big a Leafs fan as I am who broke the news to me. I was shocked, but absolutely over the moon. The price tag was high, but ended up being much lower than it could have been.
Four years later, the Leafs are a very different team than that 2018-2019 squad that couldn't close out the Bruins in 7. Auston Matthews has made the most of his opportunity as the Leafs' #1 center and Tavares is coming off of a season that saw his goal scoring dry up for long periods of time. Long enough that fans, and some media members, are beginning to claim that Tavares is overpaid, overrated and not worth the $11 million worth of cap space his deal is taking up.
Now, I don't believe this for a second. Tavares' struggles, if you can call 76 points in 79 games and 6 points in 7 playoff games "struggles", can easily be attributed to the horrific injury he suffered in Game 1 of the 2021 playoffs. A healthy off season should have Tavares back to his old self when the puck drops this October.
As for his contract's value, The Athletic's Dom Luszczyszyn has built a model that examines on ice contribution's and calculates a player's true contract value based on offensive and defensive stats. Thankfully, he's also decided to take all of those numbers and put them on easy to read Player Cards. Tavares finished the 2021-2022 season with a value of $11.6 million. Is the contract a steal at this point? No, but it's not an overpayment either.
The trade that rocked the hockey world this summer that saw Flames agitator Matthew Tkachuk shipped to Florida in exchange for MacKenzie Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau paved the way for another massive contract, this time one that quite possibly is an overpay.
Huberdeau, fresh off of a career year, inked an 8-year deal with the Flames paying him $10.5 million per season. Not a bad payday for Huberdeau! A deeper look at the contract and the circumstances surrounding it, however, shows that the Leafs got a lot more value in the Tavares contract than Calgary will with Huberdeau.
Huberdeau's deal will take him from 30 years old to 38. That's right, Jonathan Huberdeau will still be making $10.5M against the cap when he is 38 years old. The Leafs managed to lock up Tavares from age 27 to age 34, meaning they got the best years of Tavares' career and maybe a couple at the tail end where age will start to catch up.
Tavares being a center who scores more goals and actually contributes defensively is also a huge bonus. A look at the defensive stats on Huberdeau's Player Card tells you all you need to know about Hubie on his own side of center ice. A great setup man, but a defensive liability. Its also worth noting they gave up a 24-year-old, 100+ point winger to get him, while the Leafs didn't have to spend any assets outside of cap space for Tavares.
Now, if you're a Flames fan, here's the good news. The Flames won't be completely screwed over by the salary cap remaining flat, unless Monkeypox manages to shut the world down too..
A new TV deal and fans back in the stands mean the cap is about to skyrocket, saving the Flames from the albatross of a contract they've just signed. The Leafs locked up their core 4 with the expectation that the cap would continue to go up, only to have the entire thing blow up in their face. They are far from the only team hurt by the flat cap, but the timing could not have been worse for them. For the Flames, the rising cap means that the timing couldn't be better, which is about their only hope of this deal not turning into a boat anchor in its later years - which it might anyway.
| POLL | ||
10 AOUT | 669 ANSWERS Despite some saying otherwise, Huberdeau's new deal is a train wreck compared to the Tavares contract Would you prefer the John Tavares contract or the Jonathan Huberdeau contract? | ||
| Tavares | 269 | 40.2 % |
| Huberdeau | 228 | 34.1 % |
| Neither | 172 | 25.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
