The Jets get fair value on their four-year extension with DeMelo.

• Player Overview
• Comparables
• Final Analysis

The Winnipeg Jets locked up defenseman Dylan DeMelo to a four-year contract extension on Tuesday, with the deal carrying a $4.9 million cap hit.

While all of our designated Top-50 Free Agents will get a projection article throughout June/July, DeMelo signed his deal before the projection was released. So instead, we’ll take a look at comparable contracts to evaluate how the deal looks for the Jets, and whether it carries fair value.

Player Overview

A member of the Jets since 2020, DeMelo has found a great fit in Winnipeg.

After beginning his career in San Jose, the defenseman was sent to Ottawa as part of the blockbuster Erik Karlsson trade in 2018. However, after a season and a half with the Senators, DeMelo was shipped to the Jets at the 2020 trade deadline, in exchange for a third-round pick. The move proved to be a great event for both the team, and player.

Over the last four years, DeMelo has continued to grow his role in Winnipeg, with his ice time increasing in each season since signing his original four-year extension with the team. DeMelo is extremely sound defensively, and he’s also coming off the best season of his career, which saw him reach a career-high in points (31), while also posting the second-best plus-minus in the entire NHL, at an outstanding plus-46 rating.

Comparables

Below, we take a look at how DeMelo’s deal compares to those of other defenders who signed four-year contracts. With DeMelo now 31 years old, comparables were generally kept to defensemen who were between 29 and 33 years old by Dec. 31 of the first year of their contract.

For readers using mobile view, the table below allows for horizontal scrolling.

Regarding the term: four years is very fair for DeMelo. With defensemen around 30/31 years old who are counted on for defensive reliability rather than offensive production, four years is extremely common. Once in a while, these players could get a fifth year, but based on DeMelo’s age, it was unlikely. Similarly, sometimes a defender can end up taking three years or less, but DeMelo’s stats point to him being worthy of a four-year deal (based on the comps above), and security would probably be important for DeMelo, given his age.

Looking at the comps, DeMelo’s production and usage were quite a bit lower overall than any player from Jake Muzzin and above ($6M+ adjusted cap hit). At the same time, looking at the bottom of the table, DeMelo had much better numbers overall than both Adam Larsson and Brenden Dillon. Meanwhile, the two other defensemen around the bottom of the comps in Jake Gardiner and Nick Leddy could more or less be classified as offensive defensemen, which could skew their contract a bit, and wouldn’t be overly comparable to DeMelo.

As a result, we can define more applicable range for comparable deals between Connor Murphy’s $4.7M adjusted cap hit, and T.J. Brodie’s $5.4M adjusted cap hit.

With T.J. Brodie as a comp, while DeMelo did have a bit better of a signing year statistically, Brodie had the better career numbers by far, pointing to DeMelo’s value being a little lower than Brodie’s adjusted cap hit.

That said, Ben Chiarot acts as a great comp, at a $5.1M adjusted cap hit. DeMelo and Chiarot had extremely similar production, and both had much more ice time in their signing year, as opposed to over their career. Chiarot’s ice time being higher could point to DeMelo’s value being every so slightly lower, but it’s a great look at DeMelo’s value.

Meanwhile, DeMelo had the slightly better production than Chris Tanev, and while his signing year ice time was about two minutes higher than Tanev, his career ice time was verging on two minutes lower, making for another great comp. The higher production could point to DeMelo being worth slightly more than Tanev’s $4.85M adjusted cap hit, but again, it’s a very comparable deal.

Then we get a bit more of a confirmation that DeMelo’s value would be right around the $5M mark, with three more solid comps with Manson, Russell, and Murphy, all between a $4.7M and $4.8M adjusted cap hit. While DeMelo had lower career ice time than all three, his signing year ice time was also above both Manson and Russell. Then while the career production was similar to each defenseman, his higher signing year production points to the fact that his value would likely be just slightly higher than that $4.7M/$4.8M range, once again pointing towards around a $5M cap hit.

Final Analysis

A four-year deal for DeMelo was by far the most likely length of contract, and his $4.9M cap hit comes in almost identical to what comparables would project. Based on the comparables above, a projection would have had him at a $5M cap hit for a four-year deal.

The Jets get fair value here, and DeMelo should continue to be a big part of the team’s top-four in the coming years.