Report: Ladd, Byfuglien, Trouba looking for combined 152 million in new deals

The Winnipeg Jets’ owners don’t have the deep pockets of many of their peers around the league; the Jets have the least salary on the books of any NHL team this season. 

But it’s hard to be spend-thrift when negotiating with franchise players. The Jets’ captain, Andrew Ladd, and best player (right? we all agree on this?) Dustin Byfuglien are due to reach free agency this summer, while Jacob Trouba, Mark Scheifele, and Adam Lowry are impending restricted free agents.

According to Tim Campell of the Winnipeg Free Press, those negotiations have started out with some very big numbers:

It’s important to retain a healthy dose of skepticism with these types of reports. The numbers being reported are unusually specific: who leaked them to Campbell? And more importantly, why?

As some have suggested, True North could be leaking details of negotiations to ease fans into the idea of losing one (or more) of those players.

Campbell goes on to refer to the numbers as ‘opening requests’ – an important distinction for Jets fans. If you were the agent for any of these players, why wouldn’t you start out asking for numbers like these?

Still, reports have consistently placed Jets’ management as talking less and less frequently to Ladd’s camp, and hardly at all to Byfuglien’s. Trouba and the Jets recently decided (amicably, for whatever that’s worth) to suspend further negotiations until the offseason. If these contract asks are accurate, how likely is it that these guys are still wearing Jets uniforms next September?

Putting aside any concerns we might have with this type of report, there are some interesting takeaways here. Below is the breakdown of each player’s reported demand:

The biggest sticker shock here has to be on Jacob Trouba’s contract ask; as a restricted free agent, he has very little leverage in a contract negotiation. Historically, RFAs don’t get contracts like this, and good teams have made hay on team-friendly contracts for young players; Trouba, though, is asking to be paid as one of the NHL’s top defencemen. Thomas Drance wrote a piece for Jets Nation recently on why negotiations with Trouba could prove difficult. This is nothing more than idle speculation, but could contract demands like this make the Jets re-consider a potential Hamonic-Trouba trade?

As for Byfuglien, 8 years at just under 7 million dollars per season makes sense for one of the best defencemen in the league. It’s a lot of money, sure, but how many defencemen can do what Byfuglien does? His contract ask might shed some light on why the Jets have (reportedly) hardly even been speaking to Byfuglien’s agent. Elliotte Friedman reported that the Jets preferred not to go over three years on a contract for Dustin Byfuglien. If true, the Jets and their star defender are solar systems apart here.

Given that these numbers are initial contract asks, it’s a little surprising that Ladd is only looking for six years. The reported six year, $6.8 million dollar (AAV) ask is almost identical to the extension that Ryan Kesler signed with the Anaheim Ducks this summer. Ladd is a legitimate first-line forward, and the Jets’ captain. Ryan Lambert took a crack at predicting a Ladd extension for JN earlier this year, and came out with five or six years at $6.5 million a piece. 

This report is just that: an unsourced report. Three very good hockey players are asking for a lot of money from a franchise that doesn’t open the purse strings often. The decisions that Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and True North make over the coming months will shape the Jets franchise in the short term and the long term; these reported figures aren’t much, but they are one of the first glimpses for the public into the decision management is dealing with.