Ranking the offseason's biggest contracts by value delivered
From Celebrini's record-setting extension to Blue Jackets role players avoiding arbitration, here's how this summer's biggest deals stack up.
Not every big number this offseason means the same thing. Some contracts bought a franchise cornerstone. Others bought cap certainty on a supporting piece. Ranking them by what each team actually got for its money tells a clearer story than the raw dollar figures.
1. Macklin Celebrini, Sharks: 5 years, $94M
Celebrini’s $18.8M AAV briefly made him the highest-paid player in the NHL. He backed it up with 115 points, 45 of them goals, as San Jose jumped from 52 to 86 points last season. The Sharks still missed the playoffs, tying for ninth in the West, but locking a 115-point, 20-year-old producer into a five-year term before the market moved further is the best value-for-term contract of the summer.
2. Connor Bedard, Blackhawks: 5 years, $75M
Bedard’s extension secures Chicago’s rebuild centerpiece long-term, and the $15M AAV looks reasonable next to Celebrini’s number. The complication is short-term: shoulder surgery keeps him out to start the season, and Chicago allowed 3.60 xGA/60 with him on the ice last year regardless. The long-term value is strong. The immediate return is delayed.
3. Ville Koivunen, Penguins: 8 years, $32M
An eight-year term on a $4M AAV is a bet on cost certainty over a full prime rather than a star-level swing. If Koivunen’s role grows, Pittsburgh has him at a below-market number for most of the deal. If it does not, the term is long enough to become a problem.
4. Jet Greaves, Cole Sillinger and Collin Graf: arbitration-avoidance tier
Columbus locked up Sillinger for three years and $13.875M and goaltender Jet Greaves for three years and $15M, both short-term deals that buy the Blue Jackets flexibility rather than long-term certainty. San Jose’s three-year, $12.75M deal with Collin Graf, coming off 21 goals and 25 assists in 81 games, fits the same mold: reasonable money on a player still proving his level, not a bet on stardom.
The Celebrini and Bedard deals are the two that actually reshape their franchises. Everything else this summer was a team managing its cap sheet, not making a statement.
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