Probably that Kesler > Sbisa and is a darling of advanced stats, when at this point of his career he's a 3rd line checking center at best with injury concerns (not to mention a locker room cancer)
- DariusKnight
Well since you guys have successfully convinced him to no longer bring his opinion to this board, I'll do my best.
Now I'm not going to get into what Kesler will be worth when he is 36 because either you understand the concept that you pay later for services now or you don't, regardless if your name is Toews, Kesler, Luongo, Ovechkin, Hossa, Nash or whichever player you want to refer to.
The closest comparables to Kesler's contract would be.....
Patrice Bergeron who signed in 2015 to a 8 year 6.875 per year deal and is 29.
Jonathon Toews whose contracts starts in 2016 is 8 years and 10.5 per year and is 27.
Zach Parise signed in 2013 for 13 years at 7.54 and is 30
Jason Spezza contract starts this year at 4 years 7.5 per and is 32.
Travis Zajac signed in 2014 for 8 years at 5.75 per and is 30.
Grabovski signed in 2014 for 4 years at 5 per and is 31
I think most would agree that Toews is a cut above all these players and clearly he being paid as such.
I think most would argue that Bergeron is a better play than Kesler but I don't think there is a huge gap between players. Bergeron also got 2 more years and signed a year earlier, which should be noted as the salary always goes up.
Bergeron is a .74 ppg player in 740 games
Kesler is a .6 ppg player in 736 games.
I think Kesler is also on par with Parise but some might think otherwise, which is fine as Kesler will be making significantly less than Parise.
Zajac, Grabovski and Spezza are all lesser players than Kesler IMO and for the most part are compensated less.
Will this deal come back to hurt Anh? most likely but it is from as far as I can see close to the market value and all those players listed will likely be a burden to their teams financially by the time they retire.
The critique to the Sbisa, Miller, etc deals was that they were not at market value and that Benning struggles with this aspect of mgmt.
I know the rebuttal will be but who cares if he overspent it's not your money, we are a cap team anyways etc.
But that doesn't change the fact that the deals were above market value.
The Clarkson deal is made fun because it was so far from the market value regardless of if Toronto had the cap space, was the richest team and on and on.