Pens' Malkin and Letang at a crossroads with contract talks, may actually hit free agency
Lifelong Penguins Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang will be free agents come July 13th and have made it known they would like to stay in Pittsburgh for the rest of their careers. The Penguins would like to have them be life-long Penguins. There's just one issue; how much money they want.
Malkin and Letang have made it known that they want to be paid fair market value in any contract extension they get with the Pens, meaning they're not interested in taking sweetheart deals to benefit Pittsburgh.
According to Pens reporter Rob Rossi, the Pens will not be giving Malkin or Letang any sort of a pay raise. Malkin just finished an 8-year deal that paid him $9.5M per season while Letang just finished an 8-year deal that paid him $7.25M per season. The Penguins have just over $23M in cap space, but also have to fill out 7 roster spots, including resigning Casey DeSmith, Kasperi Kapenen, Evan Rodriguez, Danton Heinen and others. They simply don't have the cap space to give raises to the aging veterans.
Unless one side or the other compromises on dollar amount before July 13th, both Malkin and Letang could hit the open market and cash in one last time.
| POLL | ||
JUIN 18 | 336 ANSWERS Pens' Malkin and Letang at a crossroads with contract talks, may actually hit free agency Will Malkin and Letang have new homes next season? | ||
| Yes | 76 | 22.6 % |
| No, they'll re-sign | 115 | 34.2 % |
| Malkin will stay, Letang will go | 53 | 15.8 % |
| Letang will stay, Malkin will go | 92 | 27.4 % |
| List of polls | ||
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