Fresh off a Stanley Cup win, Reinhart could head to free agency as one of the top wingers available.

• Player Overview
• What We Know
• Comparables
• Projection

Player Overview

Just after scoring a Stanley Cup-clinching goal on Monday, Sam Reinhart has a big decision to make about his future.

A second-overall pick of Buffalo in 2014, Reinhart spent the first six seasons of his NHL career with the Sabres. Without much of a team around him though, while Reinhart was a decent top-six forward, he was never really able to take the next step in his game, maxing out around 25 goals and 65 points.

However, a trade to the Panthers in 2021 proved to be the right fit. He reached career-highs in goals, assists and points in his first season with Florida, and while he slowed down a little bit last season, he rebounded for best season of his career this year. With the Panthers, Reinhart scored 57 goals (which was good enough for second in the NHL), along with 94 points.

In addition to being able to produce at a really high rate, Reinhart has also shown to have a fairly well-rounded game, receiving Selke Trophy votes in each of the last three seasons. Buyers should have some caution with throwing money at the forward based on this year’s production though – he had an unsustainably high shooting percentage of nearly 25 percent this season. As a result, Reinhart’s goal totals will surely drop back down to around 30 per season, and it’s also important for an acquiring team to note that a good chunk of his goals are going to come from passes/loose pucks around the net, rather than goals off the rush.

Still, Reinhart is one of the top two UFA wingers available on the market, alongside Jake Guentzel.

What We Know

• In April, Panthers general manager Bill Zito believed a deal could get done with Reinhart, per TSN.
• Reinhart noted after the Stanley Cup win that he did not want to leave Florida, per Chris Johnston.

Comparables

Below, we take a look at what Reinhart’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 Reinhart turning 29 years old in November, the comparables used will generally be wingers who were between 28 and 30 years old by Dec. 31 of the first year of their deal.

For readers using mobile view, the tables below allow for horizontal scrolling.

7/8 YEARS

Unlike most other projection articles which will look at a wide range of possible lengths for a player’s deal, Reinhart has pretty clearly set himself up for a maximum term contract. Coming off the best season of his career, there’s no reason for him to take less term, rather than cashing in now. As a result, we’ll only be looking at comparables for a seven or eight-year deal.

Looking at the comparables, aside from two outliers in Artemi Panarin and Jamie Benn, all eight of the other comparables would have Reinhart’s deal at between $8.3M on the low end, up to about $9.6M on the high end.

That said, there’s a very clear trend in terms of how payment rate has changed in recent years. All four of the highest comps on the table above were signed pre-2020, with all six of the deals on the lower end of the table coming in 2021 or later. As a result, it could point to the fact that Reinhart’s market value may not be as high as the upper end of that range.

Another trend with the players from 2021 onwards on the table is that many, like Reinhart, had much higher signing year production than their career production. So while William Nylander, Jonathan Huberdeau, Filip Forsberg, J.T. Miller and Johnny Gaudreau all produced at a massive rate in their signing year, it didn’t actually increase their payment rate. In reality, the major discrepancy in signing year production versus career production likely points to it being unsustainable, or an outlier year.

On the low end, Reinhart’s value likely comes in above Johnny Gaudreau’s $8.3M cap hit (and J.T. Miller’s as well, by extension), given Gaudreau was reportedly offered quite a bit more money to stay in Calgary than the deal he ended up signing in Columbus. So his lower cap hit doesn’t actually dictate his market value.

But we’ve also seen high goal paces don’t actually make a massive difference in payment rate, a lot of the time. For example, Filip Forsberg scored goals at a huge rate in his signing year, but his contract would still project Reinhart at just an $8.5M cap hit.

To counter Reinhart being on the lower end of the projections though, we’ve also seen how much ‘Stanley Cup tax’ can come into play, for players who are fresh off a Championship win. Just in recent years, we’ve seen the likes of Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, Alex Killorn and Radko Gudas all get larger deals than they otherwise should. As a result, there’s certainly an argument that even with only a slight inflation due to a Stanley Cup win, his deal should likely hit the midway point of what the comps would project, around the $9M mark.

Now, most of the comparables for Reinhart’s contract above are eight-year deals. So while Reinhart’s market value on an eight-year deal may be around $9M based on the comps above, his value on a seven-year deal will almost surely be higher. As soon as July 1 rolls around, we’ll likely see a bidding war if Reinhart remains unsigned.

That’s where we’d likely see Reinhart’s cap hit work its way up towards the higher range of the projections, around a $9.5M cap hit (shown in the comps from contracts for Marchand, Duchene and Nylander), on a seven-year deal.

That said, the other consideration for a possible extension in Florida is that the Panthers have a state tax advantage. Even if his market value is around $9M on an eight-year deal (or potentially $9.5M on a seven-year deal), the Panthers could offer him a deal at an $8.5M cap hit, and Reinhart would still come away with a larger salary at the end of the day. So as a result of him being with the Panthers than a different team (where his contract would be affected more by state tax), projections between a contract on a seven-year deal in free agency versus an eight-year deal in Florida will have a larger discrepancy in cap hit than usual.

Projection

Not only do the Panthers have the advantage in terms of being able to spread out total dollars over an eighth year for Reinhart, the state tax factor can help them to provide more value at a lower cap hit than most other teams could offer at seven years.

As a result, while Reinhart could earn up to $9.5M on the open market, the Panthers could arguably provide a better offer at an eight-year deal around $8.5M, which would otherwise be a bit below value for an eight-year deal.