The Philadelphia Flyers wasted no time pivoting after the botched Leo Carlsson offer sheet. Since the organization wasn’t going to commit $18 million for the next five seasons to one player, the organization had the money to tie up other loose ends.
One of those loose ends was Trevor Zegras.
On Wednesday night, the club officially inked Zegras to a four-year deal worth $36.5 million. That works out to $9.125 million AAV, essentially paying Zegras half of what the Flyers were willing to pay Carlsson.
But is Zegras really worth half of what Carlsson is?
On the surface, that may be a tough argument to hold up. Assuming that Carlsson is, in fact, worth $18 million AAV, Zegras would have to account for about half of what Carlsson brings to the table.
Last season, Zegras appeared in 81 games, scoring 26 goals and 67 points. Carlsson, for his part, played in 70 games, scoring 29 goals and, well, 67 points. So, we’re talking about identical point totals, albeit in fewer games.
If we extrapolate the numbers, Carlsson would have totaled about 78 points. While he would have scored about 33 goals, the difference really isn’t all that staggering.
For Carlsson to be worth twice as much as Zegras, the 21-year-old would have to double his point totals to justify the hefty price tag on offense alone.
But then again, offense isn’t everything.
Carlsson has to deliver on two-way game
One of the things that makes Carlsson a fascinating player at his age is the potential to become an elite two-way player. We’re talking about an Aleksander Barkov or Roope Hintz type of performance.
If that’s the case, well, we could justify the price tag. Zegras is a bit of a one-dimensional player who often gets a bad rap for not being the most defensively reliable forward on the ice.
Should Zegras improve on that part of his game, the discussion could shift significantly.
Think about it. A Zegras who could score around 70 to 80 points while playing a much better defensive game could have a much higher value than his current cap hit.
As for Carlsson, it would still be hard to justify that he’s worth twice as much as Zegras. There’s always the argument that Carlsson is a center, so he’s worth more. While that may be true to a certain extent, again, is it worth saying that Carlsson deserves twice as much money as Zegras?
Ultimately, looking at the price tag where Zegras came in, it would have been tough for the Flyers to fit Carlsson at $18 million and Zegras at $9.125 million. It seems that Philly might be better off signing Zegras than splurging on Carlsson, to the detriment of Zegras.
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