Cole Perfetti… what’s the deal with his still pending contract extension? If you’ve read any of my last handful of articles, you’ll notice that I’ve pretty much always included a little “update” on the Cole Perfetti contract extension, with that update being that there’s still no deal as of yet.

So what’s the hold up on this contract extension? Is it Perfetti and his agents not budging on the right number, or is it the Jets not budging on what they’re willing to pay him? The Jets have approximately $5.8 million in cap space currently, so the money shouldn’t be the issue. The real question might just be the term, because the Jets might not want to give Perfetti a long-term deal for a few more years.

Now that almost all of the notable restricted free agents have been signed, aside from Boston’s Jeremy Swayman, there’s many comps. the Jets could use to figure out a deal that works for both sides. Speculation online has brought up extensions of players like Dawson Mercer (3 years 12 million) all the way up to the extensions of Seth Jarvis and Dylan Guenther (7-8 years at 7+ million). Part of the problem with using similar deals to compare with Perfetti’s next deal is that he’s still only played 140 games in the NHL.

Coming off his 1st nearly full NHL season, Perfetti appeared to be on pace for 25+ goals, but settled with 19 goals to go along with 19 assists in 71 games. The 10th overall pick from the 2020 NHL draft has shown stretches where he’s been fully living up to his potential, but he’s also struggled in stretches as well, just take a look at his scoring decline from the 2nd half of last season.

Lucky for Jets fans, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman provided another update on the Cole Perfetti extension. If you got a chance to hear Friedman’s update on this situation last week, he basically described Perfetti’s contract extension as the “nicest contract dispute ever”. There’s a few ways you could take that description, but regardless, Friedman gave Jets fans another update this morning, and as you might have guessed, it wasn’t much of an update.

Friedman opened his “update” on Perfetti by mentioning that “I didn’t get the sense much had changed on the weekend. I mean we’ll see. I don’t think Perfetti is quite as dug in as Swayman is and we’ll see what happens early in the week”. The 1st part of that statement appears to be true, as although Perfetti and Swayman have both not appeared at training camp yet, Swayman is being a lot more firm with the number he and his agents have in mind for his next big contract extension.

Now that the preseason has begun, Friedman went on the mention that because the Jets were just on the road (in Edmonton), maybe that would have slowed down contract extensions talks somewhat. The preseason shouldn’t serve as too much of a distraction, but the one thing that Friedman did say about Perfetti is that “I always wonder about these kinds of things [for] when does everybody worry”. If you’ve been super up to date with the Jets off-season, you will have noticed that Perfetti was there for the media tour and even participated in a charity fishing event, so his commitment to the Jets has remained strong throughout this process.

Friedman then went on to add that the “one thing I always worry for everybody involved here [is] when does it turn? Like when does the frustration boil over and how does everybody try to prevent that from happening or work to prevent that from being a problem”. This can very much become true with any player’s pending contract talks, regardless of the player’s commitment to the team. At some point one side will have to budge, and the hope is that the eventual agreement won’t hurt the team’s relationship with the player when it comes time to negotiate their next deal.

Friedman finished his thoughts on Cole Perfetti by mentioning the idea of using comparables to come up with a deal for Perfetti’s contract extension. Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun also gave an update this morning on a lack of progress on this contract extension. He mentioned 2 players that I mentioned earlier, saying that the Jets are not convinced with any of the comparables, including Dawson Mercer’s short term AAV deal and Dylan Guenther’s recent long term big money deal.

Perhaps this does mean there’s still some work to do before the two sides are closer to a deal. Friedman mentioned that the Jets also don’t like the comparison of Shane Pinto’s new deal, despite the 2 players having similar games played and points. The main difference between Perfetti and Pinto is that this is only Perfetti’s 2nd contract as opposed to it being Pinto’s 3rd contract.

It’s always harder on younger players when it comes to negotiating their 1st major deal, because they might not fully understand the business aspect of hockey quite yet. All I can hope for in the case of Cole Perfetti is that this process doesn’t cause any further frustrations with the team when it’s all said and done. Perfetti’s agents are surely working hard to make the deal work for both sides, and for the fans it’s now reached the time where we just have to wait and see what happens.

You can check out the latest 32 Thoughts podcast episode HERE, to learn more about the update on Perfetti’s pending contract extension, as well as an update on the health of Jets defenceman Ville Heinola. The Jets sit at 0-1-1 through 2 preseason games, and will take on the Oilers in Winnipeg on Wednesday night at 7 pm CT.