When it comes to contract negotiations, life is always easier for both parties when a comparable market value already exists. Throwing out your own estimations of your player’s valuation is challenging sometimes, especially if a player is pretty early in their playing career and hasn’t established themselves.
So when another team locks in a similar player, that takes the guesswork out of negotiations.
With that said, let’s talk about Philadelphia Flyers forward Tyson Foerster, a pending restricted free agent that just signed a two year extension with the Flyers earlier this week with a $3.75 million cap hit, and what that means for Calgary Flames forward Connor Zary.
Foerster turned 23 in January, and he’s a right shot winger. He was selected 23rd overall in the 2020 NHL Draft, and he went pro in 2022-23. He became a full-time NHLer the following season and has two full NHL campaigns under his belt. Through three pro seasons, he has 32 goals and 68 points in 99 AHL games, and 48 goals and 83 points in 166 NHL games.
Zary turned 23 in September, and he’s a left shot forward who’s played a mix of wing and centre in the NHL. He was selected one spot after Foerster in 2020, 24th overall, and because he’s a late birthday he was able to go pro a year earlier than Foerster, 2021-22. Like Foerster he came a full-time NHLer in 2023-24 and he, too, has two full NHL seasons under his belt. Through four pro seasons, Zary has 38 goals and 100 points in 140 AHL games, and 27 goals and 61 points in 117 NHL games.
On a per-game basis in their NHL careers, Foerster has 0.289 goals and 0.500 points-per-game, while Zary has 0.231 goals and 0.521 points-per-game. This past season, Foerster had 0.309 goals and 0.531 points-per-game, while Zary had 0.241 goals and 0.500 points-per-game.
Should these guys be paid somewhat similarly? Sure. They’re pretty similar players this early in their careers and their production is similar. However, Foerster has a larger NHL sample size due to Zary’s bad injury luck this season, he scores goals at a slightly higher pace than Zary does, and he had slightly better point production this season. So if it feels like we’re trending towards a two year bridge deal for Zary – which certainly feels like it would work – the cap hit would probably be a smidge lower than Foerster got.
In other words, Foerster’s bridge deal probably set the absolute ceiling for a Zary bridge deal. The model over at Evolving-Hockey projected Zary at two years at just over a $3.5 million AAV, and that definitely feels like a fair market value given what we know about Zary and the marketplace.
We’ll see what Zary’s next deal ends up looking like.
