Hello all and welcome back to the world's #1 destination for all things salary cap as it pertains to the NHL. Let's dive into some sophomores here, and specifically try to figure maybe what contract #2 is going to look like for them. For reference here, I think a fair amount of these players are going to end up near the Cole Caufield/Matt Boldy cap hit of roughly $7M AAV per season, as I thought that these players set the bar for the next group coming up. However, starting with a player that might just break that $7M threshold.

Connor Bedard – C/should be a wing on the PP what are you doing Hawks – Chicago – 19 years old

Contract: $2.85 (ELC) – $950K AAV – One year remaining

So, I'm going to go on a limb here and say that Connor Bedard is going to have some change coming his way here within the next year, and lucky for him the Hawks are going to have about $30M in total cap to work with here. I've read and seen that the closest comp to Bedard would be Auston Matthews, and while their play style is different, both shots are absolutely comparable. So why not, let's go with Matthews. Following Matthews' ELC, he signed a five-year $58M deal with a cap hit just north of $11M per season. That was coming off an ELC contract where he tallied in total 205 points with 69 in the first season. If we're following that path, Bedard had 61 points in his rookie campaign, and odds are he hits the 70-point mark if he didn't miss time with a broken jaw.

If Bedard stays close to the Matthews point total per season, I think there's reason that he gets to $10M per season (or more), and if I'm the Hawks I have to take a step back here and realize that almost nothing has gone right for my franchise outside of winning the Bedard draft lottery. For that reason, as he goes so does my franchise, so I think we see more term than Matthews did in his first contract coming out of his ELC. Matthews had an AAV of 14.2% of the cap in his first year with the new deal, so Bedard could end up around $13M per season.

For those in cap leagues, I salute you working to squeeze in whatever number Bedard lands on. I'll be right there with you in a couple seasons with Macklin Celebrini. For dynasty leagues if you drafted Bedard you have beach front property for the next 10 or so seasons.

Leo Carlsson – C – Anaheim – 19 years old

Contract: $2.85(ELC) – $950K AAV – One year remaining

Hi, hello! You've reached the Leo Carlsson fan club! In probably nine out of 10 drafts I would take Carlsson with the top pick, but obviously in his draft year you had Bedard out front. I weirdly watch a lot of Ducks hockey and, by eye test last season, Carlsson carried the puck into the zone so well for a rookie and was great at driving the play for them. I get it, it didn't really correlate to the win column, but still impressive for a rookie. I think he fits right below that Caufield/Boldy number that we referenced earlier, possibly around the number that his teammate Trevor Zergas signed (3 x $5.75M). Anaheim could have two excellent centers moving forward in Carlsson and Mason McTavish, who I liked most in his draft year in 2021.

For fantasy, Carlsson is going to be a mid-to-late-round pick until his point production improves but that's going to come with solid line mates as well as a better power play. In very large leagues I could see him on a roster, but for the most part here he'll be a late pick or waiver pick up here and there.

Matvei Michkov – RW – Philadelphia – 19 years old

Contract: $2.85 (ELC – $950K AAV – Two years remaining

I could have gone with Fantilli here to close out, but I actually wanted to give some notice here to Matvei Michkov. Admittedly, not a player I've been able to have much exposure too so far into his rookie campaign, what I have seen is extremely impressive. He's also a player with a very high ceiling and has very high roster numbers across most prominent fantasy platforms. What makes him unique here is that although he was in the same draft class as Bedard and Carlsson, his timeline is a year behind with playing in the KHL. This is a real wild card for me, because I could see him really opening up at a high dollar AAV or settling into the $7M AAV range. We have excellent prospect folks here at Dobber, and coming out of the draft, I know that we had some that projected him as a better pro than Bedard would be. That's not knocking Bedard's ceiling, but Michkov's could be that much higher.

For fantasy I rarely draft rookies, but this was the one player that I had in my queue when my league drafted back in September, only to have him get taken two picks ahead of me. Talent is tantalizing, if he's on your roster now you got in on the ground floor to what is already looking like a promising start.

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Salary Cap data from PuckPedia.com  

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