What’s a Jarvis going for nowadays?

Despite the drama involving Martin Necas this offseason, the biggest contract concern the Carolina Hurricanes are looking at has to do with their breakout winger Seth Jarvis. Charismatic and entertaining in a league filled with generic player robots, Jarvis has quickly endeared himself to the Hurricanes fanbase, but his entry-level contract is up this offseason, and both the team and the fans seem to want to secure him for the long term with an eight year contract — the longest currently allowed by the collective bargaining agreement. But what might that contract look like? Buckle in — it’s going to get statistical.

To start, understand that an 8 year deal in today’s NHL is relatively uncommon — of the around 1500 or so NHL contracts currently active, only 93 (around 6%) are for eight years or more, including the two that wouldn’t be allowed in today’s CBA — Sidney Crosby’s 12 year deal, and Shea Weber’s 14-year-deal (yes, we’re still counting that.) If you further limit that to a player Jarvis’ age, the sample size gets even more miniscule with 16 eight-year contracts beginning when a player was age 23 or younger (Jarvis turned 22 February 1st.) In those 16 contracts, the average cap hit is $8,146,563, with the highest being Connor McDavid’s $12.5 million, and the lowest being Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s $4.82 million.

If you take out the Kotkaniemi outlier, the next lowest cap hit is Clayton Keller, who signed an eight-year, $57.2 million deal with the team formally known as the Arizona Coyotes back in 2019, for a cap hit of $7.15 million per season. Anyone hoping the Canes can get a Keller-like bargain should understand that Keller was coming off a 47 point season the year prior (after a 23 goal, 42 assist rookie season), so the Yotes were buying low, so to speak.

Jarvis isn’t coming off a down season — quite the contrary, as Jarvis put up a 33 goal, 67 point campaign, which was second only to Sebastian Aho in scoring, while setting career highs in minutes and even garnering Selke award votes. If the Hurricanes could have predicted this breakout the year prior, they probably could have signed Jarvis as a more affordable rate, but they didn’t, so here we are.

When trying to find a comparison, we can stick with the beforementioned 16 contracts because all but one of them were in the same negotiating space that Jarvis is in right now. Jarvis is a restricted free agent coming off his entry level contract, so he doesn’t have arbitration rights, which doesn’t give him a lot of leverage; he can sign a contract that the Canes give him, he can hold out and just not play hockey (and not make money), or he can go play overseas. His situation differs from another Hurricanes restricted free agent, Martin Necas, who has arbitration rights and has a hearing scheduled for August 4th. There, Necas has more leverage, because if he and the Hurricanes can’t come to an agreement before that date, some judge will assign him a salary that is out of the team’s control. Could be $4 million. Could be $7 million! The goal is to never let that happen.

Anyway, back to Jarvis and his comparables. As I said earlier, 16 players are currently signed to eight-year contracts that were scheduled to start around the same age (22) that Jarvis will be when he starts the 2024–25 season:

Cole Caufield, Montreal
Thomas Chabot, Ottawa
Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton
Jack Eichel, Vegas (signed by Buffalo)
Aaron Ekblad, Florida
Miro Heiskanen, Dallas
Jack Hughes, New Jersey
Clayton Keller, Arizona
Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Carolina
Connor McDavid, Edmonton
Joshua Norris, Ottawa
Jake Sanderson, Ottawa
Juraj Slafkovský, Montreal*
Tim Stützle, Ottawa
Nick Suzuki, Montreal
Andrei Svechnikov, Carolina
*Slafkovský’s contract doesn’t start until the 2025–26 season

So let’s eliminate a few of these right off the bat. While great players are great players regardless of the position, it’s difficult to fairly compare forwards and defensemen without a lot more detail than I want to get into here, so that eliminates Chabot, Ekblad, Heiskanen, and Sanderson. That brings us to 12. Then, with all due respect to Seth Jarvis, he’s not an iconic top 3 face of the franchise pick like McDavid, Eichel, or even Draisaitl were, so we’ll take them off, and Kotkaniemi gets wiped off too, because that was just a weird situation all around, so we’re left with eight comparables:

Cole Caufield, Montreal
Jack Hughes, New Jersey
Clayton Keller, Arizona
Joshua Norris, Ottawa
Juraj Slafkovský, Montreal
Tim Stützle, Ottawa
Nick Suzuki, Montreal
Andrei Svechnikov, Carolina

The AAVs for these contracts range from $7.15 million (Keller) to $8.35 million (Stützle), so it’s safe to assume Jarvis’ contract AAV will come in at least at $7.15 million, but as we mentioned earlier Keller was coming off a weaker season, so let’s bump that floor to the next lowest number, $7.6 million (Slafkovský). Slafkovský is kind of a lottery ticket himself, with the 2022 #1 overall pick putting together a 20–30–50 line last year after going 4–6–10 in 39 games as an 18-year-old his rookie season that had some whispering “bust”. If we boost that up even more, the next highest AAV is Jarvis’ teammate, Andrei Svechnikov.

