The Ottawa Senators offered eight years to Shane Pinto, but could a deal get done that is short-term?
Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Hot Starts Around The NHL episode, on the Ottawa Senators and Shane Pinto’s contract situation.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Kyle Bukauskas: “There’s been a number of impressive starts to the season across the league. But as you said, Shane Pinto, that was your lead item on Headlines on Saturday with Ron. That the Senators had offered him an eight-year deal this past week. Where do things stand between Pinto, who is in the final year of his deal, and the Senators?
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Friedman: “So as I said on Saturday night, and I was trying to get more detail on this, I don’t think it means a deal is close. I don’t think it means that we’re on the track to get it done. But what I do think is that this was a realization from the Ottawa Senators that whatever talks they were having before, it wasn’t going to get it done, and they had to get more serious. And like I said, I don’t think whatever this was, that the number it was at, it was going to do it, but I think it is at least a movement in a better direction.
Now, the reaction I had to this was really interesting. I had one executive from another team who bet me that this is going to still be a short-term deal. And the reason he thinks it’s going to be a short-term deal, as I mentioned, is that even though Pinto’s contract is up this year, he still has two more seasons until he’s an unrestricted free agent. There’s a lot that could happen between now and even two years from now, about where the cap is and where it’s going.
And that’s number one on a lot of people’s mind about why they think it’s going to be hard for, I mean, look, Ottawa could throw all of the money at him, and that could get it done. But I just don’t get, on a team with, you know, Brady Tkachuk, on a team with other contracts they’re going to have to deal with over the next few seasons. I think they recognize they can’t do that.
They are going to have to, like Shane Pinto is going to make a lot of money. He’s a center in a league that is craving for centers. He’s showing a scoring touch. Like he’s a top two center in the NHL. He is. And those players, everybody covets them, and they get paid.
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So Ottawa’s going to have to step up at some point. I just, I really understood this, this guy’s logic that he thinks it’s going to be so much harder for them to do a long-term deal. Because essentially, if you’re doing eight years, you’re doing two RFA years and six UFA years. And even at that point, we don’t know where we’re going. So I liked his logic that it ends up being a shorter-term deal, but I still think it’ll be a reasonably big number, even on a short-term deal.
I’ll tell you what someone else said to me. I thought it was really interesting. He’s represented Pinto by Lewis Gross. The last really big contract he did was (William) Nylander, and it’s a little bit different because Nylander was going into unrestricted free agency. But basically they, as Nylander started his UFA year strong, they just waited and waited and waited until Toronto was in a position where they had to give Nylander what they wanted.
And what a couple people were saying to me was, if Pinto, like nobody expects that he’s going to score 90 goals this year, but if he keeps going the way he’s going, the hammer is going to tip farther in his direction. Even if he’s not a Ufa for a little bit. So, you know, they said that unless the player gets what he wants, it benefits them to wait.
So, we’ll see. I think at the very least, Ottawa moved into a better direction of where it has to go here.
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Bukauskas: “It’s interesting where, over the course of Pinto’s time in Ottawa. It seems like negotiations have been, say, rugged. There’s been some friction there along the way. I know there was the one year, the gambling issue came to the forefront. Obviously, that changed a lot of things. He was in the middle of getting a contract done then. I’m not taking that into consideration here.
But it seems like it’s never been easy between Pinto and the Sens for some strange reason, because he’s their most trusted two-way center. Maybe doesn’t have the offensive numbers as a (Tim) Stutzle or a (Brady) Tkachuk, but he’s got 20 goals twice. Seems rather, as a locker room guy, pretty low maintenance and a popular teammate.
Just interesting how I mean understanding, if you’re looking at, okay, where’s the cap going? Team wants to do eight years, naturally, there’s going to be some time to get something over the finish line. But I thought about that a little bit why there seems to be, with Pinto in particular and the Sens, just it’s never been easy to get something done between the two sides.”
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