What We Know

• Zucker said he’d “love to be back” in Pittsburgh next season.

Comparables

Below, we take a look at what Zucker’s deal could look like at different lengths. For more information on the stats/tables used below, including how the payment rate in projections is determined, visit the About the Site page.

For the comparable contracts, we’ll be looking at wingers who were between 29 and 33 years old by Dec. 31 in the first year of their contract.

5 YEARS

Five years is probably the absolute maximum we’d see for Zucker’s next deal.

Comparables also give us a pretty defined range of what to expect from the contract, with it likely to come in somewhere between $4.58M and $6.65M per year.

Pinpointing an area within this range though, two projections are outliers on the low end, putting him below $4.95M, while three are outliers on the high end, projecting more than $5.75M.

However, nine of the 14 projections would have him somewhere between $4.95M and $5.75M, which seems like the appropriate range, likely coming in somewhere between those marks.

Again, a five-year deal is unlikely for Zucker. He’s coming off two bad seasons prior to 2022-23 and carries some risk. That said, if someone is willing to give that length of a deal, we can expect it to come in somewhere within the range above.

4 YEARS

At four years, we’re looking at a slightly more realistic range for Zucker. We’ve seen players like Kyle Palmieri and Max Pacioretty have tough seasons either directly before, or close to signing a contract and still get that length of a deal.

From the eight projections, while there is a range of $3.1M to $6.4M, half of the total projections would have Zucker between $4.66M and $5.10M, which seems like a realistic range.

Perhaps the Kyle Palmieri contract itself is one of the more comparable deals, as a recent four-year deal at $5M, and while it could possibly be higher or lower, it’s a realistic range.

3 YEARS

Based on Zucker’s decline over the last few years before this season, to me, three years could be most likely for his deal. That said, it’s also probably the shortest deal we’d see for the forward.

Of the five three-year deals, while two projections would have Zucker as high as $5.28M or as low as $3.33M, the more defined range is between $4.15M and $4.45M.

A good example would be Reilly Smith’s contract. Signed just last summer, Smith had an underwhelming season prior to his signing year but bounced back to post slightly higher production than Zucker before signing. He also had similar, but higher career production. As a result, we can assume Zucker shouldn’t be at the same $5M cap hit as Smith.

Evgenii Dadonov and Mike Hoffman also had much higher production and got only $5.00M and $4.50M respectively on their three-year deals. As a result, it’s somewhat tough to predict Zucker as high as $5M, with his deal likely coming in a step lower than that on a three-year deal.

Projection

In free agency, it’s all going to come down to how teams value Zucker. There are enough projections for each term, but we don’t know how much his decline over the last few years will scare teams away.

At Zucker’s age and production, the winger is most likely to get a three or four-year deal in free agency.

Meanwhile, five years is a less likely term for Zucker’s deal, but the projection is also below.