The NHL free agency period will open on July 1, and NHL teams will be tempted to sign blue-chip free agents who become available. The allure of acquiring top-tier talent through a big-money contract can be irresistible, and while the Kraken’s options might be limited this offseason, they will still need to weigh the risks and future contributions of signing one of these top available players. The critical question remains: is spending a substantial portion of the salary cap on one superstar truly worth it?
In this post, we will delve into the intricacies of high-value contracts in NHL free agency, examining the criteria that define such deals, evaluating the pre- and post-signing performance of marquee players, and analyzing whether these investments typically yield the desired returns.
Definition for “spending big” on a blue-chip free agent
To evaluate the performance of blue-chip free agents, we need to define and isolate players who signed big contracts in free agency. For this exercise, we are going to exclude restricted free agents and contract extensions. Because the salary cap upper limit changes from year to year, we are focusing on any contracts that account for over eight percent of a team’s salary cap for the following season. Eight percent is somewhat arbitrary, but we need to cut it off somewhere, and when evaluating the details, this seemed about right.
Contract term length is a very important aspect of evaluating the risk, value, and success of a contract, but to keep it simple, we are excluding it from our analysis.
The blue-chip cohort
Since 2011, there have been 40 contracts signed for 8 percent or more of the subsequent season’s upper limit of the salary cap. The position breakdown is 26 forwards, 12 defensemen, and two goalies. With only two goalies in the sample, we are going to exclude them from the analysis. The two goalies were Ryan Miller ($6M/year in 2015) and Sergei Bobrovsky ($10M/year in 2020).
Pre- and post-contract signing
Evaluating player performance goes well beyond goals and assists, but the big-ticket free agents, particularly the forwards, tend to be the highest scorers. For the sake of simplicity, we are just going to look at points and goals by position over a three-year period before and after the contract is signed.
Forwards
Here is a look at the 26 forwards who signed big free-agency deals and their average points per game in the three years prior to and after signing the contract.
As the chart shows, there is a drop of 12 percent in the first and second seasons, and a drop of 24 percent in the third season after signing the contract. We see a similar drop when looking at average goals per game.
We are starting to see a theme, but surely some of these contracts work out, don’t they? Here is a breakout of the details by player.
Yikes. Only three of the 26 contracts signed by forwards saw an increase in points per game in the three years after the contract was signed.
Defensemen
Now let’s turn our attention to the defense. Here is a look at the points per game of the 12 defensemen who signed big free-agency deals since 2011.
Interestingly, there is an increase in production in the second and third seasons after signing the contract. My theory is that a defenseman jumping to a new team will play more conservatively in the first year with that new team as he learns to play in a different system with new teammates. In seasons two and three, he starts to get more comfortable, and the coach might also give him more responsibility and playing time.
Regardless of the reason for the increase in years two and three, defensemen still see declines in the three years after signing their free agent contract.
Note: Because defensive goal scoring is more rare, we won’t be looking at the goals-per-game comparison.
Evaluation considerations
Depending on the expectations of the team signing the big-ticket player, going after the top free agents on the market can be a decision with diminishing returns. The simple analysis only evaluates the three years after signing, but most big free-agent signings end up being for longer terms of six or seven years. The average term length of the signings I looked at was 5.6 years. It is probably stating the obvious, but the data doesn’t look any better if I widen the period of analysis.
As mentioned above, points and goals per game are not the only metrics to consider when evaluating the impact of a free-agent signing. It should also be noted that any time a player changes teams, there is an adjustment period of adapting to new teammates and coaching styles that might result in a slight drop in production.
As challenging as the outlook might be for signing big free agents, many of the signings still add something to their new team that was probably missing from their roster. For example, the Kraken need to add goals to their lineup. In a scenario where the Kraken sign Sam Reinhart this offseason, even if he sees a drop of 20 percent in goal production over the prior three seasons, that still adds 32 goals to the roster.
What are your thoughts? Should the Kraken throw caution to the wind and go for one of the big free agents that will hit the market this offseason?