The QO does not mean it’s a floor for next AAV unless you are talking 1-year deals.

Yeah. Probably. ESPECIALLY with the anticipation of the cap ceiling shooting up the following year, and ESPECIALLY if he has a great 22-23 season. Guys like him and Cat will be attempting to get ahead of the curve so. In a few years, 9 and 10 million dollar contracts will be pretty standard.

I can almost guarantee Cat gets at least $9M in his next contract and there is no reason for him to command anything less than the maximum term of 8 years.

I was worried about the deal when I saw 4 years...figured it walked him right to UFA status but clearly I was wrong. I always thought after your 7th pro year you turn UFA...can anyone be a gem and explain it to me?!

Age 27 or after 7 pro seasons.

Robertson has had two pro seasons. Add four and it gets him to final year of RFA.

thank. god. thank god. all you people acting like hes going to be traded i knew from the beginning that he never wanted too much money. this way he REMAINS AN RFA. thank you nill

Good thing about CapFriendly is that you can clink on CBA FAQ in top bar and search UFA. Voilà now you now why.

I thought Robertson had 3 pro season though...one spent majority in the AHL, and now 2 in the NHL which is 3. Or is it only NHL pro seasons that count?

He may get $9 million. But the QA amount does not lock in a floor for him (or anyone).

Barzal had $10m QO and signed for $9.15m
Boeser had $7.5m OQ and signed for $6.65m
Kotkaniemi has $6.1m QO and signed for $4.82m

He could accept any number he wants over the league minimum and under the league maximum. But what a QO does is says he has THE RIGHT to walk away and become a UFA if they don't offer him a minimum of $9M aav, no matter the term involved. They do retain his negotiating rights if they offer him one year at $9M, but that doesn't mean he has to accept it. Arbitration would give him $9M and if they didn't he would probably end up on a 1 year contract and become a UFA in the summer of 2024... Unless he really wants to take a discount and stay in OTT, which, no offense to OTT, but I doubt that is appealing to him.

Lol, yes I am aware thank you Still didn't make sense though, it seems as though he should qualify for UFA status based off of how I interpreted it...

AHL season can accumulate towards Group 6 UFA, but not towards Group 3 UFA

This is what I was missing, THANK YOU! Makes sense!

It all depends on negotiating power. And DeBrincat and his agent have plenty of negotiating power. They would easily get a $9M aav on the open market. Kotkaniemi is a special case and you know it, but nice try. Boeser hasn't performed and doesn't have the negotiating power to test free agency. Barzal is a great player, but he got overpaid. But he has played his entire career for NYI and has stated over and over that he does not intend to leave. Cat has no attachment to OTT, can score 40 goals a season, and is well within his rights to walk away from OTT if they don't give him $9m... So why wouldn't he at least test free agency if they can't give him that much?

Right. Some often believe QO amount is a hard floor, meaning that player's next salary cannot go below that figure. I was misreading your earlier statement as following that misconception.

In DeBrincat's case, he should get close to $9m. Although Ottawa has not been shy lately in paying their guys.

For sure. But if you run an OTT ACGM for next season, it is going to be VERY difficult for them to give him that without moving some bodies out and/or others taking some serious discounts and/or them sacrificing the future (with OTT) of other young players in their system.

Obviously this is an excellent deal in that he's a 9mil+ forward making less than 8, but I'm voting no because they will end up regretting not finding the room to lock him up long term.

It might have been what is best for both sides. I disagree. This was best for Robertson. He gets to put the the clamps on Dallas when the cap is 100m. Stars should have moved Doby and got 8 years.

What it isn't is "the best contract ever". Stars fans making wild posts all over this site over a bridge deal as if they had never seen one.

Don't mean to crap on a good thing for the stars. Robertson in the lineup is certainly that

At the end of the day, this was the best deal in current circumstances that didn't require doing other moves. We can go back and forth in debating which was the better deal for Dallas or Robertson himself between four or eight year deals, but as a fan I'm still very satisfied of the outcome.

I shudder to think what would've happened if Klingberg had accepted the 8 year, $56M deal DAL reportedly offered him (which his agent snubbed, leading him to getting fired afterwards).

Which honestly isn't a horrible contract at all for the stars. the Benn contract is the issue. Seguin also needs to return to form to make his contract palatable.

Personally I think 8x10m would have been a solid contract both ways. Robertson is locjed up for his most productive years (23-31) no chance of him walking in his prime or demanding a crazy deal that carries him till 35.

When I first saw this deal, I thought it was great value, but figured Dallas had to sacrifice locking Robertson up for as short a term as possible, but then I realized he's still an RFA at the end of the deal, and while that QO is a bit higher, it's not nearly the jump from his AAV that Meier's is, and realistically he's had a comparable start to guys like Marner and Rantanen, so the $9.3M AAV wouldn't have been a big stretch today if he had that deal, so this is a massive win for Dallas.

acgmers forget about the flat cap

And im just happy that we got Connor for 7.1 and Ehlers for 6....

if this is all it took why did it take so long? this could have been done before training camp easily.

Notable that with the rules changed for QO's in the new CBA, it's not necessarily equal to the salary in the last season of the contract. It's the lower of either 120% of the AAV for the deal and the amount earned in the final season. Of course that doesn't matter in this case, because the salary in the final year of the contract is exactly equal to 120% of the AAV for the deal, so his QO will have to be $9.3M (assuming he's not re-signed ahead of time).