It’s one thing to acknowledge the abstract thought that it would be expensive to re-sign Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd and Jacob Trouba. Getting a more concrete idea of the possible costs is downright jarring.
The Winnipeg Free Press cites “league and player sources” in placing their combined starting asking prices at a whopping $152 million.
(Take a moment to read the full article, it’s absolutely worthwhile ...)
Update: For what it’s worth, Trouba’s agent denies this report.
It would break down as such:
Byfuglien: $55 million over eight years ($6.875 million cap hit)
Ladd: $41 million, six years ($6.833M cap hit)
Trouba: $56 million, eight years ($7M cap hit)
Here’s a quick way of looking at the raises that would come from these asking prices.
Ladd asking for raise from $4.4m cap hit to $6.8; Buff $5.2m to $6.875; Trouba $832k to $7m ... starting points. https://t.co/x7bjlzIfP1
— Brian Hedger (@BrianHedger) December 14, 2015
More on the cap impact
When you break down that $152 million into yearly chunks, it’s all a bit more digestible, yet it’s also clear that the Jets would be forced to make enormous decisions about their long-term future here.
If they were to agree to those terms, it would mean a cap hit of about $20 million for those three players.
Looking at Cap Friendly’s estimate of $43.07 million for the Jets’ current 2016-17 cap hit, that would put Winnipeg to more than $63.07 million for just 19 players.
Risk and reward
Byfuglien is 30 right now and would be 31 before that potential extension kicks in. Andrew Ladd just turned 30 himself. Trouba’s the baby of the bunch at 21, though that means there’s also a little more mystery to his ceiling.
(Winnipeg only needs to look to Tyler Myers’ troubles to see that not every blue chip blueliner justifies a huge raise.)
For a team that’s currently ranked second-to-last in the Central Division, that can’t be an easy rush of information to digest.
Conversely, for a team that struggles to attract free agents to Winnipeg, it might be tough to stomach the departure of key players who still have some years of quality play in them (or potential for even bigger things in the case of Trouba).
So, what would you do if you were Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff? For an executive who draws criticism for perceived inaction, he has some serious work to do during the next several months.