It’s a Tuesday. It’s August. There is no major hockey news, unless you count the Leafs’ releasing their rookie camp roster (I don’t).

I got bored and was playing around on Cap Friendly, as one does. I wound up making a thing.

That thing is a spreadsheet that looks at the semi-recent contracts for all star (and just-below star) forwards have signed. It includes their age when they signed it, the amount of years, the AAV/cap hit, the percentage of the cap, and the 82-game season pace they had the year they signed their deal.

You can look at it here.

What I find interesting is looking at Matthews’ and Nylander’s deals in the context of other star players. Matthews, for example, has a lower percentage of the cap than Evgeni Malkin when he signed at the same age, also for 6 years. He signed for 1% of the cap more than Jack Eichel, but he also had a much better season offensively.

Nylander, meanwhile, signed for a slightly lower percentage of the cap than Pastrnak, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Johnny Gaudreau. He is slightly ahead of guys like Sean Monahan, Nate MacKinnon and Mark Scheifele. But you know what’s funny? The year before MacKinnon signed his now fantastic deal, his 82 game pace was 24 goals and 35 assists for 59 points. Nylander’s was 20 goals and 41 assists for 61 points.

Go ahead and look at it, play around with it, and see if you find a range you think Marner’s deal makes sense.

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AROUND THE HOCKEY WORLD

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From The Branches