The Athletic’s Max Bultman posted a mailbag feature this morning, and the first question he answers involves the time that it’s taking for the Red Wings to sign restricted free agents Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider to long-term contract extensions:
In my view, the biggest reason they have yet to be completed is because of their importance: If Seider and Raymond sign long-term, their new deals (along with Dylan Larkin’s contract, which runs through 2031) will form the long-term foundation of Detroit’s cap structure. From Seider and Raymond’s perspective, such deals would cover the majority of their prime earning years.
Both sides need to try to maximize the potential value of a long-term deal. As with any contract, it’s hard for both parties to do that at the same time.
Another potential reason it’s taking this long involves the effects of the rising salary cap — this year and the expected rises in the future. It’s easy to see the potential for wide discrepancies between team and player on what a fair deal should look like in this new market, especially one that could stretch up to eight years, with the potential for seven new cap raises in that span. Using percent-of-cap adjustments helps to mitigate that in Year 1, but there’s still some potential for sticker shock on the team side, compared to what Seider and Raymond’s peers have signed for in the past few years.
Detroit will get deals done with both players. But the big question at this stage is whether it leads to a bridge for Seider and Raymond. I wouldn’t recommend that route with Raymond, as his production seems the likeliest to shoot up again, but it would involve less long-term guesswork for all parties.
Continued (paywall); if I may be blunt, the Red Wings are negotiating against some pretty dumb $10+ million-average deals that other young players have been awarded by teams like the Sabres, and those “comparables” are definitely tying up some time in terms of negotiating more realistic cap numbers for Raymond and Seider.
