A little rich but he will produce more with the coaching change

I would have guessed $8.5m or $8.75m...so seems about right to me.

At least Lou waited for the announcement of the pending sharp team salary pay cap raise in the near future before spending this amount. Imagine a GM spending $40 + million on 4 players, which equals half the cap upper limit and what'd that do the team's future.

ahem.

He is in the same age range as those $40 guys and has played 5 to 10 more playoff games than them.

MB=49 games.
JT=44 games.
AM=39 games.
MM=39 games.
WN=39 games.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable deal to me.
I believe that people who have actually watched Islanders games since Barzal came in to the league tend to vote yes, to a greater extent than people who haven't watched him much, on this beeing a good contract.

Signing bonuses aren't exempt from escrow.

The only way a player is exempt from escrow is if they are assigned to the AHL.

Signing bonuses are buyout proof. Dissuading from a buyout is the main (but not only) reason players push for signing bonuses.

In the landscape of the NHL, the deal is too high, but people need to understand that level of importance to the team factors into deals. It's why Brady Tkachuk got what he did, and why Horvat is asking for quite a bit from the Canucks.

Ultimately, Barzal has lead the Islanders in scoring every full season of his career. Even if he has not reached the ceiling set in his rookie year, he has been their best offensive player. He is their biggest star. If he is on a team with a different makeup, where he is the 3rd or 4th star, he gets 8M not 9M. That is where level of importance factors in. Because he is the Islanders best and most important offensive star, he is in a position to get a premium.

I don't think it's a good contract, but letting Barzal walk would be much worse than overpaying by 1M per season to keep him. It's unlikely the contract will ever be that bad, especially with the cap going up. Unless people have some reason to project a major decline in Barzal's play, I wouldn't be too concerned.

People are over dramatic about contracts. Most contracts end up falling in the same ballpark, and just like there aren't that many steals, there aren't that many truly bad contracts. Usually, it's the player who was signed for 3.5M to be a veteran third liner who regresses to an AHL player that hurts teams more than the 70 point forward who maybe should have been paid 500k-1M less, but still brings a 1st liner performance.

There is a pretty clear understanding between the star players and the teams that the cap is going to shoot up over the next 3-4 seasons. We've seen the result, where roughly 8 million seems to be the new floor for stars. No star is signing long term for less, because they know the cap is going to go up big time, so there is more incentive than ever to take a shorter term deal. Teams aren't getting many discounts on stars right now because of that.

I don't know that I'd call this a bargain deal, but the fact that it's below his impending QO makes it a good deal at the very least in my book. Dylan Larkin must be licking his chops, and Pettersson must feel a sense of reassurance from this as well

At least Lou did something. Bit of an overpayment

Short term it's not great, but in 5 years when every comparable player is north of 10mil it'll look fine. Incredibly talented player, but he needs to put the puck in the back of the net. Dude started his career in 2017 and he hasn't scored 100 career goals yet

Huge overpayment!

Lambert was a Trotz assistant for 10 years so it's more likely he'll deploy a similar system to him than something new. If he still wants to anchor Barzal with Useless Winger #1 and Useless Winger #2, Barzal will struggle to pass 60 points.

It ends when he's 33 and Barzal is one of the most dynamic players in the NHL. Saying he's a 60 pt center is an insane statement that lacks context .

Barzals 82 game pace in his first 5 seasons

85
62
72
67
67

Barry Trotz rolled 4 lines and plays his bottom 6 more than any other team in the league. No one on the isles played 1st line minutes - Barzal also has never been on the ice at the end of the game with the opposing teams net empty, most teams top 6 centers bank 4-6 pts per season just from those situations. Barzal's points per 60 rates are better than a lot of centers who are considered elite.

Barzal has been a great 1C 4 out of the last 5 seasons and singlehandedly carried the isles to 2 straight ECF. This is a very fair deal.

Starts when he's 26 and ends a month after he turns 34

It's his age 33 season.

I guess they promoted him to do different stuff that Trotz did

Honestly it's a solid signing considering his QO is 10M. He could have just gone to arbitration and made more plus walk to FA in his mid 20s. A slight overpay is acceptable here to lock him up long term especially if the cap goes up.

I'm guessing the thumbs down are from toxic Leaf fans who are pro Dubas and anti Lou.

So Leaf fans > if Willy Nylander signs for $9 million x 8 years are you going to thumbs up it ?

YES of course.

This type of comment keeps coming up. We've seen him play and understand that his game is not simply boiled down to points. If he continues on as a .8 PPG player with diminishing defensive performance, it's not a reasonable AAV. Obviously. Now do I think he'll make good on it? Yes, I do. But do I think he's earned that AAV to this point? No, no I do not. It's hardly a radical stance.

Point: 310 points in 351 games
Barzal: 311 points in 362 games

Similar contract.

Fair, but I wasn't wrong

Too much money for a player who only hit a point-per-game pace once in their career. Worse still, that came several years ago.

You are the only person who has mentioned the Leafs ... In like 4 different posts.

The Leafs have destroyed you emotionally.

Fiala is not a better player than Barzal.

I'm not a huge Barzal fan; but he is a much more complete player than Fiala who is a 100-ft player and notoriously bad at defense; shows inconsistent effort, etc. (in short all the reasons he was traded from Nashville and why Minnesota didn't try too hard to keep him). Not even a comparison in any way shape or form.

I don't like this contract more because it shows how much more value there would have been signing him at a number like this a couple of years ago, since then you are only committed until age 32, but $9M isn't elite #1C money anymore, it's probably low end #1C money at this point, and players are expecting to be compensated for term with the heavy rumors of cap increases.

ik this has nothing to do with the leafs but I hope this doesn't affect Nylander's next contract