By Jacob Saltiel, Special to All Habs Hockey Magazine
MONTREAL, QC. — On Monday, P.K. Subban was named the NHL’s second star for the month of March and, presumably, it was the same day that his agent finalized his retirement plans.
A couple of short months ago when Marc Bergevin won the contract stare-down with Subban and his agent, many praised the GM for getting a strong defenceman with upside signed to a comparatively humble contract number. Now, that victory looks pyrrhic. Whenever Bergevin gets around to renegotiating with Subban and his agent, the starting point won’t be a strong defensive defenceman with above-average offensive production in the mid-30’s a season, but an elite defencemen offensively and defensively.
In light of this , here’s a list of possible demands from Subban:
- Eight year contract.
- Minimum $8M/year, frontloaded.
- No-movement clause.
- Private Hummerzine, Bergevin to drive Pernell to all practices, home games, and Buonanotte.
- Canadiens-coloured Apache chopper for Pernell to arrive at away games through the roof, Alex Kovalev to pilot.
- To be referred to solely by the title of “His Majesty The Subbanator”, with Subbanator to officially appear on the back of his jersey.
- The return of the triple-low-five, and any other celebrations Subban can think up over the next eight years.
Blowing Up
None of the above demands are beyond the realm of possibility if only Subban will ask. Reports indicate that he isn’t shy, either.
If you’re Bergevin, this should make you nervous. The leverage he had over Subban prior to the season was that Subban had not made a leap forward yet. Comparisons to Erik Karlsson in contract negotiations ($6.5m/season, 7 years) were unpersuasive given the difference in scoring between the two. Today and moving forward in his career Subban may prove capable of not just keeping pace with Karlsson, but outscoring him, with none of the negative perceptions about being a poor defensive player or hitter.
After a productive march (18 points in 14 games), Subban is almost at a point a game pace for the shortened season-though he plays fewer minutes than other defenders ranked near him on the scoring by defencemen list. Only two defencemen have a point more than him for the season. Kris Letang has played the same amount of games for the offensively murderous Penguins. Ryan Suter plays nearly five minutes more per game than Subban and has played six more games. However you watch him this week, whether on TV, Radio, over the internet or live, live, live from Flambeau Field, you may well be watching the NHL’s top offensive defenceman putting on a show.
And when it comes time to re-negotiate, the Canadiens will and should pay for this.
Living With Consequences
As a fan, the impending appearance of what’ll look like a numerical misprint on the Habs CapGeek page shouldn’t be a cause for alarm. Where Pernell was a penalty-taking machine last year, this year he draws the exact same amount of penalties while taking nearly half as many. This area of improvement combined with Subban’s usual lockdown defense means that Subban might be a top-5 defender in the NHL at the age of 23. As a defencemen capable of playing heavy minutes and all three zones, Subban might be worth more than Ryan Getzlaf or Corey Perry, and at this point is at least as valuable as Karlsson, all of which is disturbing if you have to negotiate a contract with him.
He might be the second coming of Chris Chelios given his rare combination of offence, defence, and smarmy nastiness. Unlike Chelios, the Canadiens should do whatever they can to keep him. Bergevin might have made a more aggressive offer early to get Subban on a bargain at five or six million or season, but now will have to sign him for whatever he wants- and that’s a good thing. And if Bergevin won’t, someone else will, and good luck to Bergevin if he thinks he can get anything approaching equal value for this type of player.
Should have done it in the first place. ie, We told you so, Bergevin….
PK is still RFA when this contract is up, leaving him with the same options as this past contract negotiation. He will be signed for karlsson money but nothing more. Bergy did the right thing.
Subban’s options will be slightly different when this contract is up.
1) If he performs at this level next year, he’ll have more leverage as an elite player, and the Karlsson comparison is the starting point of the negotiation.
and
2) Because of the structure of the 2 year deal Bergevin offered him, even if he’s simply qualified as a restricted free agent, that cap number increases.
and
3) Where Subban couldn’t necessarily afford to avoid signing a contract for too long, next time he’d be crazy to risk getting injured on a below-value contract as a favour to Canadiens management. Much more likely he sticks to this contract demands at the expense of games played when he’s gunning for and deserving elite-player money.
Bergevin’s options at the next juncture have also changed, and for the worse. Where before he might have made an aggressive longterm (6, 7, 8 years?) offer at a comparatively low number (5, or even 5.5m/season) that Subban and his agent might have accepted*, the chances of the Canadiens receiving a bargain (I’m not sure Pacioretty’s agent mentions the 6 years, 4.5m/season on his CV) have disappeared. The point is to buy as many years of Subban’s free agency as possible ahead of time so that his cap hit doesn’t run wild. Much harder to do now.
*who knows what their demands actually were?
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