Jeffie’s gonna be here a while.
Jeff Carter signed an eleven year, $58 million extension today, meaning that he’s set to be cashing paychecks until 2022. Carter’s previous deal was set to expire at the end of this season. The new deal goes into effect at the start of the 2011-2012 season.
Paul Holmgren said in a pre-game press conference tonight that there’s a “limited no-trade” clause in the deal, but he wouldn’t go into detail, basically saying that trading Carter wasn’t really in his mind anyway. According to CapGeek.com, the new contract has a full NTC through 14-15 and a limited NTC the rest of the way.
More details and some analysis after the jump.
(This is Travis now, not Ben, FYI.)
Here’s the breakdown via the always-excellent CapGeek.com. Click to enlarge the chart.
So what to think of the deal?
In terms of the salary cap, it’s a decent deal. Carter’s cap hit comes in at just $272,000 per season more than he did in his last contract. Holmgren said tonight that it’s not really a cap-friendly deal, but that “it doesn’t really hurt us” either. I think we can agree with that, and for a player like Carter, that’s really all you can ask for.
Beyond that, it calls into question their ability to sign Ville Leino for next year. If it’s any indication — and it’s probably not, but whatever — immediately after tonight’s press conference I saw Holmgren speaking with Leino outside of the Flyers locker room.
We’ll obviously discuss Leino’s future with the Flyers in the coming days and weeks until he’s either signed or not, but it will no doubt be a bit more difficult to fit Leino and the raise he will definitely command with this Carter deal in place.
The real problem with the deal is simple, however. Is it smart to lock a player up for that length of time when he’s just not the complete player we need him to be?
We’ve been called Carter haters around these parts of the Internet before, but honestly, we’re not. At least I’m not. Hell, my only agenda is that I want the Flyers to win a Stanley Cup, whether that’s with Carter or without him.
Carter certainly can be a vital piece on a Cup winning Flyers team in the near future. His game has a lot to like. He’s strong on the puck, he wins puck battles, he scores in bunches and he’s proven he can be an elite goal scorer in the NHL.
But just as there’s a lot to like about the player our Ben Rothenberg affectionately refers to now as Jeffie, there’s a lot not to like as well. Here’s how our Geoff Detweiler summed up the issues with Carter’s game in our summer “Grading the Flyers” series.
Carter’s regular season was pretty frustrating as he was (and always has been) a very streaky scorer. His flaws are still there – missing the net far too often, looking lazy on certain shifts, going in long droughts, etc. – as are his strengths – great wrist shot, massive hot streaks, good skater, intimidating force, etc. – but one thing deserves special mention. Carter drastically improved his faceoffs this year. From a 45% in 06-07, Carter slowly raised his percent until this year, where it jumped to 52.4%.
Sure, Carter can be a star when he’s healthy and he’s on his game, but look no further than that above paragraph for the cliff notes version of why people take issue with him. He’s a very Jekyll and Hyde-type player.
Is that the kind of player we want locked up around here for the next 11 years? Until he’s 37 years old?
The Flyers must think so.
