The Real Reason Connor Bedard’s $75M Deal Isn’t What It Looks Like

Connor Bedard just signed a five-year, $75 million contract extension with the Chicago Blackhawks. The deal slots him third among the league’s highest earners behind Leo Carlsson and Kirill Kaprizov.

Everyone’s fixated on Bedard’s $15 million AAV — reasonably so, since it’s an incredible number that continues to represent where salaries in the NHL are going. But the more interesting numbers in this deal are 9.8 and five, and neither is an accident.

---

Start with the bonus structure.

Bedard’s extension carries a diminishing base salary — $7.2M in Year 1, sliding to $3.2M by Year 5 — paired with a flat $9.8 million signing bonus every single year. That’s a deliberate nod to his number, 98, and it’s also lifted straight from Sidney Crosby‘s playbook, who’s leaned on identical signing-bonus-heavy structures throughout his career.

It’s not just sentimental. Signing bonuses are guaranteed even through a lockout or work stoppage and paid out regardless of games played.

Then there’s the term.

Five years is short for a player of Bedard’s caliber, and that’s the actual leverage play here. Bedard’s agent, Don Meehan, predicted roughly 8% annual salary growth for the foreseeable future. That’s going to lead to bridge deals, with players betting shorter deals beat locking in eight years at today’s number. A five-year term gets Bedard back to the negotiating table at 26, right as he’s entering his prime and right as the salary cap keeps climbing, rather than locking him into a Carlsson-length commitment that ages out just as his value peaks.

Do the Blackhawks need to worry about him leaving? It doesn’t sound like it.

“Connor made it clear even after the (Carlsson) offer sheet — and before the offer sheet — that he had no intention of signing an offer sheet, that he was happy in Chicago, believed in the organization, believed in his teammates, and was quite content and happy to stay exactly where he was in Chicago,” Meehan said.

That’s not a “hometown discount” in the way people are framing it — $15M is already the third-highest cap hit in hockey. There is guaranteed money and the ability to reset at market rate in five years, once a full no-movement clause kicks in and gives him final say over where he plays.

If Bedard’s flashes of brilliance become a full, healthy season, this deal could look like a bargain within two years — not because Chicago underpaid him, but because both sides structured the contract in a way they both benefit.

Next: Cutter Gauthier Wants How Much From the Ducks?