Contract Projections For Canucks Marcus Pettersson & Drew O'Connor
The Vancouver Canucks took a big swing on Friday, acquiring defenceman Marcus Pettersson and left-winger Drew O'Connor from the Pittsburgh Penguins. These are two players that Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin know well, back from their days with the Penguins organization. Both are also unrestricted free agents at the end of the season and will need contract extensions if the Canucks want to keep them long-term.
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According to a report by Thomas Drance of "The Athletic," Vancouver plans to extend both Pettersson and O'Connor. As Drance notes, the organization "intend to open extension talks this weekend or early next week with O’Connor and Pettersson’s respective representatives." Despite neither having played a game for the Canucks, the management group seems confident that these two players will fit into the system and everyday value to the roster.
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The question now is, what would extensions for Pettersson and O'Connor look like? While O'Connor is more likely to sign a short-term deal, an extension for Pettersson could be in the four to six-year range. Below are the projected extensions for both players based on data from AFPAnalytics.
Marcus Pettersson: 5 years- $5,849,375.00 cap hit
Drew O'Connor: 2 years- $2,068,768.75 cap hit
To make the math simple, let's say that Pettersson signs at a cap hit of $5.85 million while O'Connor signs for $2.1. Using these numbers, Pettersson would account for 6.2% of the cap next season, while O'Connor's cap percentage would be 2.2%. For comparison, Pettersson's cap percentage would be just under New Jersey Devils defenceman Brett Pesce's for the 2024-25 season, while O'Connor's would match with Vegas Golden Knights' forward Brett Howden.
With the cap increasing significantly for the next three seasons, it will be interesting to see how player salaries change. In 2025-26, teams will have an additional $7.5 million to spend, which could result in inflated cap hits, as well as more long-term contracts. At this point, it is clear the Canucks want to extend both Pettersson's and O'Connor, and, at the moment, have plenty of cap space available to sign these extensions.
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