In recent memory, few have taken advantage of their pending UFA status like Panthers winger Sam Reinhart. The 28-year-old has exploded in his third season in South Florida, producing at a 61-goal, 106-point pace through his first 42 games. He’ll shatter his previous career highs of 33 goals and 82 points, set during his first campaign with the Panthers in 2021-22.
That production has elevated Reinhart to the title of the league’s best pending UFA, at least with Maple Leafs winger William Nylander off the market. As such, most expected Reinhart’s camp to push for a deal closer to his Toronto counterpart’s eight-year, $92MM deal that carries a $11.5MM AAV. However, in his latest for The Athletic, Pierre LeBrun says that won’t necessarily be the case.
Firstly, he stresses that only preliminary extension discussions between Panthers GM Bill Zito and Reinhart’s agent, Newport Sports’ Craig Oster, have taken place. But, in LeBrun’s words, Reinhart “really, really wants to stay in South Florida,” and that could cause a potential extension to come in below the $10MM-plus AAV mark that some are expecting. While tax advantages in contract signings with certain teams are generally overblown in public discourse, there is a documented history of players taking discounts on market value in no-income-tax states like Florida, Dallas and Tennessee that LeBrun points out.
LeBrun also doesn’t believe Zito would be willing to entertain a deal that stretches into the $10MM range, given the team’s salary structure. The team’s longer-term commitments to their stars are clearly laid out – captain Aleksander Barkov carries a $10MM cap hit through 2030, last season’s team MVP Matthew Tkachuk carries a $9.5MM cap hit for the same length, and starting netminder Sergei Bobrovsky carries a $10MM cap hit through 2026. He won’t be willing to give Reinhart a deal that eclipses any of the above.
However, despite Reinhart being likely to receive offers of $10MM-plus per year from other teams on the open market, LeBrun posits Reinhart may be amicable to Zito’s desires. That’s because he’s likely to prioritize contract length in his discussions, says LeBrun, and it’s easy to see why. While he’s got ten seasons and over 650 NHL games under his belt, he’s never signed a contract longer than three years, and he’s now wrapping up his third deal signed after his entry-level contract expired in 2018.
So, if Zito is willing to go eight years on an extension, that could get Reinhart locked in at a cheaper price than most expected after his breakout year. There’s some recent precedence in terms of team salary structure that could offer insight into what Reinhart’s final extension could look like, too.
Take the Canadiens last summer, who needed an extension for star RFA sniper Cole Caufield after the completion of his entry-level contract. While his 2022-23 campaign was nearly halved due to a shoulder injury, he produced at a 46-goal pace through his 46 appearances. Given he was just in his third NHL season on a rebuilding team, few would have batted an eye if his extension was signed in the $8MM-$9.5MM range per season.
Instead, he took an eight-year deal with a slight discount in the cap hit department at $7.85MM. It was $25K less per season than captain Nick Suzuki, who Canadiens GM Kent Hughes obviously believes should be the team’s highest-paid forward at this stage in their rebuild. While Suzuki and Caufield are a younger duo, it wouldn’t be a far-fetched comparison to project that difference onto the potential difference in cap hits between Reinhart and Tkachuk. Could an eight-year deal worth $9.25MM per season be enough to keep Reinhart from heading to market on July 1?
Zito has a busy few months ahead of him. He also needs to hold extension talks with defensemen Gustav Forsling and Brandon Montour, who are currently locked into a combined bargain price of $6.17MM. Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who leads Panthers defensemen in points at the halfway mark of the season, is also a pending UFA earning only $2.25MM. Getting Reinhart done for seven figures per season would open a precious few thousand dollars to devote to the future of their defense corps.
Will be interesting to see what he signs for
A saw a quote from an agent that basically explained it this way…
The players in other cities don’t really pay more in taxes than TX, FL, TN, etc.
They just have to hire fewer accountants to get around paying them than the guys who sign there.
How to say I don’t understand basic math without…
A- Rereading it, I switched the sides of my point in the final sentence and said fewer when it should read more.
B- Even accounting for that, I think you missed the point entirely.
Players in states/cities with income tax absolutely pay more in taxes than playing in a state with no income tax. 5% on an $10,000,000 contract would be about $250,000 (still taxed in away games).
As noted in the article, Texas, Tennessee and Florida have zero
If you are playing half of your games in California, you might be paying a rate of 12.3%
New York teams have about a 9% rate, but if you are a Rangers player, you are also paying an income tax to New York City of top of the state rate.
Think that this does not make a difference?
