So Are The Dallas Stars Stupid Or Are They Really Not Just Handing A Blank Check To Tyler Seguin?
When the Dallas Stars traded for Tyler Seguin on July 4th, 2013 it was like somebody making a trade for a steak dinner and all they had to do was give up a few egg salad sandwiches to make it happen. Seguin was shipped down to Dallas for Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith, Joe Morrow and Matt Fraser. Don’t get me wrong. Egg salad can be good at times but it sure as shit ain’t steak. And when you look at the Boston Bruins organization right now, you’ll see that they’ve already ran out of their egg salad. Meanwhile, Tyler Seguin has put up at least 70 points in all 5 years he’s been with the Stars so far. He put up a career high 84 points in 2013-14, then had 77, 73, 72 and 78 since. You can’t buy that level of consistency, but getting it for only $5.75M a year is a goddamn joke.
And that’s what Tyler Seguin has been making for the past 5 years when he signed a 6-year, $34.5M contract with the Bruins a year before getting traded right after the 2013 Stanley Cup Final. So in these past 5 of the 6 years he’s been under this contract, he’s put up a total of 384 points. His current cap hit is comparable to guys like TJ Oshie, James Neal, Jeff Skinner, and Dustin Brown. All those guys are good and everything but they’re not putting up Tyler Seguin numbers, especially not as consistently as he’s been. Over those past 5 seasons, only 5 players have put up more points than Tyler Seguin. Their names are Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane, Jamie Benn, Alexander Ovechkin and Claude Giroux.
Crosby makes $8.7M per year because he’s obsessed with the number 87. Kane makes 10.5. Jamie Benn makes 9.5. Ovechkin makes ~9.5. And Giroux makes 8.275. So realistically, that should be the ball park where Tyler Seguin ends up. He’s been a point per game player over the last 5 years. Now I understand that points don’t always equate to actual success on the ice. And in the 5 years that Tyler Seguin has been in Dallas, they’ve only won 1 playoff series and they haven’t even made the playoffs in 3 of those seasons. But still. Tyler Seguin is entering the final year on his deal. Unless he comes in and says he wants to be making Connor McDavid money, I really don’t see where the Stars think they have any leverage here. Don’t want to pay the guy the money he deserves? That’s fine, I guess he’ll just have to go make that money somewhere else while you guys try to rebuild around Alex Radulov.
It just doesn’t make any sense. The only reasonable explanation here would be that the Stars still think they’re very much in on the Erik Karlsson sweepstakes and they want to make sure they have the money to make that contract happen before they really get into negotiations with Seguin. Because if they land Karlsson, then that’s where most of Jason Spezza’s $7.5M is going after that comes off the books at the end of 2018-19. So I guess that would make sense and that the Dallas Stars wouldn’t even want to start talking money with Seguin before the Karlsson situation is settled. But if Dallas doesn’t get Karlsson? Well then that Jason Spezza money better find its way into Tyler Seguin’s pocket immediately because it’s going to be a long ass rebuild if you lose out on a top 10 point scorer over the last 5 years who just so happens to still only be 26-years-old just because you’re cheap as hell. Somehow that would end up being even worse than the Bruins trading him away for egg salad.
P.S. – All contract numbers via CapFriendly.com. I feel like 90% of the people know about that website already but I figured I’d still plug them here just in case there are a few stragglers out there who haven’t visited the site before. Porn for hockey guys essentially.