As Week 2 of NHL free agency begins, Bruins nation continues to wait for any sort of official news on Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci.
Bruins in holding pattern with Bergeron, Krejci
General manager Don Sweeney still sounded optimistic on both fronts as of Wednesday, the day free agency began.
“I think we’re in a really good place with Patrice,” Sweeney said then. “Just the timing and working out the details of his contract and allowing him to declare he’s good to go. Could be any timeframe there. … And David Krejci, we’ve had numerous discussions throughout the day. Going to try to continue to find some common ground there. Remains positive, but I just don’t have a clear cut answer for you.”
In that same press conference, Sweeney offered a hint at what Bergeron and Krejci’s contracts could look like when he was asked if they could be more incentive-laden deals.
“Yeah, we’ll probably be a little more tilted, look at the performance side of things,” he said.
So, why would the Bruins choose this path? And what would those incentive-laden deals look like?
On the surface, making two franchise legends like Bergeron and Krejci hit certain performance bonuses to earn all their money might seem insulting.
That’s not really the case, though. It would be if those performance bonuses were difficult to achieve. To cross sports for a second, that’s why so many had a problem with the incentive-laden deals the Patriots gave to Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski in 2018. Neither came close to hitting their benchmarks, and missing out on millions of dollars was believed to be one of the final straws for both.
Any incentives for Bergeron and Krejci would almost certainly be easily attainable. When the Bruins gave Jarome Iginla an incentive-heavy deal in 2013, the biggest performance bonus was $3.7 million just for playing 10 games.
So, the actual money the Bruins would end up paying Bergeron and Krejci really doesn’t change. The reason they would structure their contracts this way is to lower the cap hit for the 2022-23 season.
Regardless of how much Bergeron and Krejci ultimately get in incentives, their cap hit for this coming season would only be whatever their base salary is. That could be as low as the veteran minimum of $750,000, but most likely would be at least $1 million.
Given that the Bruins currently have $4.758 million in cap space and also need to sign recently-acquired Pavel Zacha, who is a restricted free agent, it’s easy to see why they would want to keep Bergeron and Krejci’s cap hits as low as possible.
Everyone wins, right? Why wouldn’t more contracts be structured like this? Well, first off, only a small percentage of players are eligible for performance bonuses: those on entry-level contracts, those over 35 years old and signing a one-year deal, and those returning from long-term injured reserve and signing a one-year deal. Bergeron and Krejci qualify for the one-year deals since they are over 35.
Secondly, there is a trade-off. Whatever money Bergeron and Krejci earn in performance bonuses will be counted against the cap eventually. The question is whether it’s this year or next year.
If the Bruins have enough cap space at the end of this season to fit their bonus money under the salary cap, they can fold it all into this season and not have any of it roll over to next season. But if they are at or close to the cap and the bonus money would put them over, then whatever the difference is rolls over as a cap hit for next season, regardless of whether Bergeron and Krejci are still here or not.
Going back to the Iginla example from earlier, you may remember that $4.2 million of his bonus money earned in 2013-14 wound up being applied against the Bruins’ cap for the 2014-15 season, all while Iginla was playing in Colorado at that point. That was one of the big reasons the Bruins ended up in cap jail and missed the playoffs, leading to the firing of then-GM Peter Chiarelli.
So, those are the calculations Sweeney needs to make. How much can he afford to give Bergeron and Krejci as a base salary? How much is he willing to give them in performance bonuses? A higher base salary means he would almost certainly have to move out a contract or two off the current roster to free up money. Higher bonus money would risk a higher cap hit against next year’s roster.
There is an argument for maximizing this year now and worrying about next year next year. But that’s also what Chiarelli did with Iginla and it, in part, cost him his job when he was unable to build a playoff roster the following season.
Perhaps Cam Neely and Bruins ownership have already signed off on that kind of approach this time around. If they haven’t, then finding the right balance between base salary and performance bonuses is critical for Sweeney. He could carry over as much as $6.19 million in bonuses to next year (7.5% of the current salary cap), but that would be the equivalent of Brad Marchand’s current salary in dead money.
If Bergeron and Krejci were happy taking just $1 million and no bonuses, that would be ideal for the Bruins. But if they want to get paid something close to market value, or even 50% of market value, then it’s up to Sweeney to determine the best way to structure the deals.
Figuring all this out could help explain why there’s still nothing official on Bergeron and Krejci.
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