Multiple reports from the likes of Bob McKenzie of TSN and NBCSN, Jeremy White of WGR 550, and Die By The Blade’s own Chad DeDominicis suggest that the Buffalo Sabres and Jeff Skinner may be close to finalizing a deal in the eight-year $72 million ($9 million/year) range, give or take half a million dollars.
That’s a lot of money! But if we step back and look at standard operating procedure around the league for players with similar outputs as Jeff Skinner, I don’t think that cap hit is as outrageous as it initially sounds.
Since the 2010/2011 season, Skinner’s rookie campaign, Jeff is fifth in the NHL in even strength goal scoring with 191 goals, trailing only Alex Ovechkin, John Tavares, Patrick Kane, and Steven Stamkos.
Earlier today I laid out a mini thread on twitter showing the cap hit percentage, at the time of signing their contract, of the top 50 goal scorers (27+ Goals) in 2018/2019 on a Standard (non-ELC) contract. In this case, the average cap hit percentage for these 50 players is 9.07%.
Top 50 Goal Scorers on Standard Contracts
| PLAYER | CAP HIT % | GOALS |
|---|---|---|
| AVERAGE | 9.07% | 34.08 |
| 1. Alex Ovechkin | 16.80% | 51 |
| 2. Leon Draisaitl | 11.30% | 50 |
| 3. John Tavares | 13.80% | 47 |
| 4. Steven Stamkos | 11.60% | 45 |
| 5. Patrick Kane | 15.20% | 44 |
| 6. Nikita Kucherov | 6.50% | 41 |
| 7. Cam Atkinson | 7.80% | 41 |
| 8. Nathan MacKinnon | 8.60% | 41 |
| 9. Connor McDavid | 16.70% | 41 |
| 10. Jeff Skinner | 9.50% | 40 |
| 11. Joe Pavelski | 9.30% | 38 |
| 12. Mark Scheifele | 8.40% | 38 |
| 13. David Pastrnak | 8.90% | 38 |
| 14. Johnny Gaudreau | 9.20% | 36 |
| 15. Brad Marchand | 8.40% | 36 |
| 16. Mike Hoffman | 7.10% | 36 |
| 17. Tomas Hertl | 7.10% | 35 |
| 18. Jonathan Toews | 15.20% | 35 |
| 19. Sidney Crosby | 14.50% | 35 |
| 20. Aleksander Barkov | 8.10% | 35 |
| 21. Sean Monahan | 8.70% | 34 |
| 22. Gabriel Landeskog | 8.70% | 34 |
| 23. Viktor Arvidsson | 5.70% | 34 |
| 24. Tyler Seguin | 9.60% | 33 |
| 25. Vladimir Tarasenko | 10.30% | 33 |
| 26. Sean Couturier | 6.10% | 33 |
| 27. Mark Stone | 9.20% | 33 |
| 28. Brendan Gallagher | 5.40% | 33 |
| 29. Dylan Larkin | 7.70% | 32 |
| 30. Patrice Bergeron | 10.70% | 32 |
| 31. Matt Duchene | 9.30% | 31 |
| 32. Mika Zibanejad | 7.10% | 30 |
| 33. Andreas Athanasiou | 3.80% | 30 |
| 34. Jonathan Huberdeau | 8.10% | 30 |
| 35. Evander Kane | 9.30% | 30 |
| 36. Alexander Radulov | 8.30% | 29 |
| 37. Tyler Johnson | 6.70% | 29 |
| 38. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | 9.30% | 28 |
| 39. Filip Forsberg | 8.20% | 28 |
| 40. Ryan O’Reilly | 10.50% | 28 |
| 41. Jack Eichel | 13.30% | 28 |
| 42. Evgeni Dadonov | 5.30% | 28 |
| 43. Chris Kreider | 6.30% | 28 |
| 44. Artemi Panarin | 8.20% | 28 |
| 45. Anders Lee | 5.30% | 28 |
| 46. Max Domi | 4.20% | 28 |
| 47. Zach Parise | 12.60% | 28 |
| 48. Kyle Palmieri | 6.40% | 27 |
| 49. Logan Couture | 9.30% | 27 |
| 50. Elias Lindholm | 6.10% | 27 |
One issue with this output is that many of the players in the top 50 signed their contracts as restricted free agents, meaning the team signing them had more leverage during negotiations, likely driving down their cap hit a bit on the average.
So I went back and compiled a list of every player who scored at least 25 goals and signed their current contract as an unrestricted free agent. 19 players fit this criteria and had an average cap hit of 10.58%
25+ Goal UFA Cap Hit%
| PLAYER | CAP HIT % | GOALS |
|---|---|---|
| AVERAGE | 10.58% | 33 |
| 1. John Tavares | 13.80% | 47 |
| 2. Steven Stamkos | 11.60% | 45 |
| 3. Patrick Kane | 15.20% | 44 |
| 4. Cam Atkinson | 7.80% | 41 |
| 5. Joe Pavelski | 9.30% | 38 |
| 6. Brad Marchand | 8.40% | 36 |
| 7. Jonathan Toews | 15.20% | 35 |
| 8. Sidney Crosby | 14.50% | 35 |
| 9. Patrice Bergeron | 10.70% | 32 |
| 10. Evander Kane | 9.30% | 30 |
| 11. Alexander Radulov | 8.30% | 29 |
| 12. Ryan O’Reilly | 10.50% | 28 |
| 13. Evgeni Dadonov | 5.30% | 28 |
| 14. Zach Parise | 12.60% | 28 |
| 15. James van Riemsdyk | 8.80% | 27 |
| 16. Phil Kessel | 12.40% | 27 |
| 17. Jamie Benn | 13.00% | 27 |
| 18. T.J. Oshie | 7.70% | 25 |
| 19. Jonathan Marchessault | 6.70% | 25 |
Cap Hit percentage isn’t a perfect science, especially given the low sample size to work with and significant outliers like Brad Marchand signing for 8.4% of the cap despite coming off a 39 goal season is a massive, and fortunate, underpayment by the Bruins, but it helps give us a picture of an acceptable range for a player of Jeff Skinner’s talent level.
If Skinner does in fact sign for $9 million per year, based on an $83 million salary cap for the 19/20 season, he would come in at 10.8% of the cap. That is certainly slightly above average and it would be great if Jason Botterill were able to get that number a bit lower, but I think we can safely say it’s not a significant overpay and not worth fretting over.
Teams rarely regret signing actually good players to sizable contracts even if their cap hit looks big and scary. The big mistakes happen when you sign $3 million players to $5.5 million contracts because a player at that level is likely replaceable by a player on an ELC or a tertiary free agent looking for an opportunity to prove himself.
Skinner isn’t an easily replaceable player and is someone worth paying a touch extra for in order to make sure you have him on your team.
I suggest we all take Andy Meyer’s advice to heart.
Life’s too short to worry about the Salary Cap in five years.
— Andrew Meyer (@AndrewEdits) August 28, 2018