We were waiting to write something today about the official news of Kopitar signing, considering rumors and speculation swelled almost all Tuesday evening and Wednesday about the negotiations.
However, despite a set back, a resurgence, and then finally a deal in principle...
it seems that in all likelihood Kopitar will sign an 8-year $80 Million dollar contract with the Kings tomorrow.
That last source comes from about as reputable a source as you can get, what with Jon Rosen being the team's dedicated beat reporter and all.
Now comes the time where you have to sit with it and think, alright, is that good or is that bad?
There is plenty to take in here with Kopitar's massive deal. When ink is drawn to parchment, the 28-year old will be the third highest paid player in the league behind Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. The eight-year deal will bring Kopitar up to his age 36 season.
Come 2018-2019, the Kings will have five 30+ aged players making around $31 million a year. (Dustin Brown 34, Jeff Carter 34, Marian Gaborik 36, Kopitar 31, Quick 32). That is a ton of money if consider the cap to be anywhere around the $70 million range. That figure also doesn't include the cap hits of Jake Muzzin, Drew Doughty, Alec Martinez, or Kyle Clifford, and the buyout of Mike Richards, all of which are locked up until past that and add around $18 million to that already large $31 million dollar figure.
Suffice to say, the Kings have about half of their allotted cap locked up already until around 2020. You will also have the Doughty extension to deal with in 2019-20, a potential Milan Lucic extension due this summer, and a rather important round of restricted free agents that includes Tyler Toffoli, Tanner Pearson, Brayden McNabb and Nick Shore in the next 1-2 years.
Without question, it is going to be tight monetarily for quite a long time if the Kings do infact remain intact as they are right now until the expiration of said deals.
If you are a Kings fan, you kind of already knew all this, and you kind of already saw this coming the minute Kopitar came within 12 months of free agency.
So that's the scary and negative stuff. The Kings could get very old and very expensive incredibly quickly. That is without a doubt. However, much like some of their recent trade acquisitions, this is a pretty win-now move. Kopitar is only 28, however, if the Kings let him get to free agency it might have been considered one of the biggest blunders in Dean Lombardi's tenure. Heck, ANY GM's tenure. The Kings still have a window of maybe 1-2 years after this season to take a legitimate run at a cup before the wheels really start to grind to a halt on a lot of their key core players (Some have already started to slow). Kopitar was never going to hit free agency. The Kings were always going to sign him. It was just a matter of small details.
Well, in this case, $10 million dollar a year details.
If you were thinking, "Wow, that's a boat load crap ton of money" (These are both proper metric units to measure money, I assure you), you are right. It IS indeed a lot of money. The question is, and this is probably the only question, is he worth it right now?
Say what you will in six years when he is still making a cool 10M and closing in on age 35, is ge worth it RIGHT NOW. In the mind of the Kings, that is where we are and that is where the team is at, the right now.
Is he in the group you could consider the top 8 centers in the league? Yes he is. Does it very much depend on what your definition of "Best" or "Top" is? Incredibly so. This is where we have seen the differing opinions. Like this one from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe:
Now there is no need to fly off the handle and immediately rush to twitter to poke fun at this tweet, (believe me, our friends over at The Royal Half already have you beat to this) some people value different things. No disrespect to Mr. Dupont, but the point pace is a very small piece of the puzzle with Anze Kopitar and centers in general. They are the commanders of the ice. They open a lot of doors and create a lot of things you don't see on your standard stat sheet.
With that in mind, let's pull some names.
Compiling a group of JUST ten of the best centers is hard. I've done my best and here is the list I came up with IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.
Getzlaf, Kopitar, Thornton, Crosby, Bergeron, Toews, Stamkos, Giroux, Tavares, Seguin.
Datsyuk would definitely be on this list had it not been for a rash of injuries in his most recent past. Nick Backstrom is another player you could lump in here, but his attachment to Ovechkin will always be noted. Malkin probably remains as one you could easily swap in here with a good argument, however, despite being listed as a center and playing center this year, he has played significant time at wing over the last 10 years. So for the sake of role will be excluded.
If we go back to the beginning of 2010, here is how each player ranks amongst their peers in several traditional categories (G/60, Pts/60, A/60, faceoff%, TOI, SH TOI)
View post on imgur.com
Even amongst a group of the top of the top, Kopitar does pretty well for himself. Mind you, all of the rate statistics on these guys were extremely close. There was some huge swings in things like penalty kill and shorthanded time, but as far as rate statistics on production go, there was not much separating this elite group.
Now let's do add to that same chart and start peppering in some more analytical stats.
View post on imgur.com
Few things to consider looking over this.
WAR is also known as Wins Above Replacement. It is a baseball stat transplant that generally puts together how many wins above replacement that player is before being replacement level. For example, Jordan Nolan is a WAR of 0.05. Basically replacement level.
ZSO you might be familiar with, but it is a stat that tells you how heavily skewed your zone starts (Defensive versus offensive) are in comparison to your teammates. If you have a negative ZSO relative to your team, it generally means you are given the heaviest of defensive minutes.
Also, the high scoring chance (HSC) and scoring chance data is at 5v5. The box was too small to fit that all!
By looking at the comparisons above, you can see that players like Bergeron, Kopitar, and even Toews to some degree are not thoroughly represented in what they due based on traditional stats. Everyone agrees that Toews is a great center in the NHL, but his traditional stats rank him amongst the bottom of his peers. Only when you start getting into possession metrics and analytics does he become stronger. Likewise with Bergeron, Kopitar and Joe Thornton. These players do well compared to the top in traditional players, and they do very well in analytical realms. If you were to look at one side of it, that $10M price tag may not make too much sense.
For ease of use, the AAV of each player was listed at the bottom of the chart as well.
Taking all things into consideration statistically, would you not agree that Kopitar makes sense in around the 1-5 group of centers in the NHL? Seems like it.
I know, I know, he is still the second highest paid center though. Now you have to factor in all the intangibles. He has won two cups, he was drafted and bred in Los Angeles, he is one of the captains and part of the leadership group with the Kings. Those factors alone may very well take Kopitar from the 8.5-9 range up to the 10 range.
Forget the future for a moment, when looking at this deal right now, $10 million dollars a year can and does make sense for a player like AK. Will it make sense in 6 years? Well, Thornton has certainly aged well in regards to his value, perhaps Kopitar does as well. That is, however, a bridge that the Kings will cross when they get there.
Dean Lombardi knew he had to get this deal done. Kopitar's agent knew that this deal had to get done. It probably took a little extra to make it happen but the key here is that it FINALLY happened. The Kings have one of the best centers in the league within their ranks, and you damn well know they were not about to let him get away over a few million dollars.
I hope you all enjoyed these negotiations, because it will probably happen again in a few years with Drew Doughty.
For those looking for a little more statistical sense making, hopefully this eased the pain of what is a pretty huge cap hit. One that could have big impacts on the future of the Kings financials. With the deal getting finalized on Friday, breathe easy and know that the numbers represented here will be in a Kings uniform for at least another eight years.
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