Welcome back my CapFriendlies and happy All-Star Break to those who celebrate. I think the All-Star break is a good time to look back on some signings that took place all the way back, long ago, in the offseason. It feels like it was years ago, but we're talking July-August. Ah yes, back during a time where we all saw the sun more than four times a month and we could make speculations on different signings and extensions. It may be early on some of these newly inked contracts, but let's see so far how a few of them have aged.

Troy Terry – RW – Anaheim – 26 years old
Contract: $7M – six years remaining – M-NTC to begin 2025-26

GP          G             A             PTS         PPP        TOI         PPTOI    SOG       HIT         BKS

47           15           22           37           10           18:25     2:46        118         7              15

Alright so maybe this signing didn't make the top headlines on SportsNet, but I do think that there's real value here for Troy Terry. Last season when he went on his point streak it was clear that this was a player that could contribute offensively, and I think this contract has so far aged well.

The Ducks came into this season with plenty of cap space and if you all remember it was Troy Terry, Trevor Zegras, and Jamie Drysdale as their big question marks as to how much each would sign for. Now, I had thought that they would try and get a deal in place for their leading scorer Trevor Zegras first this past offseason, then move on to Terry and Drysdale, which if you can all remember, the opposite took place. We're not going to get into the weeds here on Zegras and Drysdale, but for Terry who seemingly signed right away, I think so far this has been a win for the Ducks. He's a player that could potentially be part of the next group of good young players that are either on their way or on the club right now, and offensively he's been good for them. Although he hit a bit of slow patch in SOGs back in mid-November, he has been excellent as of late with eight points in his last five games.

This is still Anaheim, a club that takes a ton of penalties where sometimes good offensive players have no choice but to start a rush in the defensive zone, but just looking at Terry as a one-off, I think this was a good decision for the Ducks. I think if he can keep his SOG/60 around eight for the rest of the season than he should be around a 70-point player.


Vladimir Tarasenko – RW – Ottawa – 32 years old
Contract: $5M – Upcoming UFA – NTC

GP          G             A             PTS         PPP        TOI         PPTOI    SOG       HIT         BKS

45           13           20           33           6              15:50     2:23        89           35           19

Alright so this a tough one here. One the one hand, this was only a one-year contract, but on the other I think there's a combination of good and bad that have so far come with signing Vladimir Tarasenko. I'd say let's create a pros and cons list, but I feel like those never really help too much and I'd trust that Ottawa at least had a meeting on this contract before it was offered. One can hope.

I'll start off by saying that I don't really mind the signing here, but it's the timing and just what Tarasenko was always going to bring to this club that made me scratch my head. Let's start with timing. Tarasenko signed on July 27^th and if you remember there was a flurry of potential landing spots for him then everything sort of went quiet for a time before all of a sudden, the Sens came with the announcement of Tarasenko signing a one-year $5M deal. My initial thought, honestly, was who exactly where they bidding against? If Tarasenko took that long to sign and was available for all clubs that had the means to offer a contract, then to me 20-something clubs probably said "pass", then the Sens come in and seemingly outbid everyone…or nobody at all. That aspect I didn't really understand but I do think when you sign a player in free agency there's always a 'sticker tax', if you will. Maybe this was fair market value or maybe it was a slight overpay, that still is something I go back and forth on when it comes to Tarasenko, the defense is an issue, but 10 multi-point games and the offensive help is valuable.

The hockey aspect of it though I have been a skeptic on. Tarasenko can still drive play and we've seen that at a high level as much as two seasons go, but the defense that he brings (or lack thereof) was what I really did not see going well for this Ottawa club, especially as he spent the majority of the first four weeks of the season across from Dominik Kubalik. For one season, sure I guess in the end I think it's fine, but I think to really get value here you have to deploy Tarasenko the right way, and that's on a line that might trade chances back and forth.

Anze Kopitar – C– Los Angeles – 36 years old
Contract: $10M – Last year remaining before a two-year $14M ($7M AAV per season) – NMC

GP          G             A             PTS         PPP        TOI         PPTOI    SOG       HIT         BKS

48           15           26           41           14           19:33     3:21        89           17           42

I just want to give the Kings and Anze Koitar a shout out here as this was an extension that took place sort of under the radar, as Kopitar and the Kings came to a 2-year contract extension not long after free agency started, signing on July 7^th. I don't know if I'm alone on this, but sometimes an older player signs and it's just fun to go onto their player page on and go through their career stats. For Kopitar outside of having an outstanding career up to this point, this extension wasn't one where the Kings wanted a 'victory lap', so-to-speak, for one last run, Anze has been very productive on both ends of the ice.

Kopitar has ended the season at or around 70 points in each of the past four season and if he remains healthy this season, I don't see him falling short of that number again here. He's still excellent to have in fantasy as your center on a given night providing 2.7 PTS/60 while centering the Kings top power play unit. All around great contract but what I also like about this extension is the no-move clause that's built into it for the duration. Notice, this isn't a no-trade, it's a no-move and this is something that once upon a time the Bruins did with Zdeno Chara. If things were to go south for the Kings and Kopitar has value, then the club could possibly look to move him. While I really don't see this happening even with the Kings on sort of a down period right now, it is something to note.  

Tristan Jarry – G – Pittsburgh – 28 years old
Contract: $5.37M – Four years remaining – M-NTC

GP          W           GAA       SV%       QS%       SO

32         13          2.53        0.913     56.3        5

My initial thought when this signing took place was like when you type in a webpage wrong, and you get 404 bad request response. It made no sense to me but the more I look into it, the more it makes sense while thus far maybe not aging as well as Pittsburgh would have hoped.

I've said it here and on Looking Ahead before, but I just felt that last season the Pens looked to Casey DeSmith more often than not when Jarry was either struggling or while he was playing well. That may have been by design while he was playing well to allow time for rest, but they were quick to look to DeSmith when Jarry would struggle. Earlier this season was no different as the Penguins had given Alex Nedjelkovic a string of starts while Jarry sat on the bench. Not what you want from your newly signed goaltender, but let's just take a step back and look at the goaltending landscape so far this season.

Besides a multitude of injuries around the league, we've had goaltenders at or around Jarry's AAV that have been down to the AHL, on waivers, or sent out there night after night to give up four goals on 24 shots. Sure, Jarry at times hasn't been stellar, but at times this season has been excellent. He had a stretch in early November where he won four games in a row posting a shutout in two of those games, and more recently had good outings against Seattle on January 15^th and Vancouver on the 11^th (even though he earned the OTL in that matchup).

Plus let's take a step back and look at this contract, this season Jarry has the 12^th highest cap hit and is still under the age of 30. If I'm Pittsburgh over the summer and I'm just looking at my options that were out there, then I think they settled on the right one in Jarry at his current number. This is one contract that I think could have the potential to age well in the coming seasons.

*Salary Cap data from CapFriendly.com

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