Red Wings hand Justin Abdelkader 7-year, $29.75 million extension
Why the need for a seven-year deal for Justin Abdelkader? That’s the question as the Detroit Red Wings announced the extension Thursday worth, per Bob McKenzie, $29.75 million for the 28-year old forward.
According to GM Ken Holland, via Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press: "It was to get him signed. He's 28 years of age and if he hit the open market, and a team wanted to pry him out of Detroit -- it's hard to find big people that can score 20 goals."
That means Abdelkader will carry a $4.25 million cap hit until age 36. Woof.
Craig Custance of ESPN notes that Abdelkader has a full no-trade clause in the first four years of the deal and a partial one for the final three seasons. Pierre LeBrun Tweets that the forward will receive $20 million of the deal within the first four years.
Abdelkader is coming off a season where he set career highs in goals (23), assists (21) and points (44). He was set to hit the unrestricted free agent market in the summer.
The AAV isn’t terrible, but it’s the term that’s a bit of a head scratcher. Going long probably saved GM Ken Holland a few bucks, but the contract won’t expire until 2023. Maybe Holland will get a bit of relief if there’s a salary rollback following the next lockout?
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Abdelkader has been a fine player for a number of years, but playing alongside Henrik Zetterberg last season really helpe boost his production, setting the table for this deal, as Dimitri Filipovic notes at NHL Numbers:
For Abdelkader last season, it was the perfect confluence of events. For starters, he benefitted from the cushy role of riding shotgun with Henrik Zetterberg for nearly 80% of his 5v5 minutes. While Zetterberg is getting up there in age these days, he's still an exceptional hockey player that has made a career of shining a favourable light on the guys he shares the ice with. He was also the fifth most frequently used member of the Wings with the man advantage, receiving nearly 200 minutes of power play time (the ~60 such minutes he saw in '13-'14 were previously his career high). All of that put together resulted in Abdelkader's first foray into the 20-goal and 40-point plateaus as an NHLer.
And locking in Abdelkader for that term also could make things interesting when Holland goes to negotiate extensions for RFAs Riley Sheahan, Teemu Pulkkinen, Danny DeKeyser, Alexei Marchenko, Landon Ferraro, and Petr Mrazek. All six see their contracts expire after this season and fitting them under the cap could be tricky, especially with Johan Franzen's cap hit not going anywhere until 2020.
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Sean Leahy is the associate editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Sean_Leahy
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