Just how bad is the Sean Monahan contract for the Blue Jackets?
The Blue Jackets signed center Sean Monahan to a 5-year contract worth an average annual value of $5.5 million per year. People around the hockey world have mocked the deal, but how bad is the contract in reality?
We've all seen the complaints by now. If you haven't, let me know where your rock is so I can hide under it for awhile too. Today, I'm asking the hockey world: just how bad is the Sean Monahan contract for the Blue Jackets?
The moment Monahan signed his 5-year, $27.5 million dollar contract with the Blue Jackets, the hockey world began picking it apart. I'm here today with proof that this deal is right at market value. In fact, I was astonished at how precise the numbers were when I started to dive into it.
If we're looking solely at centers, this contract is dead smack in the middle of market value. The Jackets did not overpay for Monahan in free agency (though, if you want to debate the term, that's fair). It's important to compare his contract only to other centers because, well, centers have a higher market value.
Per the folks at PuckPedia, there are 44 centers in the NHL who are paid an AAV between $4.5 million and $6.5 million dollars. Monahan's deal obviously fits right into the middle of the pack here, which is the reason I set the parameters the way I did.
If you check out that list, you'll notice some obvious standouts. At the very top are Martin Necas, Brayden Schenn, and Claude Giroux; all making an AAV at $6.5 million dollars. The arguments for or against these contracts make perfect sense. But, all of them are in different scenarios than Monahan and the Jackets.
Necas has shown flashes of top line potential, but has yet to put it all together consistently enough to get paid like a #1 center. He scored 53 points in 77 games last season. This is a pretty expensive bridge contract (a "prove-it" deal), simply put.
Schenn and Giroux are both sitting on legacy contracts. Schenn has a massive 8-year deal in place with the Blues, which came to him as a result of a Stanley Cup win. He's their captain, but scored only 46 points last season and certainly needs to be better if they are going to compete for a playoff spot.
Giroux was signed by the Ottawa Senators to a three-year deal after an impressive career spent mostly with the Philadelphia Flyers. He's leaned on to play the wily veteran role in their top-six, but still plays a productive game, having scored 64 points while playing in all 82 games for the Sens last season.
In terms of actual contracts (factoring in term and age), the two closest comparables are both from the Detroit Red Wings: Andrew Copp and J.T. Compher. The players are in the same age range, and both have 5-year deals signed with a rebuilding team. Copp is at the higher end ($5.625m AAV), and Compher just below ($5.1m AAV).
Last year, Copp posted 13 goals and 33 points in 79 games; while Compher scored 19 goals and 48 points in 77 games. I will state my opinion: I'd rather have Monahan at this cap hit and term, than either of those players.
On the next slide, we'll look at the bottom end of this scale, and compare how Sean Monahan's contract and productivity fits into it.
Sean Monahan is one of the rare Blue Jacket UFA signees that they have actually secured right at his market value - even if only for the short-term.
If we dive into the lower end of this list of contracts (link again here), there are two players at the $4.5m AAV level: Ryan O'Relly and Mikael Backlund.
O'Reilly was on that same Cup winning team as Brayden Schenn, though he currently plays for the Nashville Predators. He's entering year two of a four year contract, which will pay him through 2026-27. He gave the Preds great value last year, scoring 69 points, while playing in all 82 games.
Backlund signed a two-year extension with the Calgary Flames just before the start of last season. He promptly rewarded them with an underwhelming 39-point season, though he did play in all 82 games. He's also their captain, and it's somewhat unfair to rank him on his point output, because he's a strong two-way player.
All of this leads me to a former Flame, now Blue Jacket: Sean Monahan. The contract he just signed with the Blue Jackets, pays him like your average second line center in the NHL. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how he's produced throughout his NHL career.
Monahan has a career stat line of 244 goals and 538 points in 764 NHL games. That's a 0.70 point-per-game average; which he essentially mirrored last year, in a season split between Montreal and Winnipeg. He scored 26 goals and 59 points in a league-high 83 games - a 0.71 average.
These totals were good enough to place him 19th out of the 44 centers ranked by AAV on our search. His 26 goals had him 12th on that list. He also won 55% of his faceoffs. If you're still looking at the list, the funny thing about it was the average totals from last season (very top of the page, in blue).
Those 44 players averaged 20.7 goals, 29.8 assists, and 50.5 points. Sean Monahan's career averages are roughly 26g-32a-58pts. He'll be back alongside Johnny Gaudreau in Columbus, who was on his flank for the most productive seasons in his career.
Breaking it all down: his AAV is in the middle of the pack for second line centers - and so is his production. In fact, one could make the argument that, based on his career and the comparable contracts around him; he might be slightly underpaid.
"But what about his history of injuries?"
This may shock you: Since coming into the NHL, Sean Monahan has missed a total of 113 games. He's played in 764 out of a possible 877 games in 11 years (this includes the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, and his extra game due to being traded last year). He averages around 72 games played per NHL season.
I'm not concerned about his injury history. Nor am I concerned about his AAV. The Salary cap just took a $4 million dollar jump. It's going to do so again next summer, and will keep climbing as the league's revenues continue to improve.
By the end of his term, Monahan will likely be a bottom-two line center. And, by the time we get there, he'll probably be paid accordingly, assuming the cap keeps rising. This contract is just fine, and we should stop pretending that it isn't.