6:33 pm: According to CapFriendly, Barzal will receive exactly $9.15MM in base salary across all eight seasons. A 22-team no-trade clause will kick in for the 2024-25 season and continue for the duration of the contract.
11:44 am: The New York Islanders have signed Mathew Barzal to an eight-year extension worth a total of $73.2MM. The deal will start in 2023-24 and carries an average annual value of $9.15MM.
Barzal, 25, is heading into the third season of a three-year, $21MM bridge contract he signed in 2021 and would have been due a qualifying offer of $8.4MM next summer. That also would have been his final year as a restricted free agent, he would have had arbitration rights, and could have potentially walked himself right to unrestricted free agency by agreeing to a one-year deal. With all of that in mind, the Islanders had to pay up to keep Barzal in the fold long-term, buying out a very expensive RFA season and seven more UFA years.
At $9.15MM, he will become the team’s highest-paid player by quite a bit, blowing by the previous $7MM cap that Anders Lee carries through 2025-26. While the last couple of seasons hasn’t been quite as impressive as Barzal’s incredible 85-point rookie campaign in 2017-18, his dynamic offensive skill is something that is difficult to come by. There’s little doubt that Barzal is the most talented forward on the team, and now with a contract like this in hand, he becomes the pillar to build the rest of the offensive group around.
The question, of course, is whether the Islanders will be able to support Barzal with enough skill once he’s earning so much. A $9.15MM cap hit makes him the 21st highest-paid forward in the league, ahead of some very consistent goal scorers like Filip Forsberg and Mika Zibanejad, and some young up-and-coming talents like Brady Tkachuk and Robert Thomas. The contract that CapFriendly notes as most comparable is Brayden Point’s $76MM extension, which kicks in this year, but that is a pretty high bar for Barzal to reach on a consistent basis.
With more than $71MM now committed to next season, with a roster of just 17 players, Islanders management will need to make some tough decisions in the years to come. Ilya Sorokin, Josh Bailey, and Anthony Beauvillier are all scheduled for unrestricted free agency after 2023-24. The team is likely betting on the salary cap taking the sharp increase that has been reported, or else things are going to get tight, quick.
Either way, this locks a fan favorite in for the better part of his career, and allows Islanders fans to breathe easy about Barzal’s future. The 16th overall pick from 2015 is now under contract through 2030-31 and now has no negotiations to distract him from getting back to the point-per-game player he has proven capable of being.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
That’s a good deal
Great deal for a 60pt player…did they pay him because he makes really nice circles?
how to tell someone has never watched barzal play in one easy step
OK. I understand that Barry Trotz and Matthew Barzal never went out for beers after the game together. They may not have even spoken much. I don’t know. But there is no way that Barry Trotz and ANY 60 foot player can manage to get along for four years without somebody breaking. Barzal is never going to win a Selke. But he’s far from a 60 foot player.
Not sure if it was edited but it says 60 point player
I think I misread it. Thanks.
That’s funny. Watched almost every game since the Isles drafted him. He’s not a $9M player. Could he be? Absolutely. But he hasn’t been since his rookie season.
Always said 60 point. Never said 60 foot. Try honing that reading comprehension.
9.15 million for a guy who scored 59 points in 73 games for a losing team is a good deal? To put that in perspective, Crosby is 11 years older, played 3 less games, and scored 25 more points. I’m glad Zibanejad signed his deal when he did, or he could’ve asked NYR for a Panarin type deal. Islander fans are delusional.
Great deal for Barzal. I guess Lou is paying for potential now.
I dunno … “dynamic offensive potential” doesn’t mean a whole lot to me without dynamic offensive *production.* Wasn’t he a “pillar to build the rest of the offensive group around” any time in the last four years? Ever since his rookie season, Barzal has produced at a top-line level — barely — but no better.
Some of us care less about how he looks while he plays than in the results of his play, and five years into his career, it makes a great deal more sense to view his rookie year as a fluke than the other four seasons as the outlier. This is a big overpay … and it’s going to cost the Islanders the ability to sign a useful middle-six player to boot.
watch a single Islanders game. barzal produced well in his rookie year because he coach (Doug Weight) was completely terrible and lacked any sort of system that makes a team strong. They hired trotz, who implemented a extremely responsible defensive system that had reduced production across the board, but yielded much better team results. Box score scouts can easily look at Barzals hockeydb and assume less points=regression when the opposite is true. Barzal getting 60 points in a trotz system makes him EASILY worth the deal. his leadership and generational skating make this an underpay.
This is a good deal for both sides.
In a couple of years when the cap goes up more than a million a year it will look even better for the Islanders
Plus he is signed until 32 or 33, before any decline sets in
Now Lou needs to get him a 1st line winger to play with.
Decline? Like going from 85 points to 59 points in 4 years? With what money are they getting a first line winger? Did you read the article?
@ victorerat, Could of been the coach. But it was also the only year Barzal was able to hide behind Tavares.
Victorerat, this is pretty simple. You win hockey games by doing exactly one thing: putting more pucks in the other guys’ net than they put into yours, not by how good you look doing it or whether the fanboys are onboard with you. So yeah, we’re going to look at the numbers rather than at your airy, undefined whatever-it-is.
Barzal doesn’t produce elite offense. He’s *terrible* at the dot — one of the worst faceoff men in the league. He doesn’t hit. He doesn’t block shots. He turns over nearly twice as many pucks as he takes away. With the exception of the 2021 season, he has consistently poorer defensive metrics than his teammates, and a mark of that is that his coaches almost *never* use him in shorthanded situations.
Barzal does exactly two things well: he’s a good playmaker, and his possession numbers are consistently sound. And like MrStomper, that’s enough to be going on with: there are few teams in the league who wouldn’t take that for a 2nd line center. But if this guy’s the putative cornerstone of your offense, you’re humped. He’s barely worth what he was making. He sure as hell isn’t worth north of $9MM.
Trotz islanders played at leats half of their home games with un3.5 overall score. How are players supposed to produce a ppg offense with such systems implemented by coach? All of last 4 seasons he’s top or tied in scoring on the team where 50pts is considered outstanding plus last year was bad for islanders. I guess barzal we’ll be fine
I wish Pasta signed with the bruins before this happened.
(nods to Jimmydel) Hell yeah. If Barzal’s worth $9 MM, Pasta’s gonna ask for McDavid-type money.
As to Gash, you like this all the time, or are you only gutless part time? Sheesh, a pseudonym having to hide behind a pseudonym. Wotta “man.”
Barzal is a perfectly fine 2nd line center. I’m not knocking the player. I am questioning the wisdom of spending $9.15 million on him.
Wow, nice money!
This seems like a massive overpay in salary and term