The Vancouver Canucks' general manager, Patrik Allvin, clearly does not believe in taking Sundays off.
After making a tidy, cap-clearing trade with the Colorado Avalanche in the morning, Allvin capped off his Sunday by re-signing Nils Höglander in the afternoon.
Höglander's contract, which will kick in next season, is for three years with an average annual value (AAV) of $3 million, which will also be his cap hit.
Höglander is coming off a career year where he scored 24 goals, all of them at 5-on-5. Given his limited ice time, that meant Höglander was scoring at an elite rate: only two players had a higher rate of goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5: Auston Matthews and Zach Hyman.
At the same time, Höglander had a massively elevated shooting percentage, scoring on 20.0% of his shots — more than double his career shooting percentage heading into last season. It's likely that his shooting percentage will regress in the coming season, leading to a lower goalscoring rate.
With that in mind, the Canucks are taking a calculated risk with his next contract. They're betting that even if his shooting percentage goes down, the rest of his game will take steps forward and make him a bargain at $3 million in the years to come.
It seems like a solid bet. Höglander averaged just over 12 minutes per game last season, with negligible time on the power play. He started the season on the fourth line and even when he got elevated to skate with Elias Pettersson, he still played limited minutes.
If Höglander gets more minutes this season, including time on the second power play unit, there's a good chance that he can still reach 20 goals even if his shooting percentage regresses. On top of that, Höglander has taken significant strides in his two-way game and has earned more trust from head coach Rick Tocchet, which allows him to have more of an impact on the game aside from his scoring.
So far in training camp and the preseason, Höglander has skated on the third line in Dakota Joshua's usual spot, but there's a good chance that he'll end up playing with Pettersson again at times this season, this time with Jake DeBrusk on the other wing. That's a prime position to put up points and it's possible that he'll again have a career year.
On the other hand, when Joshua returns to the lineup, Höglander could instead be bumped to the fourth line once more. It will be a better-than-average fourth line but it will still be tough for him to score in that kind of depth role. Therein lies the risk.
If Höglander proves to be a legitimate top-six forward, his $3 million cap hit will look like a bargain. That's why the Canucks signed this deal now after Höglander has had just one good season. If the Canucks had waited until next offseason to extend Höglander, he would have had a chance to prove that one good season was no fluke, giving him a lot of leverage in contract negotiations, especially if it went to arbitration.
Of course, Höglander could instead end up on the third line. For a third-line forward, $3 million is about right. The only way this contract extension doesn't pan out is if Höglander ends up being the fourth-line forward he was to start last season or loses Tocchet's trust and ends up out of the lineup. Let's keep in mind, Höglander is just a year removed from spending most of the season in the AHL.
From Höglander's perspective, he gets some security as a 23-year-old who has only just established himself as a full-time NHLer. It gives him a certain comfort level heading into this season, as how he performs this year won't necessarily make or break his career. Instead, he can just focus on what happens on the ice.
Ironically, having that comfort level will likely help him relax and perform well enough this season that it will make it look like he should have waited to re-sign a more expensive deal next offseason.
