Monahan is set to reunite with former teammate Johnny Gaudreau in Columbus.

• Player Overview
• Comparables
• Final Analysis

Sean Monahan signed a five-year contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets as free agency opened on July 1, carrying a $5.5 million cap hit. The deal comes with a no-move clause for the first three years, which becomes a 15-team no-trade list for the final two years of the contract.

Below, we take a look at how the deal looks for the Blue Jackets, and whether they’re getting fair value.

Player Overview

A sixth-overall pick by the Calgary Flames in 2012, Sean Monahan established himself as one of the organization’s top forwards through the mid-2010s. Over his first seven seasons in Calgary, Monahan produced at an 82-game pace of 29 goals and 62 points.

However, the forward hit a pretty sharp decline over his final few years with the Flames. With his production falling and the team needing cap relief, Monahan was sent to the Montreal Canadiens in a cap dump trade, where the Flames included a first-round pick just to get out from under Monahan’s contract.

Upon joining the Canadiens though, the forward got off to a hot start. He managed six goals and 17 points in 25 games, and looked like he was getting things back on track. However, a broken foot and a groin injury that arose forced Monahan out of action for the remainder of the season.

But with Monahan re-signing in Montreal on a one-year deal, he managed to pick up where he left off. The forward posted 35 points in his first 49 games with the Canadiens during the 2023-24 season, and ended up fetching the Canadiens a first-round pick at the trade deadline, in a deal with the Winnipeg Jets. Monahan also adjusted well in his limited stint with the Jets, posting 24 points in 34 regular season games with the team, finishing the year with a total of 26 goals and 59 points.

Signing with Columbus, Monahan reunites with his former Flames linemate, Johnny Gaudreau. As a veteran amongst a fairly young forward group, Monahan should be able to add some stability to the team’s top-six. While he’ll likely be counted on for a large role early on, the hope would be that he can settle into a second-line center role, as Adam Fantilli continues to develop.

Comparables

Below we’ll take a look at comparable contracts to evaluate how the deal looks for the Flames, 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 Monahan turning 30 years old in October, comparables were generally kept to forwards who were between 28 and 32 years old by Dec. 31 of the first year of their contract.

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

5 YEARS

Based on his age and production, a five-year deal for Monahan is fair. Teams would likely be reluctant to give anything longer for greater risk of a decline, while centers around 30 years old with Monahan’s production would also warrant that length of contract. Comparable five-year contracts for centers are below.

Based on the limited comps available, every one of them would have projected Monahan to be above the $5.5M mark, on a cost-per-points basis. Four of the deals would’ve even projected him to be near a $7M cap hit or above.

At the same time, if you look towards the actual cap hits of the deals given out to players with relatively similar production, all the comps above were between $5M and $6M. This points towards teams generally being unwilling to give five-year deals at a much higher cap hit for a center of Monahan’s age. So while Monahan’s production was superior to any of the comps listed, the $5.5M cap hit isn’t wildly surprising, based on the actual cap hits given out to comps.

Even comparing Monahan against wingers rather than centers though, all of them would still project his deal to be worth more than his $5.5M cap hit on a cost-per-points basis, seen below.

So of the 15 comps above, all would project Monahan to be above the $5.5M mark. Nine of those comps would project Monahan to be between $6.65M and $7.5M on a five-year deal.

Again though, the actual cap hits tell somewhat of a different story. Even with the winger comps, the huge majority of them fall between $5M and $6M. So while Monahan’s value actually may have been quite a bit higher, it’s likely a matter of teams not being willing to go as high as his projected value would have suggested.

It also doesn’t help that Monahan is fairly recently coming off a career resurgence. While he did wonders to rebuild his value during the 2023-24 season, Monahan had a couple very rough years in Calgary not so long ago. Between the shortened 2021 season and the 2021-22 season, Monahan scored at an 82-game pace of just 13 goals and 36 points. So there’s still some risk in the signing.

Final Analysis

Monahan’s deal is one of the more interesting ones, when comparing his projected value to the contract he signed for.

On a cost-per-points basis, the comps would’ve projected Monahan’s value to be up around a $7M cap hit on a five-year deal. That said, there are a lot of factors that would point towards that being an unrealistic scenario.

First, the model used for the projections/analysis factors in signing year points/82 and career points/82 to establish value. But Monahan is one of the players that skews this method: whereas most players would sustain relatively similar production, Monahan started his career producing at a really high rate, but then saw a big dip only a few years ago, only to experience a resurgence this season. So while a near 60-point per 82 player over his career like Monahan would typically be due for more money, and likely more term as well, it doesn’t factor in the risks that come with signing a player who did see a decline fairly recently.

Also, looking at the actual cap hits of forwards with similar production who signed five-year contracts around the same age, the strong majority of them took deals for between $5M and $6M per year. It represents that teams typically aren’t willing to go above that mark with forwards for that term, who sign around 30 years old.

So while projections may have had Monahan’s value quite a bit higher, once context is added when looking at the comps, Monahan’s $5.5M cap hit comes in at a relatively fair price.