Ryan Johansen and the Economics of NHL Offer Sheets

@botchford Then what needs to change in order to make offer sheets more inticing? Lower penalties? Or should they just scrap offer sheets?
— Cam Davie (@offersheet) September 17, 2014

Cam (aptly, @offersheet on twitter) raises a good question here. Why aren't offer sheets more common in the NHL?

Botchford's response - 'they always get matched, so what's the point?' is a big factor. It may be that teams don't have the stomachs to go big enough - in effect, you need to offer the player the same money he'd get as a UFA to make it happen.

Another answer that is commonly given is that the draft-pick compensation is a hindrance to offer sheets. I'll tell you right now: it's not. The inclusion of draft picks in the equation is a zero-sum game that may alter the ideal contract price, but not the incentive for a team to put out an offer sheet in the first place.

Let's use Ryan Johansen as an example. No, no one's signed him to an offer sheet yet, though for all we know, teams have called his agent and asked.

Johansen's Market Value

Blue Jackets president John Davidson revealed the team's most recent offers to Johansen, and most of the hockey media agreed that the numbers were pretty darn fair. The offers were:

- $6m over 2 years;
- $32m over 6 years; or
- $46m over 8 years.

Let's do a little reverse-engineering to guess a contract value. Reportedly, Johansen has 4 more years as an RFA; so the last 4 years of the 8-year deal are UFA years. If years 7 and 8 are worth $14m (the difference between the $46m of the 8-year deal and the $32m of the 6-year deal), the Jackets are working off a UFA valuation of $7m. For comparison, Paul Stastny, Alex Semin, Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin are all players currently on UFA contracts with $7m annual averages.

Let's put aside, for a second, whether or not those players are comparably valuable to Ryan Johansen. Maybe they're not far off. But the point is, the offer is such that if Johansen is worth $7m/year on the open market, he'd be worth $56m on an 8 year contract, or $49m on a 7-year deal (which is the longest you can go on an offer sheet).

Back to RFA-land for a second. If the UFA years are worth $7m each, based on the $46m/8 offer, that leaves $18m for the first 4 years. If years 1-2 are worth $3m each (based on the bridge contract), years 3-4 (arbitration years) are worth $6m each. If the Jackets offered Johansen a 7-year deal, they'd be offering him $39m/7 ($46/8 minus $7/1)

Adjusting for Draft Pick value

So if Johansen would get $49m/7 as a UFA (again, let's assume), we have to deduct a bit from that price for the draft pick compensation. The draft pick compensation depends on the AAV of the offer sheet; in 2013-14, a $7m AAV would call for compensation of two 1st-rounders, a second and a third. However, because we're going to deduct a little from the price to reflect the cost to the buying team, we're going to slip down one bracket to compensation of a 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd.

We don't know the dollar value of those draft picks; there are a lot of variables, including where in the round they are, who the team might get, and so on. But for sake of argument, I'm going to pull a number out of the air and say that the three picks are worth $5m total. Again, let's assume. Play along with me.

So now we're looking at a $44m/7 market price for Johansen, after the value of the picks is removed. Mind you, the total cost to the signing team is $49m when you include the lost draft picks. Note that this valuation is considerably higher than the $39m/7 valuation represented by CBJ's offers. The decision the signing team faces is:

Door #1: Give Johansen an offer sheet, and if it's accepted, he's worth $49m over 7 years. Pay $44m and lose $5m worth of draft pick assets. Net gain: zero.

Door #2: Don't make an offer. Net gain: zero.

If Johansen signs the $44m offer sheet, Columbus has a decision to make:

Door #1: Let Johansen go. Pick up draft picks worth $5m. Net gain: $5m.
Door #2: Match the offer sheet at $44m/7. Keep Johansen, who is worth $49m over the contract. Net gain: $5m.

As you can see, in both situations, Columbus would just as happily let Johansen go as they would keep him. The net value to them is the same either way.

Now let's mix it up a little. As we saw above, the signing team isn't realizing any profit by signing Johansen at $44m/7. What if they offer, say $42m/7 instead? This offer would still be above Columbus' $39/7 valuation. Let's say Johansen signs the offer sheet. Now, the signing team has a potential $2m profit.

The math now changes for Columbus, though. Here's what happens:

Door #1: Let Johansen go. Pick up draft picks worth $5m. Net gain: $5m.
Door #2: Match the offer sheet at $42m/7. Keep Johansen, who is worth $49m over the contract. Net gain: $7m.

Clearly, Columbus should match the contract because it's below open-market value. Thus, if all other factors are equal, it is impossible for a signing team to come up with an offer sheet that won't be matched unless they are willing to pay full market cost for the player (after accounting for the value of the draft picks).

