Did a bit of a math / prediciton exercise related to the cap post-Sherwood signing

I've seen mostly positive vibes around the sub of the signing of Sherwood but some folks still concerned about Sherwood's contract aging poorly / becoming an anchor in the later years (including big pundits like Prof. Hockey and JD) so I decided to look at some comps, do a little math, and try to make some predictions about where we'll actually be in a few years when things may come to a head.

 

Important Assumptions:

1. The cap will continue to rise at ~$9M per year into the 28-29 season, leading to a $122M cap (we only know for sure the numbers until 27-28).

2. Past comps will continue to be more or less accurate in terms of the % of the total cap. First contract post-ELC will be used for all player comps

 

'27-'28 Season Extensions:

Macklin Celebrini -- Projection of $19M AAV (16.7% of cap)

Comps:

McDavid ($12.5M AAV, 16.67% of total Cap)

Crosby ($8.7M, 17.3% of total Cap)

 

Will Smith -- Projection of $10.9M AAV (9.6% of total Cap)

Comps:

Jack Hughes ($8M AAV, 9.82% of cap)

Cole Caufield ($7.85M AAV, 9.4% of cap)

Nick Suzuki ($7.875M AAV, 9.66% of cap)

 

'28-'29 Season Extensions:

Michael Misa -- Projection of $16.3M AAV (13.4% of cap)

Comps:

Evgeni Malkin ($8.7M AAV, 15.3% of cap)

Leon Draisaitl ($8.5M AAV, 11.3% of cap)

Jack Eichel ($10M AAV, 13.3% of cap)

 

Igor Chernyshov -- Projection $12M AAV (9.8% of cap)

Comps:

Jason Robertson ($7.75M AAV, 9.4% of cap)

Mikko Rantanen ($9.25M AAV, 11.35% of cap)

Andrei Svechnikov ($7.75M AAV, 9.5% of cap)

 

Sam Dickinson -- Projection $7.6M AAV (6.2% of AAV)

Comps (note these were both shorter bridge deals):

Hedman ($4M AAV, 6.22% of cap)

Noah Dobson ($4M AAV, 5.03% of cap)

 

Now, first I'll say that these are pretty generous contract assumtions, especially for the 28-29 guys, and they assume that these guys continue to develop to their max potential and get given long term deals.

If you add up the totals for all 5 players you get $65.75M which would be ~54% of the total cap. I took guesses at extensions for a handful more core players, or players that we know or think will still be around then (Asky $6M, Graf $5M, Sherwood at his $5.75M, Ekky will have one more year at $5.6M, Mukh at $3M, Ostapchuk $2.5M) and we have $28.4M left over to fill in 4 defensemen (+7th D), and 5 bottom 6 forwards or 4 bottom 6 fwds and 1 top 6 winger. (plus 13th fwd type). So that leaves ~$2.8M per player to fill in all that depth, which frankly isn't a lot, and probably negates our ability to sign any other bigger splash of a player (e.g. Nemec, Werenski, Raddysh, etc.). Not to mention resigning Ekky at that point.

 

Now maybe all of this is solved by just saying "well those contract values you listed above for the core players are way too high" but still... just putting some numbers out there for a more data-backed conversation.