If they actually pay it, yes.
Which was the agent’s point. They don’t.
Exactly, and they will have to pay it regardless of what narrative some anonymous agent is pushing.
Yes, wealthy people in America pay their full taxes with no creative accounting methods to avoid it.
And why would an agent know such things anyway, right?
Oh, wait….
So who is paying the taxes? The team?
Please do not tell me that you are one of those people that believe that rich people do not pay taxes.
So, when rich people who are honest admit that they are not taxed enough or when they brag in debates that not paying taxes “makes (them) smart”, they are lying?
When you watch over and over how people like Pirates owner Bob Nutting inherit their money tax free, it’s an optical illusion?
Good to know.
It would be disheartening if the people most able shirked their responsibilities and there was an entire movement dedicated to getting plebes to defend the whole thing, eh?
Here comes the biggest question – how much is enough?
Bob Nutting may inherit his money tax free, but the estate of the person he inherited from payed Federal Estate Tax at 45% not to mention any state inheritance tax. So Bob Nutting is the beneficiary of the estate, but the estate pays the tax.
Did you know that the bottom 50% of U.S. tax payers pay something like 5% of all Federal taxes? Fair?
I see you are unfamiliar with the carried interest loophole.
Also, the bottom 50% have less than 5% of the wealth. Fair?
Bezos, Musk and the Waltons alone have as much wealth as half of America, but much of the country has been conditioned their entire lives to reflexively defend the rich, often by validating their racism and/or ignorance in a divide and conquer strategy and many are all too happy to be these windup toy footstools.
Speaking of which…
The carried interest “loophole” is for people who do a lot of trading on Wall Street as well as “market makers” Applies to less than 1% of the population. Think Bob Nutting is using this? Only if he works on Wall Street.
Now you are mixing income and wealth. Two different issues. Take another swing.
Income is based on a particular year. Wealth happens over a lifetime, or someone elses lifetime. My 90 year old mother has over 100K in her retirement account and pays ZERO Federal income tax because she only has to take about 10K out each year, which is not enough to pay Federal tax. Therein lies the difference – 10K of income; 100K of wealth.
So you switched from income to wealth?
I picked one example to avoid a pointless conversation, I could name many others and you will dutifully explain one by one why it’s OK and wonderful and we should service them in gratitude. I am quoting an agent from a 32 Thoughts article and people act like I spit in their mother’s face they are so eager and conditioned to obey their masters.
But I notice you dropped the fairness angle.
“Also, the bottom 50% have less than 5% of the wealth. Fair?”
You were big on fairness when it might result in the wealthy being ever so slightly less wealthy…
Are you equally big on fairness when it comes to half of the entire nation owning about 1% of the wealth?
I ask this rhetorically, obviously. We both know the answer.
“It’s their own fault!!!! If they didn’t want to be poor…”
It is the unanswerable question – what is fair? What is fair to you may not be fair to me.
I have got a good dose of reality for you – LIFE IS NOT FAIR! Like it or not, this is reality.
You have gone from talking about people not paying taxes on INCOME and switched the conversation to WEALTH. Apples and oranges. Does this mean you have conceded the original point of state tax rates?.
Should the person who picks up my garbage each week be paid equally with the person who treats my wife’s cancer?
THERE IS NO FAIRNESS. It has been tried time and again over the years in countries around the world and the only thing that is equal is misery.
“Did you know that the bottom 50% of U.S. tax payers pay something like 5% of all Federal taxes? Fair?”
Weird how fairness was answerable here. You brought it up unprompted even.
“Also, the bottom 50% have less than 5% of the wealth. Fair?”
But became an unanswerable abstraction here.
I do enjoy that part where even when I explain exactly how and why you will lick the boots, you still can’t help yourself but to lick the boots.
It’s OK, you’ve been conditioned your entire life to do so. Carry on…
I have repeatedly asked for YOUR definition of fairness, and all you can do is to resort to schoolyard insults.
I can deduct that your focus on wealth means that your original thinking on INCOME has been put behind you. Let us not forget, this is where the conversation began and you switched to wealth.
My wife and I purchased a piece of ground and later built a house on it. Almost 25 years later, the value of our house has doubled. Does that make me greedy?
You seem to be butt hurt by people who were willing to sacrifice in the near term so that our retirements will be comfortable.
Ultimately, you always have a choice to make. But you choose to want to reduce those who have chosen better than you.
We’ve established that you think making people with money pay more in taxes is unfair.
Some people have food, some people do not….fair?
