The pay structure of Matthew Tkachuk's new deal is ridonkulous
With the final details of the Matthew Tkachuk deal trickling in on Saturday, we're one step closer to moving on from the Tkachuk saga and getting back into the remaining free agents (Kadri, Klingberg, Stastny, the RFA's in need of deals (Sandin, Bratt, Mangiapane, Puljujarvi, Oettinger, Robertson, etc.).
Two of the details everyone has been waiting on in the Tkachuk deal are the salary structure and the trade/movement protection. We are still waiting on the latter, but at least now we know the former.
Per Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, Tkachuk's 8-year, $76M deal with the Panthers will contain just $1M per season in actual salary, while the rest of the deal ($68M) will be paid out in the form of signing bonuses. We don't yet know how those bonuses will be split up and whether it will be an equal amount every year, heavily front-loaded or back-loaded, but I'd anticipate that we'll soon have our answer.
As for trade protection, at just 24 years-of-age, Tkachuk is not carrying this contract deep into his 30's, so I'd imagine that we won't see a full NMC, but rather a split between NMC for the first few years and then a modified NTC a little later on in the deal, much like what we just saw from his teammate and friend Johnny Gaudreau in the final 3 years of his deal.
