All Tyler Bertuzzi has done, to this point in his NHL career, is prove himself.
He has scored 21 goals in each of the past two seasons for the Red Wings, delivering outstanding value from the second-round pick they used to draft him in 2013. In January, he was Detroit?s representative at the NHL All-Star Game while making just $1.4 million annually. That was a pittance relative to his first-line role, but a salary that made sense when he signed in June 2018, before breaking through.
Tuesday, his next contract became official ? a one-year, $3.5 million deal decided via arbitration. It?s a substantial raise, but what stands out most about Bertuzzi?s new contract is that one-year length, which became inevitable when the sides could not come to an agreement before arbitration over the weekend.
It means Bertuzzi, once again, will enter next season with something to prove.
Bertuzzi is already one of the success stories of the Red Wings? rebuild, a player coach Jeff Blashill said this about last season: ?When our team?s better, he?s going to be even more valuable. I think he?s the type of guy that wins. As the games get harder, he gets better.?
Indeed, that is the kind of player Bertuzzi has shown himself to be throughout his career. His postseason pedigree in the OHL and AHL, including winning the AHL playoff MVP in 2017, speaks for itself. And a one-year deal certainly doesn?t do anything to change his upward trajectory. It?s also worth mentioning that Bertuzzi is the one who opted for arbitration this offseason, and certainly, the NHL?s financial strife right now doesn?t make negotiating long-term contracts easy.
But in the big picture, this contract was always going to have ramifications for the ongoing remake of the Red Wings under general manager Steve Yzerman, and the implications of this deal?s length, in particular, are layered.
The short-term bottom line is that Bertuzzi, a clear top-six (and usually top-line) forward for Detroit, is under contract for a reasonable cap and salary number for 2020-21. Next offseason, he will again be a restricted free agent, and Detroit will retain his rights. However, he will at that point be only one year away from unrestricted free agency.
That?s what makes the deal a bit complicated in the long term. The Red Wings have kept all their contracts short since Yzerman arrived last spring. That?s mostly been a positive, as he?s signed veteran free agents to one- and two-year deals that won?t block any top prospects long term. Such an approach has preserved flexibility as Detroit?s next young wave matures, while adding veteran support and minimal locks on the cap sheet for when the team is ready to turn the corner.
As it stands, Dylan Larkin is the only Red Wings player with a contract past 2022. And his deal expires in 2023.
Yzerman recently said the team is ?prepared to sign players to longer-term contracts,? but also said it wants to ?move slowly for the time being, and be careful about handing out long-term deals.? But Bertuzzi, at 25 and as one of the Red Wings? top players, certainly seems like the kind of player it would make sense to sign with at least some term. That can still happen in a year, of course, and maybe it will. At minimum, the league?s economic situation should have more clarity by then, and Bertuzzi will have another season on his r?sum? too.
But he will also be a year older at that point, and if things go well for both he and the Red Wings in 2021, it would inevitably mean his deal would be more expensive, too. Something else to consider: As The Athletic?s Craig Custance wrote last year, 21 of 27 players who had arbitration hearings between 2009-18 joined a new team within three years. Sixteen were gone within two.
In other words, this is not a no-risk outcome for the Red Wings, even if it?s not a five-alarm fire, either.
There are reasonable arguments as to why Detroit may have wanted to avoid a long-term deal in this instance, if that was, in fact, the case. The uncertainty of the league?s cap and finances is one discussion point. More persuasive, though, could be that Bertuzzi?s role on the Red Wings? top line may change in the next few years. Even if Bertuzzi sticks with Larkin and Anthony Mantha for the next season or two, recent top-10 picks Lucas Raymond and Filip Zadina continue to progress. If their respective development paths go well, both have the talent to assume top-line roles within the next few years.
And as much as Bertuzzi?s production the past two years is a reflection of what he can do when given the right opportunity, teams do have to be judicious about their contract structures, making sure to account for what the player will do going forward, not just what he?s already done.
