William Karlsson made it official as he agreed to an eight-year, $47.2 million contract late Monday evening. This takes the restricted free agent off the market and locks him up until the age of 34. The signing officially happens mid-week.
Let’s dig into the new deal because there will be a few additional corrections to come later on Tuesday as details get confirmed.
The William Karlsson contract explained…
Again, contracts take a life of their own. The likelihood is that the deal involves some sort of signing bonus structure. However, that has not been confirmed as of yet. The pact involves a $5.9 million AAV which is a bargain given the marketplace lately.
One of the early wrinkles in the deal is not just the eight-year term. However, the modified no-trade clause kicks in after the first season. This means Karlsson can pick ten teams he does not want to go to.
Thanks to Jesse Granger for the early information.
It was clear from the beginning that William Karlsson like Vegas and Vegas liked Karlsson as well. This made the new contract that much easier on both sides. There was speculation of higher amounts coming out from media. Some numbers streamed in as high as $6.5 to even $7.5 million. That may have been what was there on the market.
For example, Evolving Wild projected the Karlsson AAV to be around $6.34 million. That is not too far off at all. As mentioned before, a restricted free agent is a bit different than what an unrestricted free agent may get paid. So, cap comparables can be a little disjointed.
What the William Karlsson contract means now and down the road
One of the biggest issues with the Karlsson deal was negotiating a deal around those salary cap issues. As it currently stands, Vegas is over the salary cap with a projected cap hit of just over $89 million. They are still less than 10% over the $81.5 million salary cap. However, their roster size is only 20. Vegas must make moves in order to get cap compliant by October.
At the very least, the trade of David Clarkson‘s contract and maybe Colin Miller are on the docket at some point this summer. Those will be costly as “sweeteners” will have to be used to entice teams to take on the Clarkson dollars especially.
The good news is that Vegas will have most of its core locked up and that includes Karlsson. Despite the drop in production for the forward last year, he showed the 40-goal season was not a complete fluke. Even strength was where the biggest drop-off was. Also, some projections have Karlsson bouncing back to around a 30 goal campaign in 2019-20.
This translates to a likely 30-30 season for the top-line center. Shot totals project out to around 2.2 to 2.3 per contest and a shooting percentage around 15-17%. Again, Karlsson enjoyed a PDO at even strength of 105 two seasons ago which dropped to 97.9 last year. It is why that bounce back feels inevitable.
Some last thoughts on William Karlsson
For the prime years of this contract, Karlsson should be okay. As a matter of fact, his game score was still a 79 despite the drop in production from his career season. Thanks again to Bill Comeau for the viz and chart.
The bigger concern features the back end of the deal as always. Uncertainty reigns as who will be left in Vegas in years 5-8. In the meantime, Vegas should, barring something unforeseen, be able to keep its top-six intact. This window for the Golden Knights is a short one.