When it comes time to really think about our Season 13 budgets, it will be the GMs of many of the league’s top teams who will have the hardest thinking to do.
Oslo, Belfast, Copenhagen and Berlin all have two or more important players asking for significant pay raises because their Type 2 contracts will expire in the off season.
Take Oslo for example. The Outlaws are currently just under the league salary cap, and while the cap could go up, it won’t go up enough to comfortably fit the mega salaries that Connor McDavid and Zach Werenski will surely demand. General Manager Carl Choiniere will have to find a way to shave or trade $12 million or more. That might mean the end of the Outlaw road for Type 3 free agents like Martin Ruzicka, Vladimir Tarasenko, Kevin Shattenkirk and – god forbid – Tyler Seguin. Or Choiniere might trade some starters and roll the dice on this year’s farm club players like J.T. Compher and Christian Marti.
Similar dilemmas will materialize in Belfast, where Mitch Marner and Jaccob Slavin are just not going to say “OK, I’ll play another season for less than $1.4 million.” Goalie Niko Hovinen will also be asking for a couple million more. But crawling out from underneath a massive salary cap rock is a rite of passage in Northern Ireland. GM Chris Patton has pulled off similar magic tricks with regularity. He’s the master of this move.
Copenhagen will have to do some nipping and tucking to keep Auston Matthews in the city. His $1.8 million pact is set to expire. So is the $5.5 million deal defenseman Seth Jones signed, but GM Martin Sayle should be able to keep them without much difficulty, thanks in part to an option he has on Matthews’ linemate Johnny Gaudreau.
In Berlin, the best Type 2 free agents already had hefty salaries, so keeping them won’t be a stretch for GM Guybrush Threepwood. Where the veteran GM might feel a squeeze is down the forward depth chart a bit where Anthony Beauvillier, Timo Meier and Ryan Hartman all have contracts of $1.1 million or less about to expire.
Lisbon will be fun to watch in the off season. Legends John Tavares and Steven Stamkos can leave town if they want to, as can fellow Type 3 free agents-to-be Drew Doughty, Dmitry Orlov, Sami Vatanen and Tyson Barrie – all 4 of whom are defensemen. On top of that, goalie Juuse Saros will demand much, much more than the $865,625 he was paid in Season 12.
Here are some other star Type 2 free agents who could ask for pay raises (current salary in parentheses):
- Minsk – Maxim Chudinov ($8.3 million)
- Bern – Mark Stone ($5 million) and Sebastien Aho ($1.45 million)
- Zurich – Alexander Polunin ($2.5 million) and Jacob Trouba ($5.7 million)
- Prague – Alexander Galchenyuk ($6 million)
- Paris – Ivan Provorov ($1.75 million)
- Dublin – Hampus Lindholm ($5.2 million)
- Milan – Matthew Tkachuk ($1.4 million)
- Vienna – Nikolaj Ehlers ($1.4 million)
Some general managers have already gotten past this step by renegotiating contracts during the season. Helsinki’s Jukka Tuominen, for example, agreed to increase Kyle Connor’s contract from $1.15 million to $5.6 million in Season 13; and Nerius Alisauskas’ from $5.1 million to $8 million. Munich GM Jared Smith did the same with star Filip Forsberg ($6.3 to 7.4 million).
