Why Zaitsev Contract Is Good for the Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs signed Nikita Zaitsev to a seven year contract that carries a $4..5 million dollar cap-hit.
While no transaction is going to (or needs to) receive unanimous praise, some of the criticisms of this deal are excellent and worth considering. Personally, I like it. I wrote about it here and called it a ‘great move.’
Now it might not be a great move. You don’t know how these things will work out, but from my perspective the rewards outweigh the risks. Some people don’t think so, and they raise some pretty good points, so let’s dig into them:
The Contract is Too Long
This is reasonable. Seven years is a long time and in the past long-term deals have come back to hurt teams. In the Salary Cap era, I wouldn’t be surprised if the math shows that good cap management is worth close to the same amount of wins as having Crosby, Price or Bergeron.
But the contract isn’t too long for one reason: You can always trade an NHL quality right-handed defenseman.
Clearly it is hard to get NHL quality right-handed shooting defensemen. This alone should calm the fears of anyone concerned with the length of the contract. If Zaitsev doesn’t fit into plans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, for whatever reason, down the road sometime, it’s highly likely that they can find another team to take a chance on him.
Since making the deal seven years long obviously lowers the annual cap hit, and since there is a close-to-zero chance the Leafs end up having to put Zaitsev in the minors and eat the cap-hit, I believe this objection has been overcome.
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2. He’s not Worth the Money and Won’t get Better
If you don’t give Zaitsev term, you have to pay more annually. That doesn’t really matter though if you don’t think he’s any good in the first place. But if that is your argument, what he’s getting annually is (b/c of inflation) the same as someone singing for $4 million two years ago. If you compare people in his range of salaries these are the players you get:
Goligoski $5.5
Fowler $4
Murphy $3.9
Ristolainen $5.5
Yandle $6.3
Demers $4.5
There are tons more, and Zaitsev isn’t by any means the best value, but he’s not close to the worst either. It’s obvious when you look at 36 points as a rookie and playing top-pairing, that he’d be in this range. You can’t really compare his stats in either GAR or points and say he isn’t worth $4.5 million per year.
Zaitsev isn’t the greatest defender and there are concerns with his game. Mainly, for virtually 100% of the roster, their possession rating goes down when paired with Zaitsev. This is not good.
However, it’s also understandable. His most common partner, by far, was Morgan Rielly and together they played some of the toughest minutes in the NHL this year. Rielly’s Corsi wasn’t much different away from Zaitsev, and that is by far the biggest sample size.
Zaitsev and the Toronto Maple Leafs
Yes it’s a concern that players were getting better away from him, but also, those players were getting less challenging matchups as well. I don’t put a lot of stock in QOC making a huge difference, but most players don’t play such exaggerated matchups. Those who do tend to be more established and have better/ more experienced players surrounding them.
While age twenty-five players almost always have maxed out and do not tend to get much better, it’s reasonable to consider that Zaisev will improve just by staying the same talent-wise, but improving his NHL experience level and being deployed in a more suitable manner going forward.
Should the Leafs add a player in the summer like Chris Tanev or Josh Manson, and should a current prospect (or Connor Carrick) develop into something good, Zaitsev, at $4.5 million is affordable basically anywhere in the lineup. He’ll move down the lineup and get improve because he’s being deployed in ways that make him more effective.
Basically, he’s worth the money now, there is reason to think he’ll get better, and given the rarity of quality at his position, there is almost no chance that the Toronto Maple Leafs ever get stuck with his contract.
It may not be the team-friendly steal that Gardiner, Kadri and JVR’s contract are, but it’s clearly a fair deal and one where the risk/reward is very reasonable.