The Nashville Predators reached the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in their history and lost to the repeat champion Pittsburgh Penguins in six games. Soon after, the Predators signed center Ryan Johansen to an eight-year, $64 million contract that will pay him an average of $8 million a year. To put his contract into perspective, that's only $700,000 less than Penguins captain Sidney Crosby gets paid on a yearly basis. The only player paid higher than him on the team is P.K. Subban, who gets an average of $9 million a year, and Filip Forsberg and Pekka Rinne aren't far behind, getting paid yearly averages of $6 million and $7 million. Johansen's contract is the largest ever paid in Predators history (Subban's was paid with the Montreal Canadiens). As of now, the Predators are the twelfth-most cap crunched team in the league.
To compare, the 2010 Blackhawks, in their first run to the finals in 49 years (longer than the Predators had to wait), were also cap-crunched, but they still won. So were the 2013 and 2015 Chicago teams, as well as the 2015-16 and 2016-17 Pittsburgh Penguins. When you make a deep run, it's very hard to return when you're cap-crunched, and you have to think about quality of a player when you're thinking of giving them a lot of money. Crosby outperformed Johansen by a lot point-wise, which is the type of center Johansen is supposed to be, and that's why the Preds gave him that contract: to score points. The Predators have seen this run of success, seen it fade away at the last minute (last 1:35 to be exact)
and have now gone and thrown a bunch of money that, for the same amount of money, could have been thrown at someone like John Tavares or James Van Riemsdyk or both next year during free agency.
The point is, you have to win on the big stage or you'll panic like the Predators and end up cap-crunched with no titles to show for it.
Nashville's run is going to be coming to a much, much shorter end.
To compare, the 2010 Blackhawks, in their first run to the finals in 49 years (longer than the Predators had to wait), were also cap-crunched, but they still won. So were the 2013 and 2015 Chicago teams, as well as the 2015-16 and 2016-17 Pittsburgh Penguins. When you make a deep run, it's very hard to return when you're cap-crunched, and you have to think about quality of a player when you're thinking of giving them a lot of money. Crosby outperformed Johansen by a lot point-wise, which is the type of center Johansen is supposed to be, and that's why the Preds gave him that contract: to score points. The Predators have seen this run of success, seen it fade away at the last minute (last 1:35 to be exact)
and have now gone and thrown a bunch of money that, for the same amount of money, could have been thrown at someone like John Tavares or James Van Riemsdyk or both next year during free agency.
The point is, you have to win on the big stage or you'll panic like the Predators and end up cap-crunched with no titles to show for it.
Nashville's run is going to be coming to a much, much shorter end.
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