Sekeres and Price: Frank Seravalli when asked if he thinks more star players will start to consider shorter-term contracts like Auston Matthews did with his four-year deal at a $13.5 million, and would it make sense for Elias Pettersson?
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Matt Sekeres: “Answer me this, and Blake’s talking about this a lot these days, but the Austin Matthews deal and going shorter term, do you see that turning into a trend with star players? Get as much as they can and get out to make as much as he can on the next one. Is that a possibility here?
Seravalli: “It is possible and I think you can sort of see the idea of, for a player why that makes sense, right? Because the more times you can go to the bank, the more times you can cash in right theoretically. Especially when you’re of that elite nature. And you see the way that in typical non-pandemic years the cap sort of grows at a very steady and healthy four to 5% a year. It doesn’t take very long and a long-term deal for you to get left behind in terms of what the very top players in the league are making.
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So it kind of keeps you front and center right at the top of the pay scale. And I get it. But I think it’s all really individual preference and choice in that, at some point, you taking more and continuing to go, and I don’t want to frame it as the trough because look, like I am never going to knock a player for getting as much as he can. These guys should be making more than they are quite frankly, with how this league is structured and the cap.
That said that means you’re taking it out of someone else’s pocket on your team, because most teams are spending all the way to the cap and so they get that. And I also am of the mindset that look, if someone’s putting eight times 12 and a half for $100 million in front of you, which is probably pretty damn close to the range that we’d be talking in with Pettersen when it comes to an eight-year deal.
Is the difference between 100 over eight years and you know, eventually maybe getting to 120 if you do two five-year deals. Does that extra 20 million bucks change your life? Like easy for us to sit here and say because like hey I’ll take an extra 20 million bucks. I’ll just take like a 10th of that.
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But that said it kind of is like, as an agent always says to me, it just changes how big of a boat you can buy. And other than that, like that’s kind of it,”