THE CONTRACT GAMES BEGIN
Negotiations should heat up soon with Finnish sniper Laine
Patrik Laine isn’t going anywhere — at least not for the foreseeable future.
But when a report from David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period suggested Laine would explore all of his options if the Winnipeg Jets don’t meet his contract demands, it got tongues wagging around these parts.
And for good reason.
The prospect of Laine — the elite sniper the Jets had been lacking before moving up to the second pick in the 2016 NHL Draft — possibly moving on after only three seasons in the fold should be cause for concern for the fan base.
But at least at this stage of the proceedings, this looks like a simple case of posturing from Laine’s camp.
A warning shot, if you will, out of the negotiating playbook.
That is not to suggest Laine’s camp isn’t serious about the Jets needing to hit their number, which Pagnotta suggested would be in the neighbourhood of US$10 million.
Of course, that’s a lot of money, but it was a number we raised last summer as a realistic possibility going into last season, with the expectation Laine would build on the 44 goals he scored as a second-year player and might hit 50 for the first time in his young career.
Since the Jets returned to Winnipeg in 2011 and hired Kevin Cheveldayoff to be the general manager, details of contract negotiations have been hard to come by — and that’s just how the organization wants it.
One of the few exceptions came in September 2016, when agent Kurt Overhardt made a public announcement that defenceman Jacob Trouba had asked for a trade.
If we learned anything about how the Jets handled that situation, it was that Cheveldayoff isn’t going to be bullied into making a trade just for the sake of it.
The same goes for how Cheveldayoff handled Evander Kane, who also made several trade requests before he was finally shipped to Buffalo in February 2015.
This isn’t to suggest that Laine is happy about the state of negotiations, which are expected to pick up in the coming weeks now that the NHL Draft Combine is in the rear view mirror.
And this isn’t to suggest that agent Mike Liut won’t explore all of his options — including an offer sheet — if the Jets don’t eventually raise their offer.
It’s Liut’s job to get the best deal for Laine and that includes checking out all available avenues.
But right now, it’s simply far too early to overreact and suggest the Jets and Laine have reached the point of no return.
Negotiations of this magnitude take time and both sides need to find numbers that are suitable when it comes to both contract and term.
For a franchise such as the Jets, handing out the first deal that could reach US$10 million per season isn’t a minor thing.
It’s a big number and it has long-reaching ramifications, there’s no doubt about that.
But it’s also the cost of doing business these days, even for young players with limited experience.
Many of those guys want to be paid on potential, not on what they’ve done so far.
In a short length of time, Laine has proven he can put the puck in the net with regularity.
With campaigns of 36, 44 and 30 goals, Laine became just the fourth player in NHL history to have three 30-plus goal seasons before the age of 21, joining Jimmy Carson, Jets 1.0 star Dale Hawerchuk and Wayne Gretzky. That’s pretty good company. Laine has 110 goals (including 44 on the power play) and 184 points in 237 NHL games, adding eight goals and 16 points in 23 games during the Stanley Cup playoffs.
He isn’t a one-man show and nobody is suggesting that he is or will be. But he is an extremely important cog, there’s no denying that.
Before Laine arrived on the scene, the Jets reached the playoffs once in five seasons and were promptly swept by Anaheim.
During the past three seasons, the Jets made the playoffs twice and recorded the first 11 post-season wins in franchise history, reaching the Western Conference final in 2018.
He’s a game-changer and it’s pretty safe to say Laine hasn’t reached his peak yet, much like most 21-year-olds.
He’s a driven individual and he wants to get better.
He wants to take home multiple Rocket Richard Trophies, but his primary focus has been on winning.
Laine is part of what many observers consider to be the most talented group of pending restricted free agents coming out of entry-level deals. The NHL landscape could change dramatically by the time most of these guys are signed.
That group also includes Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner, Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brayden Point and fellow Jets forward Kyle Connor, who has eclipsed 30 goals in each of his first two full NHL seasons.
Bridge deals for young stars are becoming far less common, with players pushing for long-term deals with a bigger dollar values attached.
The Maple Leafs got an important piece of business done late last season, inking 2016 first overall selection Auston Matthews to a five-year extension worth US$11.634 million per season.
That cap number has been praised and for good reason, but the bigger issue for Leafs GM Kyle Dubas and company is that Matthews signed for only five years instead of the maximum of eight.
While it’s certainly possible Matthews decides he wants to stick around Toronto at the end of the deal, there’s certainly some risk involved that the talented centre will choose to depart after only eight seasons in the fold — at the ripe age of 26.
Should the Jets consider a similar length of deal for Laine in order to try and keep the average annual value down?
You could make the argument that going five or six years instead of eight might help matters in the short term for the Jets.
It also carries a significant amount of risk for the Jets, as most bridge deals usually do.
I’ve said on several occasions that Laine might be best served if he takes a two-year bridge deal, gets back to scoring 40 or 50 goals and then really cashes in.
Right now, it seems like he’d like to skip that step and have the Jets show belief that he will become that player.
On the surface, it’s tough to argue that Laine is worth US$10 million per season right now.
But if you think the 30-goal season and not the 44-goal campaign is the outlier, to bet on Laine earning that money is the way to go.
It’s true that Laine is coming off his least productive NHL season, but there were a variety of factors that contributed to that.
Certainly he needs to take responsibility for some of those, as his lengthy dry spells came as a major surprise — especially after he exploded for 18 goals during the month of November.
His usage was also a factor, as he mostly played limited minutes on the top line with Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler.
But late in the season, Laine took a major step forward in terms of his all-around game.
His puck protection was better, his feet were moving and he did a better job of getting in on the forecheck and using his body to add a physical element to his game.
Nobody is asking Laine to abandon his best qualities, but by being more responsible defensively, it makes it a lot easier for head coach Paul Maurice to give him more ice time at five-on-five.
To get the most out of Laine, the Jets must either find a second-line centre who meshes well with him or simply commit to using him with Scheifele and Wheeler — to play him with the two best passers among the forward group.
Obviously, there are still parts of Laine’s game that need to be refined (including his goal-scoring at even strength), but he’s got the shot and release to be one of the most productive scorers of his generation.
Those players get paid top dollar and these days, that boatload of cash arrives much earlier than it did before.
Of course, it’s natural the Jets would prefer to pay Laine in the US$8 million-to-$9 million range.
After all, it’s the job of the GM to stretch dollars as far as possible, even on a team expected to remain near the ceiling on a salary cap that could reach US$83 million this season.
During a summer that is already going to be challenging, a lengthy contract stalemate with the Finnish forward is the last thing they need to endure.
It says here the Jets will avoid what the Maple Leafs couldn’t do with William Nylander and that Laine’s new contract gets done before training camp, closing the book on what could otherwise provide some serious drama.
During a summer that is already going to be challenging, a lengthy contract stalemate with the Finnish forward is the last thing they need to endure.