With the Sharks set to extend Logan Couture's contract, the Los Angeles Kings will do the same with his fellow London, Ontario native. The Kings announced on Friday they agreed to terms on an eight-year contract extension with defenseman Drew Doughty.
The deal will reportedly pay the 2015-2016 Noris Trophy Winner just shy of $11 million annually, according to multiple reports. That would make Doughty, as of now, the highest-paid defenseman in the league in 2019, surpassing Nashville Predators blueliner P.K. Subban.
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The extension would also keep Doughty in the division, and likely under San Jose's skin, until he's 36 years old. Los Angeles will, very shortly, have a core that is expensive and aging, as Sportsnet's Dimitri Filipovic noted.
A cap crunch is coming to Tinseltown. Tyler Toffoli and Jake Muzzin are set to become unrestricted free agents in 2020 and Tanner Pearson will follow suit a year later. The Kings, who have not advanced out of the first round in four years, will eventually face hard decisions that should prove instructive to Sharks general manager Doug Wilson.
Martin Jones, Brent Burns, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic are all past or approaching turning 30, and are signed until 2024, 2025, and 2026, respectively. Add in Evander Kane, who just signed a seven-year, $49 million extension last month, and San Jose is committed to $27.75 million annually through 2024. A Couture extension would bump that number up even higher, as would the signing of John Tavares or another big-ticket free agent. Based on what we know about players aging, each player is likely to decline over the course of those deals.
San Jose Sharks
Depending on the contracts they sign this summer, Tomas Hertl and Chris Tierney could be eligible for unrestricted free agency between now and 2024. Joonas Donskoi's deal is up next summer, when Kevin Labanc and Timo Meier will become restricted free agents.
Unlike the Kings, though, the Sharks have far more long-term flexibility. Beyond Burns, Jones, Kane, Vlasic and potentially Couture, only four more San Jose players are signed past 2019, and nobody else is under contract beyond 2020. Los Angeles, by contrast, still has 14 players on the books (excluding Doughty) past next season.
It will be paramount for the San Jose to maintain that flexibility moving forward. Prospects like Dylan Gambrell, Josh Norris, and Ryan Merkley making the leap to the NHL will provide an infusion of youth and help ensure cost certainty, and annual increases in the salary cap will allow more wiggle room.
The Sharks will face some difficult choices, particularly as their young players get closer to unrestricted free agency. They're approaching the same path the Kings are currently on, but are ultimately in a much better position to avoid it.