Factoring In Carey Price's New Contract

Price

As I expected, Price signed a mid/long term contract with the Habs before Parise and Suter signed with their chosen team. The final term is 6.5M cap hit for 6 years for a total of 39M, which was within the rumors of a 35-40M deal for 6 years and is 200K more than my original estimate. This deal now ranks Carey Price the 3rd highest paid goaltender in the NHL in terms of cap hit, but 9th in terms of next year salary. The deal accounts for about 9.26% of next season's cap which is a bit more than what Fleury was given in terms of percentage, but much less than what Ward and Lundqvist got (I will investigate this matter further in another post). The deal  is back-end loaded which is really rare nowadays and is reminiscent of Carey Price's previous contract structure given by Pierre Gauthier.

https://twitter.com/reporterchris/status/219975782104182785

Subban

My next prediction is the following Subban will sign a 2-year deal before Parise and Suter sign with their chosen team. If Parise and Suter land in Montreal, Don Meehan would bleed Marc Bergevin for a big contract like he did with Dean Lombardi for Drew Doughty at the beginning of the season when it was very apparent that the Kings were aiming for the cup. Alternatively, if Parise and Suter sign in Montreal before Subban is signed, Don Meehan could aim for a 1 year contract in the hope Subban gets much better statistics next season on a much better team and then bleed even more the Habs afterwards. The problem with this approach is that Subban and Pacioretty's contract would be up at the exact same time at the end of next season and both would require major salary increases. The best scenario is indeed a two-year deal for Subban before a Parise/Suter signing.

I will now attemp to guess the value of Subban's next contract by inference. The maximum cap that a team cap have at any given time before the season starts is 110% the cap or 77.22M for now. Assuming the Habs sign both Parise and Suter for 7M cap hits and does not make any trade. The roster would look like this. 

Line-up
FORWARDS
Travis Moen ($1.850m) / Scott Gomez ($7.357m) / Brian Gionta ($5.000m)
Max Pacioretty ($1.625m) / Tomas Plekanec ($5.000m) / Erik Cole ($4.500m)
Zach Parise ($7.000m) / David Desharnais ($0.850m) / Rene Bourque ($3.333m)
Petteri Nokelainen ($0.575m) / Brandon Prust ($2.500m)
Colby Armstrong ($1.000m)
Ryan White ($0.688m)

DEFENSEMEN
Andrei Markov ($5.750m) / Tomas Kaberle ($4.250m)
Josh Gorges ($3.900m) / Alexei Emelin ($2.000m)
Francis Bouillon ($1.500m) / Yannick Weber ($0.850m)
Ryan Suter ($7.000m) /

GOALTENDERS
Carey Price ($6.500m)
Peter Budaj ($1.150m)
------
SALARY CAP: $70,200,000; CAP PAYROLL: $74,177,976
CAP SPACE (22-man roster):- $3,977,976
http://www.capgeek.com/cap-calculator/roster.php?id=10590

This roster is 3,977,976 over the cap. The max upper limit is 77.2M, which means Subban cap hit could be about 3.04M without the need to make any trade. If PK's contract is north of that amount, the Habs would have to first sign Subban, second trade away some cap hit (meaning the trade with Nashville) and then sign Parise/Suter. From here on, I will assume that PK's next contract has a cap hit of 3M.

For my dream team to still be viable, the secret card will need to be used: the bonus amount of Galchenyuk's ELC. As I have stated in my first article (in French), only 3 forwards that have been drafted in the top3 have signed ELC with a cap hit less than 3M: Van Riemsdyk (2th overall 2007) with 1.654M, Jordan Staal (2th overall 2006) with 2.2M and Bobby Ryan (2th overall 2005) with 1.921M. Only Jordan Staal made the team the season just after being drafted.These were 3 teams that were dealing the cap and not the floor like most teams that are drafting that high.

So, my dream team's roster would look like this: 

Dream line-up
FORWARDS
Zach Parise ($7.000m) / Tomas Plekanec ($5.000m) / Rick Nash ($7.800m)
Max Pacioretty ($1.625m) / Alex Galchenyuk ($2.600m) / Andrei Kostitsyn ($3.750m)
Sergei Kostitsyn ($2.500m) / Lars Eller ($1.600m) / Brian Gionta ($5.000m)
Travis Moen ($1.850m) / Petteri Nokelainen ($0.575m) / Ryan White ($0.688m)

DEFENSEMEN
Ryan Suter ($7.000m) / P.K. Subban ($3.000m)
Andrei Markov ($5.750m) / Josh Gorges ($3.900m)
Alexei Emelin ($2.000m) / Raphael Diaz ($0.900m)

GOALTENDERS
Carey Price ($6.500m)
Peter Budaj ($1.150m)
------
SALARY CAP: $70,200,000; CAP PAYROLL: $70,187,500
CAP SPACE (20-man roster): $12,500
http://www.capgeek.com/cap-calculator/roster.php?id=10592

There could even be a spot for a 7th defenseman like St-Denis at 900K if Galchenyuk is willing to accept a contract to an amount comparable to Van Riemsdyk's first contract. I am probably however understating Diaz's next contract here as he could probably make 1.5M.

I now leave you with the following Carey Price citation after his signing:

"It kind of made sense to me," Price said on a conference call from Williams Lake, B.C. "It will take me to until I'm 30 years old and generally that's about the peak of goaltenders, so I'm hoping by then to have a couple of Stanley Cups and have a good re-negotiation when I'm 30."