Montreal Canadiens winger Cole Caufield signed a massive contract extension earlier this week. It was one of the largest contracts ever signed by a Canadiens player and it says a lot about the young forward that it was pretty much unanimously heralded as a massive win for the team.
The eight-year contract extension with an annual cap hit of $7.85 million keeps the promising goal scorer in town for the entire duration of his prime. That alone is a win for the Canadiens, but they also avoided a few trends around the league that could have seen Caufield squeeze the team for even more dollars.
Just take a quick look at the Toronto Maple Leafs. Their top young players were able to get maximum value coming out of their entry-level contracts and it has hamstrung the team as they are constantly up against the salary cap and unable to build a roster that gets them over the hump.
Auston Matthews proved to be a 40-goal threat in his first three seasons, and scored just above a point-per-game before signing a monstrous $11.634 million annual salary on a five year contract. He has lived up to it as he continued to get better, but he is also eligible to be an unrestricted free agent next summer at the age of 26.
Mitch Marner signed a six-year extension after his three-year entry-level deal with a cap hit just shy of $11 million per year. He was coming off a 94 point season, and deserved a massive contract, but the Maple Leafs were not able to get maximum term and their star winger could be an unrestricted free agent in 2025 at the age of 28.
Caufield played just 46 games last season, but scored 26 goals and 36 points, putting him on pace for 46 goals and 64 points over a full season. Since Martin St. Louis was hired as the team’s head coach, Caufield has scored 48 goals and 71 points in 83 games proving he has the potential to be a 50 goal scorer. That’s important for a team like the Canadiens that constantly struggles to find enough offense.
Getting Caufield signed to a maximum term deal keeps him in Montreal until he is 30 years old, a time when players, especially forwards, tend to slow down. It is a lot easier to let a 30 year old free agent walk than a 28 year old like Marner. Losing Matthews at the age of 26 would be disastrous for the Maple Leafs.
Also, the Canadiens avoided a recent strategy a lot of top young players would use. While Matthews and Marner signed contracts that allows them to become UFAs at a young age, other top players signed even shorter deals, with huge salaries in the final year.
Take Alex Debrincat for example. He signed a three-year extension in 2020 that had a cap hit of $6.4 million. Not bad value for a player who was young and had a 41 goal season on his resume. However, he only earned $5.1 million in each of the first two seasons of that deal and made $9 million this past season.
Why is that significant? Well, he is a restricted free agent this offseason and the Senators have to extend a qualifying offer to keep his rights. That qualifying offer has to match this past season’s salary, and not the cap hit, so Debrincat now holds all the cards.
If the Senators don’t give him a qualifying offer, they lose his rights for nothing. If they do extend the qualifying offer, Debrincat can sign the one-year deal at $9 million and then choose to be an unrestricted free agent a year from now. According to Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun, the Senators are looking at the trade market for their young forward.
Timo Meier is in the same boat. He is an RFA, but he earned $10 million this past season so the New Jersey Devils either lose him for nothing or offer him a one-year extension at $10 million that walks him to UFA next summer.
Debrincat and Meier, as well as Patrik Laine and Matthew Tkachuk, who used this same strategy in the past, are eligible to sign long-term extensions at any time, but it would be hard to get a team-friendly deal when they have the option of taking a massive one-year deal and then walking to free agency.
Luckily for the Canadiens, Cole Caufield did not insist on either of these types of contracts. A bridge contract with a massive payout in the final year could have seen the Habs salary cap structure ruined in two or three years. A massive salary cap without the luxury of a maximum term would not have been great either as he could have been lost at too young of an age.
Clearly, Caufield wants to stick around Montreal long term and was not interested in playing games during negotiations.
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