Despite his age, Perron has shown he can still produce at a high rate.

• Player Overview
• What We Know
• Comparables
• Projection

Player Overview

Through 17 seasons and 1131 NHL games, David Perron has managed to fend off father time in order to remain a contributing top-six forward.

Perron’s career has included three different stints with the St. Louis Blues (where he won his one and only Stanley Cup in 2019), as well as time with the Edmonton Oilers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Anaheim Ducks, Vegas Golden Knights, and most recently, the Detroit Red Wings.

Having just turned 36 years old though, Perron continues to produce at a high rate. He’s coming off a season in which he scored 17 goals and 47 points in 76 games with the Red Wings, and can still add some intensity to a lineup as well.

While Perron will likely only command a very short-term deal, he could be a good value addition if he hits free agency.

What We Know

• David Perron reportedly noted at the end of April that he wanted to return to Detroit (per TSN1050).

Comparables

Below, we take a look at what Perron’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.

With Perron now 36 years old, we’ll generally be looking at wingers who were near his age at the time of signing for the comparables used.

2 YEARS

In the last decade, there have only been five instances where a forward signed a 35+ contract at more than two years in length. Two of those were for franchise cornerstones in Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin, while two others ended in buyouts/termination (Patrick Marleau and Ilya Kovalchuk), with the most recent one being an outlier three-year contract Ryan Reaves (where he’s making only a little over $1M per year).

So if Perron gets a multi-year deal, he’d almost certainly only be looking at two years in length. Below, we see some comparable contracts for players who signed a two-year deal in their mid/late 30s.

On the high end of the comps, the expensive Nick Foligno contract can be explained by the fact that the Chicago Blackhawks have cap space, and showed last summer that they don’t mind overpaying on short-term deals as a result. With Justin Williams, the Carolina Hurricanes weren’t necessarily the most desirable market in 2017 when he signed with them, though his deal can also just be chalked up to an outlier as well.

The most realistic projections likely start with the Jordan Eberle contract at the very high end – or more simply, Perron’s current two-year, $4.75M cap hit contract. There’s a chance Perron is able to get the exact same contract two years later, based on Eberle’s numbers.

However, there are a few things that work against this. For starters, Perron’s production has dropped a little since he signed in 2022. That year, he inked his deal after scoring at a pace of 33 goals and 70 points per 82, while this year, his production per 82 pace was just 18 goals and 51 points. Even applying the payment rate from his own deal in 2022, he’d come in at just about $4.35M per year.

That also doesn’t factor in age as well though, with Perron now 36 years old heading into the coming season. As a result, the payment rate from when he was 34 years old can’t just be applied to this contract.

However, one of the better comps would be Gustav Nyquist, who signed his two-year deal last offseason. Nyquist had lower production which could’ve impacted his payment rate, but the projection would have Perron at a $3.85M cap hit on a two-year deal.

Then we see maybe two of the most accurate projections, in the contracts for Mats Zuccarello and Jeff Carter (who were closer to Perron’s age than Nyquist in the first year of the deal). Zuccarello signed his contract a year in advance, but the it represents a recent, realistic look at what a player around Perron’s age can get on a playoff-contending team, projecting a $3.38M cap hit on a two-year deal.

Meanwhile, Carter singed his deal mid-season, with relatively comparable production to Perron, and his deal projects Perron’s contract to come in at about a $3.1M cap hit. The middle ground between these projections would put Perron roughly around the $3.25M mark on a two-year deal.

While it’s tough to establish a range without a bigger sample size of comps in Perron’s age range, the Zuccarello and Carter projections likely give the best look at a possible two-year deal for Perron.

1 YEAR

While we at least have a general range for a possible two-year deal for Perron, projecting a one-year deal is a much more difficult task, based on the available comparables.

For every contributing forward making a decent salary, there are others on close to league-minimum deals. Once a player gets to the final few years of their career, money may not be the most important factor in their decision once they hit the market, and they could be willing to take less to go to a certain team. But this projection will be based on the maximum amount of money Perron could make.

In terms of comps, we see a general range of $2.1M on the low end, up to $6.00M on the high end.

At the same time, it’s very difficult to imagine Perron getting a raise on any contract, based on his age and the fact that his production did drop since signing his most recent contract. But then on the low end, the Patrick Kane comparable skews the projections a little bit, given he was coming off a major procedure and didn’t even sign a contract until nearly two months into the season. So realistically, we’re probably looking in the range of the $2.95M projection from the Thomas Vanek contract on the low end, up to the $4.2M projection from Paul Stastny on the high end.

It’s difficult to differentiate within this range, but we can figure that Perron would likely get a higher cap hit one a one-year deal than a two-year deal at this point, considering it would carry less risk. Still, the only actual cap hits on this list to hit the $4M mark were for Pavelski, who was in the midst of a monster season when he signed, and both Foligno and Perry, who were overpaid by a Blackhawks team who just needed veterans. So it’s tough to see Perron reaching the $4M mark again.

If we take that into account, we’re likely looking somewhere in the range of about $3.5M to $4M for Perron on a one-year deal.

Another thing to note though is that one-year deals for players at 35+ are also where you could see bonuses come into play. Just in these comparables alone, Pavelski and Vrbata both had performance bonuses in their deals, so while the cap hit may have been at a certain number, the potential bonuses could result in a higher AAV.

So it’s still a possibility that Perron could take a deal with a lower cap hit than projections would indicate, but one that includes performance bonuses for a higher AAV.

Projection

A one-year deal remains the most likely scenario for Perron, with a two-year deal almost certainly being the longest contract he could get in free agency.