Debating DeBrincat's Future with the Senators
It was only a matter of time before Alex DeBrincat’s production normalized.
With eight goals and 21 points in his last 17 games, the winger is finally capitalizing on his chances and helping to mitigate an uncharacteristically slow start to his season.
So, what better time for the fans and media to hold a referendum on whether it is in the team’s best interests to sign the winger to a long-term extension.
The only reasons for the Senators to consider trading Alex DeBrincat are if: 1) he’s unwilling to sign a contract extension and would prefer to play elsewhere; or 2) his salary demands are so egregious that they do not fit within the context of the team’s future budgets.
Jason York’s tweet emphasizes this latter point and he’s not the only one to share that opinion. It’s getting a ton of play on social media of late, but it tends to focus on an unfounded idea that a DeBrincat extension is going to be prohibitively expensive.
Including this season, DeBrincat has two years left of team control on his contract while earning $9.0 million in real dollars in the last year of his three-year contract extension that he signed in 2019. As an impending restricted free agent, his qualifying offer must match the $9.0 million that he’s earning this season.
This belief that DeBrincat’s next deal has to match or exceed this figure is unfounded. For all we know, the figure and average annual value (AAV) could fall below that number and fall in line with what the rest of Ottawa’s other young forwards are commanding. As it currently stands, the most expensive contract Ottawa has on the books is Tim Stützle’s eight-year contract that carries an AAV of $8.35 million. Brady Tkachuk’s deal clocks in just under that number at $8.205 million.
If DeBrincat likes this market and sees a young core that he would like to be a part of, it would not seem out of the realm of possibilities to see a prospective extension land closer to what Stützle and Tkachuk are earning on their long-term deals.
For the Senators to balk at the money it would take to re-sign DeBrincat or consider ways to reallocate his salary to address other areas of need would be incredibly weird. Considering how the organization dealt for a then 24-year-old two-time who had two 40-goal seasons already under his belt, the chances of him signing some ridiculously team-friendly contract were unrealistic. If there were any concerns about the potential complications and strains put on the Senators’ cap situation by a prospective DeBrincat extension, that trade never gets done in the first place.
Unfortunately, too many lazy parallels are drawn to the Toronto Maple Leafs when it comes to outlining the risks of committing too much salary and creating a top-heavy lineup. The Leafs have almost $40 million in average annual salary committed to their four highest-paid forwards whose contracts all end by the conclusion of the 2025-26 season. Without a prospective DeBrincat extension, Ottawa’s five highest-paid forwards combined to earn a hair under $36 million in AAV in 2023-24. If DeBrincat brings in $8.0 to $8.5 million on his next deal, you’re looking at Ottawa’s top two lines earning approximately $44 million.
That is not an egregious sum of money for that collection of talent and with the likelihood of the cap ceiling continuing to increase over the next few years, that number will only look better with time. In the interim, things could get tight — which would put a tremendous amount of pressure on management to make the most of the team’s limited resources and cap space.
Things would be made much easier if the Senators had a wealth of entry-level contracts belonging to prospects who were on the verge of becoming impactful NHL regulars, but most of these players have already graduated to the parent roster. With the exception of Ridly Greig, there is not a safely projectable high-upside player in Belleville. Although there is time for players like Lassi Thomson and Jacob Bernard-Docker to develop into legitimate NHLers, both players turn 23 years old in 2023 and have multiple professional seasons under their belts. The longer it takes for these players to develop into NHL regulars, the odds of them becoming more than players who can simply do more than eat NHL minutes diminishes.
If Ottawa’s internal options prove to be lacking, finding and using external solutions additions is the alternative.
And by the same token, if the Senators were looking to reallocate DeBrincat’s money, it is really easy to simply state that the money owed to the forward can be better spent on a top-four defenceman while adding future assets to the system. It is a much more difficult thing to see realized.
If the Senators were going to move DeBrincat, how many markets could realistically afford sending an excellent, young and controllable defenceman for the forward? Would many be willing to attach prospects and draft picks to sweeten the offer? Considering that the Senators gave up a top-10 draft selection plus second and third-round picks to acquire DeBrincat, the cost to move him should be substantial.
It could be a really limited market with the Senators being best served by waiting until the summer for it to expand. Or maybe not. Without there being any guarantee that DeBrincat would be willing to sign a contract extension, DeBrincat could be viewed by teams as a 2023-24 rental. If he intends to test the unrestricted free agent market, that could hamper the return further.
Not to mention that if the Senators move DeBrincat, they would have to go about replacing some of that offence. Barring some scenario where the Senators move up in the draft lottery, there simply aren’t any internal candidates who can even come close to replacing DeBrincat’s offence now or in the near future. By moving him to address the team’s biggest weakness, it creates another hole of its own. Knowing that Claude Giroux only has two years left beyond this one, perhaps that puts more pressure on the Senators to get a deal done with DeBrincat to help bolster their top-six past the next two seasons.
Giroux’s commitment to this city and the Senators is obvious. It is clear that he made a conscious decision to return and play for his hometown team. This is something the Senators can leverage in their next round of contract negotiations. If the organization is worried about cap space, perhaps there can be some optimism that Giroux will follow Patrice Bergeron’s lead and take a heavily discounted contract to ensure the team has enough resources to build a strong team around him. If that winds up happening, that could free up enough money to offset whatever increase in DeBrincat winds up getting on his AAV.
The only two young players who should realistically be expected to command significantly more money than their ELCs currently allow are Jake Sanderson and Shane Pinto. With Pinto being a restricted free agent at the end of this season, he has not produced at a level yet to demand a ton of money and given that he has Josh Norris and Stützle ahead of him on the depth chart, he may never command the kind of immediate money that would ever really jeopardize the Senators’ cap situation.
Jake Sanderson is obviously a significant asset who will cost the Senators a substantial amount of money down the road. To this point, the offence has not necessarily been there and if that continues, it could help keep his cost low. If his offence eventually plays up, his next contract could be sizeable. Fortunately, if the Senators’ cap situation does require some maneouvering, all of the team’s young players are at an age and affordable enough for another team to desire.
Assuming the Senators can avoid the pitfalls of handing out expensive contracts to unnecessary veteran players, which admittedly has been a significant problem during the Pierre Dorion era, fitting an Alex DeBrincat extension in can be manageable.
Other News and Notes:
Artyom Zub was skating alongside Thomas Chabot at practice yesterday morning. Coupled with news that Dillon Heatherington had been returned to Belleville, the popular right defenceman will make his return to the lineup tonight against the Red Wings.
TSN’s Mark Masters has a nice article up highlighting the importance of Senators prospect Zack Ostapchuk to Canada’s World Junior team.