With the salary cap on the rise, Matthews' contract should age like fine wine

What was once supposed to be a $92 million cap, became a stagnant $81.5M with contending teams having made massive free agent signings under the notion of a rising cap. The Toronto Maple Leafs were one of the many victims after signing John Tavares to his lucrative deal in 2018, followed by deals for William Nylander, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.

Finally, after 3 years of stagnation and another 2 years where the cap has only increased by a million dollars, we are finally seeing the NHL come out of it's cave with estimations expecting to enter the $90 million zone once again. A lot of players are signing short-term deals, in the 1-2 year range, because they want to capitalize.

2024-25 is expected to carry a $87.5M-$88.5M salary cap and 2025-26 is expected to be around $92 million, which is $9.5 million more than the salary cap today - which rests at $83.5 million.

Auston Matthews signing his new contract with only a $1.6 million increase over his current deal is pretty important because of how the salary cap is expected to explode over the next few seasons. You can certainly make the argument that he left some money on the table, which helps with negotiations for William Nylander and Mitch Marner and you can also make the argument that his deal will age very well within the next 4 seasons.

One of the best measures for how valuable a player is to a team is the percentage of the salary cap that his contract makes up. With Matthews signing for only a modest $1.6M raise, as the cap rises, his cap percentage will shrink. If his play remains at a high level as this happens, the deal will become better and better for the Leafs.