TSN: Darren Dreger and Ray Ferraro discuss Toronto Maple Leafs pending UFA forward John Tavares, and what his next contract could look like.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Dreger: “So it also looks like he has a few good years left, right? He’s 34, just turned 34 not that long ago. You can’t insult him with an offer, but you also recognize you can’t pay him anywhere near $11 million.
So what is fair, based on everything that you know about John Tavares right now. What do you think is a fair, non-insulting contract term, money for Tavares?”
Ferraro: “Well, if, since I’m the GM.”
Dreger: “Yes you are.”
Ferraro: “I say, well, we’re not going to talk until June, because we don’t have to. What if, like, and there’s zero indication of this, what if John scores three goals in the second half of the year. Like at at age you start to, I would start to think about it.”
Dreger: “Okay.”
Ferraro: “And I guess, I, there’s a couple things at play here. One is, he’s not a free agent, per se, because they’re already paying him $11 million a year. It’s not like they have to find money to pay him. They’re actually going to save money on the cap by whatever they’re going to pay him. So I think that’s.
I think that’s one determination that gets, you know, that gets missed this, I hear a lot of ‘Oh yeah, but they’re gonna have to, they’re gonna have to find this money on the cap.’ No they’ve already accounted for it. It’s whether it’s gonna be $6 million or $8 million, or whatever it’s gonna be.
Second part is, I think I would go to him and say, ‘John, you’ll never play a game for somebody else, but I can only give you a two year contract.’ And that my, my hope is that I’ve built up enough trust that I could give him an example like the late Tim Wakefield that played with the Boston Red Sox. He signed, I think, 12 straight one-year contracts, and he said, and they told him, you’re never going to pitch anywhere else.
And so if I’m giving John $8 million for two years, I’m a hell of a lot more comfortable than 8 million for four.”
Dreger: “Okay.”
Ferraro: “And, and, but the thing is, in two years, he’s coming. I would want to build an outline. We think you’ve got X number of years left at the level that you’re at. And I can, I can pay you for two years right now. If you want four, I can’t go four.”
Dreger: “Yeah, and you have to have the combo, right? So, you know, Marner is also an unrestricted free agent. So you know, if you can get those two guys in and around 21 mill. I mean, depending on the term of the Tavares.”
Ferraro: “But, but yeah, the term, honestly, it’s not the dollars that really concern me, because I think in most cases, the player and the team would come, like Tavares and the Leafs would come to an understanding of what that dollar figure would look like. I think that’s I think they can get to that.
And I think in most cases, teams can get to the money. It’s the term that, and you can’t, you can’t bypass that and say, oh, yeah, I’m not going to worry about, everyone says the last year of the contract. What if it’s the last three years of the contract.”
Dreger: “Agreed. Yeah.”
Ferraro: “Like, what if you’re stuck with an albatross and it’s, again, it’s not specific to John, it’s specific to anybody that’s 35, 36, 37. The game’s not getting slower.”
Dreger: “Yeah.”
Ferraro: “The one, one thing I will say about John, I’ve been super impressed this year about the, the consistency of his game. Like he seems to be getting around the ice a little more freely.”
Dreger: “He does.”
Ferraro: “And that’s, that’s the whole part of my concern. It’s never his dedication. It’s never his ability to shoot the puck or to want to score. It’s never that. To me it’s as he gets older, is he going to be able to move around the ice. And right now, damn, it looks like he can. And he’s had a great, he’s had a great year.”