Now, obviously, 'all factors' will rarely be equal. A smaller-market team like Columbus may not have the financial flexibility to pay Johansen. If he were with a larger-market team, they may have overspent their cap space and couldn't afford to allocate as much salary room for him. Teams might place different valuations on a player's abilities, may feel he's a better/worse fit for their system or their locker room, et cetera.

In short, an offer sheet can succeed where the player is worth more to the offering team than the current team. That being said, unless the valuations are far apart, the offer sheet will have to be close to the UFA market price, which will reduce the incentive for offering teams to make the offer in the first place.

I would suggest, also, that the 'factors' described above will tend to actually increase the current team's valuation of the player. The player may be integral to the team's system, its locker room, its fanbase, and the community. The team is more likely to have made roster decisions on the assumption that the player will be there, and losing the player would create a hole that would be nearly impossible to fill. It appears that most of these factors apply in the case of the Blue Jackets, and that's why I would suggest they're not vulnerable to an offer sheet in this case. I'd argue that the Shea Weber situation had a lot of similarities.

How can the league create more incentive for offer sheets (though it's not clear they want to)? as one example, I imagine that if the compensation picks came from the league rather than the signing team (the same way sandwich picks are awarded in baseball), that would reduce the cost to the signing team and improve their incentive to make an offer.

That being said, I don't think the league wants this. In CBA bargaining, it has consistently tried to protect the ability of poorer clubs to keep RFAs as long as possible. I don't think we'll see a change to offer sheets anytime soon. For now, they are merely an occasion and extraordinary remedy for teams that are clearly undervaluing their RFAs.

Follow Rory Johnston (@rnfjohnston) on twitter: twitter.com/rnfjohnston

Marian Gaborik's contract could net Kings 5-20% cap savings

The news just came out that Marian Gaborik has signed a 7-year, $4.875m AAV contract extension with the Kings. He's 32 years old now, and will be 39 by contract's end. There's a good chance he'll be retired before it's over.

If the Kings are smart (they are), they're structure the deal as front-loaded, as follows:

Years 1-3: $6,500,000
Year 4: $4,875,000
Years 5-7: $3,250,000

This is, as far as I can tell, the most front-loaded, cap-friendly structure the CBA allows. It allows for the possibility that Gaborik may retire before the contract's up, without causing any cap recapture.

If Gaborik retires after 5 years (age 37), the Kings will have paid him a little over $27.6m for 5 years - a true AAV of $5.525 million, yet they'll only face a $4.875m cap hit. If he retires in just 4 years, that AAV is $6.09m; if he sticks out 6 years, it's a $5.146m AAV.

Regardless, the proper salary structure in this case will allow the Kings to get a cap discount of 5-20%. That's a pretty hefty advantage.

This will be something that any team can take advantage of for star players that are in their early 30s. Just as before with the long-tail contracts, you can get a cap savings by including years where they're likely to be retired. The savings isn't as large as it once was, but it's still substantial.

Follow Rory Johnston (@rnfjohnston) on twitter: twitter.com/rnfjohnston

edit: the original version of this post had some calculation errors, which have been fixed.

Ryan Kesler, and trading in-conference

Elliotte Friedman is reporting today that though the Canucks have many suitors for Ryan Kesler, they'd prefer not to trade him to a Western Conference rival. Of course they aren't; teams, as a matter of course, usually try to trade players outside their conference, or at least not to a division rival. This is the case in other pro sports too.

The main reason is obvious: teams don't want to get beaten or embarrassed by their former stars on a regular basis. It's a good way to enrage a fanbase. If you're a GM, losing a key game or series facing the player you traded is a fireable offence.

Does it stand up to reason, though? I'm not so sure it does. Kesler is 29, and has two more years on his contract. Suppose you trade him to the Blackhawks, and he and Jon Toews form a formidable dynamic duo for a couple of years. Yes, the Canucks will lose a couple of games to that team. But if Vancouver's entering a rebuild - and given that Luongo and Edler's names are out there too, they seem like they are - what's the harm in losing ganes to the Blackhawks in 2014-15? You're not trying to be competitive next year.

More seriously, if you assemble some young talent to aim for contending in, say, 2016-17, doesn't it actually make a lot of sense to send Kesler to Chicago? By that time, he's possibly left them as a UFA, is in his 30s, and you've stripped them of Brandon Saad and a first-rounder (just spitballing here), and knocked them down a notch such that you've got a better chance of winning games against them.

Just a thought, really. It's such a well-worn truism of the trade market but I think people are too wedded to it.

Follow Rory Johnston (@rnfjohnston) on twitter: twitter.com/rnfjohnston