The amount of hot takes about Andrei Svechnikov’s value could fuel a farming village in upper Saskatchewan for several harsh winters, but he’s been a little under a point per game player the last three seasons, and was at a 0.76 PPG clip the season before he signed his $62 million extension in the summer of 2021. Is Jarvis a better player than Svechnikov? Last season he was, showing a two-way play element that Svechnikov, who isn’t necessarily a defensive liability, lacks, but if you look at both players age 19 and 20 seasons, Svechnikov was a better player. Svechnikov’s contract was easy to give — any long term contract with Jarvis is going to carry more of a risk, with his breakout only really coming last season. Is 30+ goals/60+ points just getting started, or was it the perfect storm for the 40 point player he was the previous two seasons? Any contract is going to have that question associated with it — the same one that’s hanging over Martin Necas negotiations.

But that season. Jarvis’ 67 points in the 2023–24 season is more than any of those other eight players scored before signing their eight-year deals. The two players with the closest seasons — Joshua Norris (55 points in 66 games in 2021–22, signed for $7.95 million AAV) and Tim Stützle (58 points in 79 games in 2021–22, signed for $8.35 million AAV) — are two different types of players that have taken two different paths. Norris, who had scored 35 goals in 66 games before signing his extension, has played only 58 games the last two seasons and has had two shoulder surgeries during that time. Stützle, more of a playmaker than a goalscorer, broke out with a 90 point season after signing his deal before coming back to earth a bit last season, scoring 18 goals and 70 points. If Stützle can replicate even close to that 39 goal, 90 point season, his $8.35 million cap hit will be a steal. As it is, it’s the cost of a 70 point player, which Jarvis basically is.

Perhaps the best comparable to the type of player Jarvis is now (or at least what he showed last season) in this group is Nick Suzuki. Suzuki signed for a $7.875 AAV coming off the shortened 2020–21 season, putting up almost identical numbers to Svechnikov. Suzuki, like Stützle, is more of a playmaker than a goalscorer, averaging 0.9 goals per 60 and 2.4 points per 60, versus Jarvis’ 1.3 goals per 60 and 2.6 points per 60, but Suzuki is a two way center, which adds a little bonus to his value. Suzuki has broken 60 points in each of the three seasons since signing the deal, operating as Montreal’s #1 center, most recently breaking the 30 goal barrier in a 33 goal/77 point season in 2023–24. I’d assume Montreal is happy with that contract.

So what AAV is fair for an eight-year deal for Seth Jarvis? If we pull Svechnikov’s, Stützle’s and Suzuki’s AAV and average them, we’re looking at about $8 million AAV ($7,991,667 if you want to get nitpicky), which sounds fair, and along the lines of what’s been rumored for Jarvis. But that number isn’t 100% accurate. Suzuki and Svechnikov signed their contracts three years ago, and Stützle’s contract is two years old. The salary cap has changed since then. Just like your elders telling you movies were a nickel back in nineteen-dickity two, dollar values for contracts meant more in the past. Andrei Svechnikov’s $7.75 million AAV is 8.81% of the salary cap now, but in 2021 was 9.51% of the cap. Nick Suzuki’s $7.875 million AAV was 9.55% of the 2022 cap, while Tim Stützle’s $8.35 million was 10% of the 2023 cap. Average those percentages and you get I’m sure a Jarvis approved 9.69% (nice) of the 2024 cap, which comes out to $8,527,200.

Is Seth Jarvis worth an $8.5 million AAV? The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn and Shayna Goldman attempt to place a market value based on what a player consistently playing at that level would command on the open market. Their model showed Jarvis’ season valued at $10.5 million, so assuming Jarvis continues to replicate his 2023–24 season or even improve on it, $8.5 million will still be a great value. To get him at $8 million (9.09% of the cap) could be close to a Clayton Keller-sized steal.