Provorov could be one of the top free agent defensemen available this summer.

• Player Overview
• What We Know
• Comparables
• Projection

Player Overview

Selected seventh overall in the 2015 NHL Draft, Ivan Provorov began his professional career with the Philadelphia Flyers. The defender made the jump to the NHL for the 2016-17 season, immediately taking on a big role, playing nearly 22 minutes per game in his rookie season.

Provorov remained a key part of the team’s blue line from there, spending seven seasons with the Flyers. In that time, he averaged over 24 minutes per game, while producing at an 82-game rate of 33 points.

However, Provorov was dealt to the Columbus Blue Jackets as part of a three-team trade in the summer of 2023, with the Flyers getting back a package which included a first and second-round pick. In two seasons with the Blue Jackets, Provorov replicated the same production, while averaging the second-most ice time per game on the team, behind only Zach Werenski.

Provorov has been a shown to be a reliable defender, missing only three games across nine seasons and consistently able to take on a big role. He’d be one of the top free agent defensemen available this summer, if he hits July 1 without an extension.

What We Know

• Per Pierre LeBrun, Provorov was open to signing an extension in Columbus. Provorov’s younger brother, Vladimir Provorov, also committed to Ohio State University.
• The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline reported that Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell was looking to extend Provorov on a shorter-term contract.

Comparables

Below, we examine what Provorov’s deal could look like, based on previous contracts for other defensemen. With Provorov now 28 years old, the comparables used will generally be defensemen who were near his age at the time of signing. Note: the age listed in the tables below represent a player’s age by Dec. 31 in the first year of their contract.

8 YEARS

The benefit of Provorov extending in Columbus is that he’d be eligible for an eight-year deal. We can also get a pretty clear sense of what Provorov could be expected to make, based on the table of 18 comps below.

Obviously, Provorov wouldn’t get close to the cap hits of Erik Karlsson, Seth Jones, or Darnell Nurse, who would have adjusted cap hits of $10.7M or above, when adjusted to a $95.5M salary cap (based on the cap percentage from the first year of their respective contracts). All three defensemen outproduced Provorov, and all had much higher ice time in their signing year. Meanwhile, all of Victor Hedman, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, John Carlson and Morgan Rielly had much higher production as well, along with similar usage, pointing the fact that Provorov’s value is below this range.

At the same time, Provorov had a combination of higher usage and significantly more NHL experience (along with production, for the most part) than all of Ryan Pulock, Adam Pelech and Gustav Forsling, at the bottom of the table. As a result, we can expect Provorov’s value is higher than any of those three, leaving the most realistic value somewhere between Damon Severson’s adjusted cap hit of $7.15M and Noah Hanifin’s $8M adjusted cap hit.

There’s also an argument that Provorov’s value should at least be close to the middle of that range. While his production was similar to the likes of Severson and Travis Sanheim, his usage was higher. Even comparing Provorov to Colton Parayko and Hampus Lindholm at adjusted cap hits of around $7.5M, the production was very similar to Provorov, but Provorov’s usage was still higher. As a result, it’s foreseeable that Provorov could command slightly north of $7.5M per year.

At the top of the range, Provorov also had similar career production and higher career usage than Hanifin and Cam Fowler, but each player was more comparable in terms of signing year ice time, and also had the higher signing year production. Meanwhile Provorov had similar signing year usage to Filip Hronek and higher career usage, but lower production. So Provorov may not be quite at that range between the $7.8M-$8M adjusted cap hits, but his value likely lies somewhere between that mark, and $7.5M per year.

7 YEARS

Seven years would be the longest deal Provorov could sign in free agency, if he opted to hit the market. While we have seen some examples of top defenders around the same age signing shorter deals (such as Neal Pionk’s six-year contract with the Winnipeg Jets), we don’t really see cases of defensemen who have been used as heavily as Provorov taking less than a seven or eight-year contract at his age.

With the 11 comparables for seven-year deals, we can likely project a similar cap hit for Provorov, compared to that of an eight-year deal.

He obviously doesn’t compare overly well against the likes of Dougie Hamilton and Alex Pietrangelo at the top of the table, but does look more comparable to a lot of the other defenders listed.

Even with Keith Yandle ($8.3M adjusted cap hit), Provorov had much lower production, but much higher usage. Then with Ryan McDonagh, the usage was very similar, and while McDonagh did have slightly higher production, it likely points to Provorov being only a little below McDonagh’s $7.91M adjusted cap hit.

Devon Toews would be an outlier, while Brandon Montour was higher in every category except for career ice time. But then with Justin Faulk, we get a great comparable, where Faulk had slightly higher production, but Provorov had slightly higher usage, pointing to Provorov’s value likely being close to Faulk’s $7.62M adjusted cap hit.

Below that mark, we see a few players who did have higher production, but none had ice time that was overly close to Provorov. As a result, we can likely still project Provorov to be above the $7.5M mark, but below $8M on a seven-year deal.

Projection

It’s always possible that Provorov could take less than a seven or eight-year contract, but it seems very unlikely.

While Waddell may prefer a shorter deal for Provorov, the defenseman could likely earn a maximum-term deal on the open market. Even if Provorov’s brother committing to Ohio State University could always factor in his decision, he wouldn’t join the team until 2027. This means Provorov would have to take more than a two-year contract for there to even be any overlap there – however, even a mid-range deal of four of five years would mean Provorov would re-enter free agency at 32 or 33 years old, which would likely leave him as a much less desirable free agent at that point. As a result, if Provorov does take shorter than a seven or eight-year contract, he’d almost surely be leaving money on the table overall.

Based on comparables, we see a pretty defined range of what we can expect Provorov to make on a maximum-term deal, likely between $7.5M and $8M per year. The projection for Provorov would be $61M on an eight-year deal ($7.63M cap hit), or a near equivalent cap hit on a seven-year deal, at a total of $53.5M.