BURNING BRIDGES

Mario Russo

Earlier this week, St. Louis Blues forward Jordan Kyrou inked an 8-year, 65 million dollar contract that will see the Toronto native make 8.125 million dollars per season. With the extension, Kryou joins fellow teammate Robert Thomas in being a valuable fragment of the future core the Blues wish to build around over the next several years.

Both Thomas and Kyrou’s respective contracts kick in at the start of the 2023-24 NHL season, but with the direction that the financial market is trending towards, these contracts could look like chum change before they even begin.

Over the last three months, teams from around the league have taken a firm grip on the amount of money they wish to fork out to what can only be labeled as some of the league’s “up and coming stars,” players that will hold ‘dominion’ within the hockey landscape for the foreseeable decade. Of course, when you make that kinda dough, fans should expect a show. Right?

As a result, team’s have set an eerie precedent within the market that they may soon live to regret. It’s simple: play your best season of hockey (or even a fraction of it for that matter), and our organization will make the next eight years of your life worth your while! And the most scary part about this plan rests in both the inexperienced and inconsistencies within some of these athletes.

After eclipsing the point-per-game mark for the first time in his young 4-year career, Jordan Kyrou was handed a maximum contract that will pay him handsomely over the next little while. Alongside the Blues forward, the Avalanche locked up a viable depth piece in Valeri Nichushkin who throughout his entire seven-year career, just surged to relevancy following a strong postseason campaign that earned himself a day with Lord Stanley.

Among the trio of athletes already mentioned, eight more players have inked max term contracts this past offseason, accumulating towards a whopping 87.125 million dollars. The spectrum in which the proven prosperity of these players rests on is even more obscene than the money itself. Jordan Kyrou is making just over a million dollars less than Matthew Tkachuk over the next eight years, and both of which have the same term as Sens forward Josh Norris.

It just doesn't make sense. What is deserving of the league’s most rewarding financial prize?

What was once money that got sparsely handed out to players capable of turning a franchise around, is now being guaranteed as a reward for a good season of play. The thinking however within the front offices around the league is only relatable to the housing market in the real world: Buy when it’s booming, cause it’ll boom a whole lot more.

It appears as though general managers are beginning to lock up more and more of their players earlier than what their original contracts suggest. Just last week, Pierre Dorian handed an eight-year contract to Tim Stutzle that will make the German forward 8.35 million dollars over that span. Stutzle’s contract however kicks in next season, and with him being in his final year of his entry level contract, Dorian and the Sens must see some ‘superstar-like’ point totals that will make this look like a steal of a deal.

That eerie precedent however still remains. Whenever a player is attached to a team for that long, the odds of them producing for the entirety of that term dwindles down with every passing season. In an era where eight-year contracts possess surefire talent (Auston Matthews, Cale Makar, ect.) that same term is handed out to an unproven and inconsistent supporting cast.

It’s this mixed bag of max term ‘goodies’ that is just so polarizing to look at, and will continuously shape the marketplace for years to come. With GM’s across the league constantly burning the bridge deal that once was the ticket to a player’s riches, organization’s are now set on going for it all and paying the risks as they come.