• Player Overview
• What We Know
• Comparables
• Projection

Player Overview

After spending the majority of his first five seasons of professional hockey in the AHL, Jonathan Marchessault was able to find real success at the NHL level during the 2016-17 season with the Florida Panthers.

The productive year led Marchessault to being selected by the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft. From there, Marchessault established himself as one of the organization’s most important pieces, and the winger holds franchise records in goals, assists, points and games played through the seven years of the organization’s existence.

Marchessault’s production has been incredibly consistent in his tenure in Vegas as well, almost always averaging about 60-70 points per 82 in every season with the team. The winger was also notably a key part of the team’s 2023 Stanley Cup win, taking home the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.

Marchessault will turn 34 years old in the first year of his new contract this December, but his numbers have shown no signs of decline, with his 42 goals this season being by far the most of his career. If he does leave the organization that he’s helped to put on the map, he’d arguably be one of the top three free agent wingers available.

What We Know

• Marchessault noted that he’d ‘love to stay’ in Vegas. However, he said asked to negotiate an extension with the Golden Knights last offseason, and the team was not ready to do so.
• Marchessault also noted as of May 28 that he and the team had yet to speak about a new contract (per Associated Press).

Comparables

Below, we take a look at what Marchessault’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.

Typically, I try not to mix centers and wingers when comparing contracts. However, there’s a very small sample size of contracts for wingers with Marchessault’s age and production, so I’ll be including some centers in the comparable contract tables as well.

Note: this projection also uses the expected $87.7M salary cap for the 2024-25 season as a baseline, rather than the recently set $88M salary cap.

4 YEARS

Four years would be the maximum term we could expect to see for a Marchessault contract.

Generally, you don’t see teams willing to give out four-year contracts to players in their mid-30s all that often. Of the limited comparables though, they’d project a contract for Marchessault to come in between $6.50M on the low end, and about $8.25M on the high end.

The most expensive comp in terms of payment rate is Daniel Sedin: however, we can also note that a key part of Sedin getting that contract was likely based on having it match his brother, Henrik. So while Daniel Sedin had lower production than his brother, he ended up with the same contract, so the projection from his comp shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

That then leaves a cluster of three projections all between $7.50M and $7.75M, and the Pascal Dupuis deal as a lower outlier, projecting $6.50M on a four-year deal.

With such a limited sample size of deals, it’s tough to really project how much a four-year contract would cost. While more comps do have Marchessault at $7.5M (or more) though, it’s maybe a little tough to see it actually going that high.

For a player at Marchessault’s age, more term isn’t going to equal more money. So if there’s a certain projected cap hit on a three-year deal, that cap hit is very unlikely to be higher on a four-year deal. It may be the same, and could very well be lower, but would rarely be higher. So based on what we’ll be projecting for the three-year deal (which will be explained below), Marchessault is more likely to come in on the lower end of these projections on a four-year deal, likely midway between the $6.5M and $7.5M projections.

3 YEARS

Three years is the most likely length for a Marchessault contract.

There are a lot of centers within the projections (based on limited comparables being available), but we see a range of $6.25M on the very low end, up to $8.16M on the high end. That said, the projection from the Paul Stastny contract looks to be an outlier, with all six of the other comps projecting Marchessault between $6.25M and $7.60M on a three-year deal.

After this point though, it does get a lot more difficult to differentiate between the projections in finding an accurate number within that range. The Joe Pavelski and Claude Giroux deals are maybe the best indicators though, given they were by far the two most recent deals of the group, and the players had a similar production mid-point to Marchessault.

In the Giroux situation, though: he likely did take less than he could’ve in order to go to Ottawa (with ties to the area), which would’ve resulted in a lower projection for other deals when using his contract as a baseline. Looking at the actual cap hits of the Pavelski and Giroux deals as well, and they stood between $6.5M and $7M. So while Marchessault may not get the $7.3M that the Pavelski projection would suggest, he’s probably not going to be as low as the $6.25M projection from the Giroux deal either.

2 YEARS

A two-year contract is unlikely for Marchessault, unless he was only looking to play for two more years before retiring, or could get substantially more money at a lower term.

While a chunk of the comparables would project Marchessault below $7M, it remains an unlikely scenario. The winger is very likely to be offered three-year deals if he hits free agency, and there’d be no reason to take less term at his age. He’s a year removed from a Conn Smythe Trophy, and is going to get paid like it.

If a team was to offer a much higher cap hit on a two-year deal, it’s maybe a little more possible that we could see Marchessault take one. We saw it with Dmitry Orlov last year, where his $7.75M cap hit almost surely wasn’t offered at a longer term.

At the same time, this is probably Marchessault’s last big contract. So even if he intended to only play two more years, it’s tough to see any scenario where he’d be under the $7M mark, given he’s likely to be offered around that cap hit at other terms.

Projection

A three-year deal is the most likely term for Marchessault, followed by a four-year deal as the second-most likely option.

There’s also a much smaller chance we could see Marchessault sign for two years instead, if he wasn’t planning to play longer than a couple more seasons.