Drew Doughty signed an eight-year, $88 million extension with the Los Angeles Kings over the weekend. Los Angeles keeps their core defensive piece in place. What does this all mean? What impact may it have down the road? Let’s take a look.
Drew Doughty contract explained
Again, thanks to CapFriendly, contracts are easier to dive into quickly. Doughty’s extension does not kick in until 2019-20. He will earn $7,000,000 for the 2018-19 campaign. Doughty negotiated this new deal with Rob Blake mostly by themselves. This quote from Helene Elliott:
Doughty regarding negotiating his own deal: ‘I was thinking about that for years.’ Said he knew $ and term and ‘it was kind of easy for me’ to represent himself. ‘Amount of money I saved doing the deal myself is ridiculous.’
The salary cap hit comes in at $11 million for the extension. However, the salary is just a bit different. Doughty will receive $20,000,000 in signing bonuses during the early portion of the deal. As a result, for the 2019-20 season, Doughty receives $10 million up front in the form of a bonus and $2 million in salary. That bonus drops to $2 million the next year with $8 million in salary. Consequently, the two years after feature a $4 million bonus with $7 million salary.
After that, Doughty just earns a straight $11 million for the remaining four years of the deal. Now, there are some wrinkles with this deal. For one, Doughty gets a no-movement clause for the first four years of the extension. Simply, a no-move means he cannot be moved, period. Doughty has the security he was desiring along with the commitment from Los Angeles. The final four years feature a modified no-trade clause. Doughty submits a list of teams in so many words. Unfortunately, the number of teams was unconfirmed at press time.
The extension and down that long and winding road
Doughty is currently 28years old. When the extension kicks in, he will be almost 30 (29 years, ten months). Every player does not age the same, but the defenseman will be 37 when his extension ends. The question becomes what happens to Los Angeles during this new deal.
Rob Blake preached a commitment to winning, but there is an aging core of at least a half-dozen players. How Blake surrounds Doughty with talent after most of the core leaves will be paramount.
No one quite knows when a decline or any decline of Doughty will occur. The prime is now. That presents a contentious debate as a prevailing feeling is the age of the team is an issue. The offense already was.
Ilya Kovalchuk signed with Los Angeles to help the top line on the power play and at even strength. Doughty felt the power play was disjointed because of a lack of half-wall presence. Furthermore, Los Angeles is not one of the fastest teams in the league, but Doughty moves the puck well.
Some final notes
Among other things, we can use visuals from Bill Comeau here to help. Doughty remains one of the best shot suppressors in the league (96th percentile). His game score is in the low 80’s as well. There are a lot of good numbers here. Age curves are a fickle thing. How these numbers regress is a great question. They may not right away which means a good value is likely for the first half of the contract. After that, it is a question.
He is a four-time Norris Trophy finalist. That is great, and all but again the extension ends at age 37. This must be emphasized. Doughty could start declining like Ryan Suter by age 33 or not.
Doughty’s ability to make quick decisions could temper any decline. It will be essential for Rob Blake to turn over the core and surrounding talent a few years into this extension. Finally, that will shelter Doughty’s inevitable decline and value decrease.