Domi likely took less than he could’ve made in free agency, to stay in Toronto.

• Player Overview
• Comparables
• Final Analysis

The Toronto Maple Leafs re-signed forward Max Domi to a four-year contract just before free agency opened, with the deal carrying a $3.75M cap hit. His contract comes with a 13-team no-trade clause.

Below, we take a look at what kind of value the Maple Leafs get with the deal.

Player Overview

Having already played for seven teams across his decade in the NHL, Max Domi has bounced around quite a bit over his career. His production has been inconsistent at times, and given he’s not the most defensively-responsible forward, he struggled to find a team he fit with for a while.

However, after a resurgence during the 2022-23 season split between the Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars, Domi joined the Toronto Maple Leafs on a one-year deal last summer. Though his tenure in Toronto started a little slow, he proved to be a good fit in Toronto, with the ability to play either up the middle or on the wing.

While Domi won’t score a ton of goals, he remains a skilled playmaker, and can put up good numbers when he has talent around him. Domi had also been vocal about his desire to re-sign with the Maple Leafs this offseason.

Comparables

Below we’ll take a look at comparable four-year contracts to evaluate how the deal looks for the Maple Leafs, and whether it carries fair value. For more information on the stats/tables used below, including how the payment rate is calculated, visit the About the Site page.

With Domi now 29 years old, comparables were generally kept to forwards who were between 27 and 31 years old by Dec. 31 of the first year of their contract. While Domi can play down the middle, he’s not a consistent center and thus comparables were generally kept to wingers.

For readers using mobile view, a side-to-side scrolling option is available for the table below.

In regards to the term, four years was an expected length for Domi’s deal, especially with the player likely looking for some stability after signing back-to-back single-year contracts. While a deal at slightly more or less term was possible, the huge majority of comparables with similar production in their late 20s have ended up signing four-year deals, seen below.

Aside from two outlier contracts with the deals for Tomas Tatar and Kyle Palmieri, all of the other 15 comps would have Domi’s value between $3.45M on the low end, up to $5.65M on the high end. That said, we also see a major discrepancy with the two players who signed at the same age this offseason, with Anthony Duclair’s deal projecting Domi’s value at $3.8M per year on a four-year deal, but Tyler Bertuzzi’s deal projecting Domi at $5.6M per year.

Of all the comps listed though, only a single one would have projected his value to be lower than his $3.75M cap hit on a four-year deal.

We do see though that many of the more recent deals come in on the lower end of the table, pointing towards teams not being willing to pay comparable wingers at as high of a rate as they were willing to a little while ago. While the comps do go quite a bit higher than Domi’s $3.75M cap hit though, there is a range set from the more recent deals on this table: of the 10 comps signed from 2020 onwards, seven of them would have Domi at $5.2M or lower.

Still, even of the more recent comps from Taylor Hall and below, a good chunk of them would’ve had Domi coming in above the $4M mark. As I’ve noted in previous articles as well, both Mason Marchment and Evander Kane had factors that likely would’ve negatively impacted their maximum earnings, given Marchment’s career experience was extremely limited, and Kane was recently coming off a contract termination shortly before signing. So while Domi’s value may not have been substantially higher than a lot of the lower comparables listed, he likely could’ve signed a deal well past the $4M mark, if he was looking for the maximum money possible in free agency.

Final Analysis

A four-year deal for Domi is fair, based on comparables with similar numbers. That said, almost all comparables would’ve suggested that Domi’s value would be higher than his current $3.75M cap hit, at that length of contract.

Given his market value was likely up around $4.5M per year on a four-year contract, he almost certainly took less to stay in Toronto than he could’ve made in free agency.