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Andrew Santillo had some thoughts last week in his Capped column on some of the new contracts, including MacKlin Celebrini's. I wanted to expand on those thoughts and offer some insight into the ripple effects we're likely to see around the league as a whole. With the $18.8 million deal, Celebrini effectively capped the top star players at $19 million for the next couple of years. There's no way a team can sign Quinn Hughes to more for next year, nor Matthew Schaefer, and probably not even Makar. Those three are extremely unlikely to end up over a $19 million AAV, though they will probably be close to it. 

Connor McDavid's next contract will likely reset that, but he's not eligible for an extension until next summer, as he has two years left on his deal, which means the bar probably won't be raised until the 2028-2029 season. 

The other main point to make with Celebrini's extension is noting the term of five years, and how he will be right in his prime as one of the top players in the league, set for UFA, and due a new contract. If the league keeps growing at a similar rate as the cap has been projected over the next couple of year, that it would likely be around $165 or $170 million for the 2032-2033 season where Celebrini's new contract would begin. If he's again looking for 16% of the cap on that contract, then we're talking in the range of $27 million per season. Take that in for a second. 

Now, for the 2032 season, we're still going to be running out the last few years of some of the recent longer-term deals signed, including Leon Draisaitl's last year at $14 million, Jackson Blake and Logan Stankoven at a combined $11.1 million with two years remaining, and the Habs with Juraj Slafkovsky (final year), Lane Hutson (two years remaining), and Ivan Demidov (three years remaining) signed for less than the $27 million Celebrini should be making. It's going to be a completely different fantasy landscape, with some fantasy leagues having their cap around the $200 million mark by that point. 

What the shorter term for Celebrini (and Connor Bedard) also does, is it shows that this is now the standard for how to treat star players, by allowing them to dictate the term in order to walk them to free agency if they don't like the amount being presented on the next extension. That means we're likely to see even less term on contracts, and we'll have far fewer of these deals that are fair value in years one and two, and then a bargain for the next five. If you're not planning ahead in Cap Leagues already, you're going to fall behind quickly. As for non-cap leagues, it probably means a bit more player movement, but not too much actionable in terms of changes in team management. 

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Rick Roos is looking for a few more mailbag questions to be answered in next week’s article. To get your questions to him, private message "rizzeedizzee" via the DobberHockey Forums or email [email protected] with "Roos Mailbag" as the subject line. No one does a deeper dive on your questions than Rick, and now is the time to get those keeper and draft questions in before it’s too late.

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Injury Ward is returning with a new voice in mid-August to give you the one-off pre-draft update on players and their offseason injuries/progressions. It will return full time in mid/late September in order to keep you fully in the know around training camp and through draft season, where every sliver of an advantage can be compounded the rest of the season. 

With that said, I do think it's worth highlighting a few of the fantasy-relevant injuries and a couple of those ripples that we may see as a result. 

Seth Jarvis being out for a few months to start the year as he recovers from shoulder surgery will open up a top-line spot either for Nikolaj Ehlers, or for Bradley Nadeau. It's going to be one of those two players, and it will depend on how Nadeau does in camp coupled with how much RBA wants to keep Ehlers on the third line as a gamebreaker there. Nadeau getting a foothold in the top-six could be huge for his season and his Calder chances. 

The Stars managing their cap in order to fit Tyler Seguin's money makes it obvious that he will be returning healthy for the start of the year, which is needed for the Stars as their offence has taken a hit recently. He has only player 47 games over the last two seasons though, pacing for a 50-point year in last year's 27 games. Outside of the top line, Roope Hintz, Tyler Seguin, and Matt Duchene make up the majority of the Stars' dynamism on offence, which makes the outlook for them this year a little less certain as they're all injury prone and on the wrong side of 30 (or at least in Hintz's case he will be before Christmas). 

The Wild have 15 games in the first 29 days of the season, which means that with Filip Gustavsson out until November recovering from his surgery, there will be plenty of volume for Jesper Wallstedt (who could tire out by mid-season) and Calvin Pickard, who was added as depth by the Wild likely because of this exact scenario. 

There was an outside chance that Alex Pietrangelo and/or Torey Krug made a comeback, but it doesn't seem there has been any indication of that for either player so far. All the best to them in their recovery and management. 

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See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky @alexdmaclean.