You are very adept at putting words in my mouth. Do you have a problem with reading comprehension? You began this conversation questioning whether hockey players pay state income taxes.
Some people sacrificed, exercised personal initiative and made a better life for themselves while others sit around on their couch swilling beer and feel envious of those who bettered themselves. Fair?
So, again. fairness is unknowable when it comes to the people you don’t care about…
Meanwhile, you blather on about “Some people sacrificed, exercised personal initiative and made a better life for themselves” while defending silver spoons like Bob Nutting, etc. who didn’t lift a finger but you think deserve tax free fortunes while you couldn’t care less if certain people starve.
A person with a lot having a bit less is unfair.
A person having nothing is just their fault the bums and fairness is unknowable.
As expected.
You seem to have a real stick up your butt over Bob Nutting. Yes, Nutting inherited his money, but someone in his lineage had to earn said money and indeed paid taxes on this money.
Do you have a problem with sports figures earning millions of dollars per year? There is no difference in my mind between owner and player.
What about the children and grandchildren of these sports stars? Do you think that their offspring will ever have to work in their lifetimes?
Bill Gates started with next to nothing. Today he has a private foundation that gives millions yearly to charities. Butt hurt that you are not one of their charities?
“Meanwhile, you blather on about “Some people sacrificed, exercised personal initiative and made a better life for themselves” while defending silver spoons like Bob Nutting, etc. who didn’t lift a finger but you think deserve tax free fortunes while you couldn’t care less if certain people starve.”
“You seem to have a real stick up your butt over Bob Nutting. Yes, Nutting inherited his money, but someone in his lineage had to earn said money and indeed paid taxes on this money.”
So, again, you float the canard of the “some people sacrificed, exercised personal initiative” blather but you are saying it would be unfair if a guy who didn’t lift one finger and did nothing to earn the money beyond outliving his father has to pay literally any taxes on it but can’t bring yourself to say that people not having food is unfair.
As expected. This is all fitting the hypothesis.
Sorry, but for me envy is one of, if not the most, useless emotions.
I see that you did not mention today’s athletes (pick your sport). There is no way that their children and their children’s children will not be inheriting millions while not lifting a finger.
Why not get mad at your parents for not being wealthier so you can sit on your fat ass swilling beer, watching TV and doing nothing but bitching about people who have more than you.
So, again, can’t bring himself to say that some people not having food is unfair…but can stereotype those who think people should have food. That’s “envy”. Too perfect.
I was already sufficiently satisfied in the extent to which you had exposed yourself (ex. even after I point out that you couldn’t bring yourself to say that some people not having food is “unfair” you still can’t even pay lip service to the idea that other humans should eat and instead launched into a garden variety makers and takers spiel) as exactly what I expected, but if you want to go for bonus points…knock yourself out, I guess.
” . . . some people not having food is unfair . . .” Do you understand that the U.S. government spends record amounts and record number of people on food stamps? This is not to mention food banks and other associations. We have the Federal government giving both school breakfasts and lunches to children WITHOUT any means testing. If people are going hungry, then they are just too lazy to go get it.
I see you are still dodging the question of athletes being paid tens of millions a year and you have no problem with that. Just sweep under the rug that their children will inherit millions a la Bob Nutting and not a peep.
Never mind that I firmly believe that in this cap era, the success of a team will be strongly tied to its stars taking less than full market rate, just so it can sign more and better players with the rest. Who aspires to being McDavid-and-Draisaitl and no Cups, after all?
Sid has 3 Cups because he has OCD, it’s true.
$8.7 M AAV for the best player of his era.
No chance he gets more per yr than barkov or tkachuk. I’m sure zito wants maybe 6 yrs & reinhart 7 or 8. Its crazy those 2 guys are locked in for 19.5m combined thru 2027-28. This is how its done Toronto lol.
Samsun is very likely to stay in the Sunshine. He likes living in sunshine as evidenced by his fine tan.
All things considered, I think it’s more than 90% that he inks with the Cats.
This all said, with Júri Kulich and Devon Levi, the Sabres won the trade. But Florida gets the earlier smiles.
Dallas is a no-income-tax state? I wonder if Texans are aware of this?
They do not. Ask anyone from MA & NY, they’ll explain why Dallas absolutely does not have an 8.25% sales tax rate. Also, when some people calculate taxes, it turns out that Texans are exempt from paying Social Security and Medicare. (But it’s a secret, so don’t spill the frijoles.)
He’s going to sign with the Blackhawks.
4 years at 6 million per is a smart offer.
I meant 4 years at 8 million annually.