The Dallas Stars just announced a new contract for forward Tyler Seguin. How much will this affect the New Jersey Devils negotiations with Taylor Hall?
After a summer’s worth of negotiations, the Dallas Stars and Tyler Seguin agreed to a eight-year deal that has an average-annual value of $9.85 million. That’s a huge number for Seguin, who was the number two overall pick in the 2010 NHL Draft. The number one pick in that draft will be looking at this contract when his negotiations come up.
Taylor Hall can begin negotiations for his new contract on July 1st of next season. We have to imagine GM Ray Shero will attempt to make him a permanent part of the New Jersey Devils on that day. However, would Shero be willing to go close to, if not exceed $10 million dollars per season? That much has not been figured out yet.
Hall has to be intrigued by the Seguin contract. His draft mate doesn’t have an MVP on his resume. He has similar struggles making the playoffs with the Stars as Hall has during his career. Seguin was also traded for “issues in the locker room” or at least that’s how it is perceived by some. They have a lot of similarities. Except one.
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Seguin plays center and Hall plays wing. That’s a major difference in contract negotiations. It may not matter to the Devils, but when comparing Hall’s contract to the best at his position it looks much different than Seguin’s position. That may not work that way when the two sides talk, but it could come up if talks don’t go perfectly.
Players are getting creative with how they are setting up their contracts. Many of them are taking a full bonus year in 2020-21 because there’s a possibility of another lockout. Seguin’s contract is no different. He’s getting an $8 million signing bonus, the only year which has a bonus at all. After getting paid $13 million in three of the first four years, this evens out the cap hit.
Expect Hall to make a similar kind of move. He will make big money upfront for his most formidable years, then take a huge pay cut to even out the salary cap number. It’s a gamble since they may be making considerably less to put up good numbers, however it’s a guaranteed paycheck in case you get injured.
Basically, what Seguin’s contract did was make it much harder to get Hall to accept $9 million or less. Especially if Hall somehow repeats his last season numbers, he’s going to make around the same yearly value that Seguin gets. If the Devils don’t, another team will be happy to pay him north of $10 million. This contract does hurt the Devils, but only by a few hundred thousand dollars.