The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Hart Levine Breaks Down the Kaprizov Contract

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Hart Levine joins the show to explore the long-term implications of Kaprizov’s deal, what it means for Minnesota’s salary cap, and how it could set the stage for future UFA mega-deals for NHL superstars like Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, and others. This episode is your one-stop shop for expert analysis on the Kaprizov contract, the state of the Wild, and the ripple effects across the league.Reach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let's get, let's back on the contract talk here. Hart Levine is standing by. The conceptual, brilliant genius of Puckpedia. Hart Levine joins us here on the sheet on a very special day where, like, I'm curious, like, Hart, when you see the biggest contract in the history of the NHL, that's where like Operation Puckpedia, that's when like Puckpedia HQ goes into, goes into overdrive. Like, describe what happened there, I guess, like, in your living room. wherever you have your, wherever you have your computers. What happens when that hits the wire?

Yeah, you know those commercials where the like the Budweiser goal light goes off? That's what happened. You know, who scored? What happened? No, no, just a new contract. No, I mean, it's exciting, you know, a lot of times the contracts after mid-July,

they're not that interesting, right? So it's good to have something that gets people talking and interest, and you wonder what that means for the upcoming guys and hopefully we see some domino because it's been pretty pretty quiet since like early august um through now really what did you make of the contract and the percentage of the cap that it'll eat up next season it's a big number um but we have to just get used to us living in a world where the cap is going up so much each year so it's going up nine percent um between this year and next year so we have to think about things like in cap dollars in

specific years. So it seems like going from Leon dry-saddle's top cap hit of 14 to cap Kaprizov's number of 17 is big. But if you take 17 for next year and bring it into like today's dollars, that's only 15.6. So I mean, it is an increase over 14, but, you know, it's not as dramatic. You know, if you think about like Leon's 14, what would that be worth in next year's cap dollars? That's 15.25, right? So it's a big number. It's a big jump in the percentage of the cap. And I think it's going to make a big difference to these other big UFAs that are out there because we see comps. Even if they're not direct comps, comps are like a magnetic pull, right? And it pulls guys up or if it's a what we would call a bad comp depending on what side you're on, it pulls

the new one down to that. So it's definitely, I think Eichol's happy, you know, Kyle Conner's happy. I think Connor McDavid doesn't matter what anyone else signs for. He's going to do his own thing. But it's going to have an impact on all those other deals and it'll be fun to see the dominoes. So once upon a time, the saying was you can't win the Stanley Cup with a, no one's won a Stanley Cup with a $10 million player. Now everybody makes $10 million. So what is, from your experience here, everyone makes $10 for you, Tim. It's a new Oprah. What is the new $10 million?

Like you can't win a Stanley Cup if a player makes $15 million? $16 million? Is there a new comp for that cliche? I mean, I always thought that cliche was a little lame because it's not about those players, it's about what you do with the rest of your roster, right? Because whether, you know, a guy who makes $10 million, $15 million, we're going to have, you know, $85, $90 million of other dollars

that need to get spent. And it's about how many other bad contracts do you have or really efficient contracts. So I think, you know, I think it depends. You could have a player, you could have a successful winning team if you had a $20 million cap hit as long as you didn't have too many other.

one's that high and all your other ones are really efficient. I think what we're seeing is you can have contracts that are sort of in that mid range, which used to be sort of in the five to seven, which I think is kind of moving up to like seven to ten. You can't have too many in that range, which are duds, which are just like, you know, the player is not living up to it at all. You can survive if you have a guy overpaid by, you know, a couple million, but having, you know, five to seven to nine million dollar guys when they're playing like two or three million, that's what's going to kill a team, not necessarily the top end. Now, if you have like, you know, the core four with Toronto where you have a lot of

guys that are potentially in that high range and maybe overpaid at the time by a couple million, you know, times three or four, that starts to add up. But I think any team could win with a player close to the max, depending on what they do with the rest of the roster. I think the answer is you can't win with a goalie that makes 11 million. You can win one with 10. In fact, you can win two of them if you have a guy that makes 10. but 11 is too much.

That's the new bar, I think. Right. This is yet another guy heart that is resigning with his team. I was mentioning to Merrick before that after the summer of retention, we have yet another guy that is not going to market, nor forcing his way out of a market via trade. Really the only big name, I think, that move was probably Marner, and we know why that happened.

Do you think this is just a new normal in the NHL with the way the cap has gone up where, you know, whether it's Eichel or McDavid or Kyle Connor or now Caprisoff, they're all just going to stay where they are. I think like this class, just those specific names, you know, it sounds like those players are most likely to stay. But I don't think that's the trend going forward for a few reasons. One, you know, now with the term limits going from seven to six years and eight to seven to retain your player, you know, in terms of total dollars, like I think, when players do the math of like if I if I don't sign I go to market maybe I can get another

deal out of it I think that has an impact and we're seeing shorter deals and that's not going to impact the free agent market like this year or next year but if we kind of project a few years out you know look at a guy like mason mcavish that used to be an automatic eight year deal right now it's a six year deal we're seeing a lot of deals where it's five six years for these guys instead of seven or eight and even shorter more bridge deals um I think that's going to mean you know a few years from now, we're going to have such a glut of players hitting the open market that it's going to make it interesting and there'll be more musical chairs. Like we see, you know, in the NFL, for example, players are just moving around so much every offseason because

there's so many free agents. The deals are so much shorter. I think eventually we'll get that way in the NHL. It's just going to take some time. And we still, you know, you still have that thing in the NHL where players are loyal and it feels in some respects potentially like a betrayal if the team wants them and the player, you know, thinking about leaving. So they have to overcome that. But like I said, when we get like, you know, let's say three, four, five years from now and we have more good players hitting the market, it's just going to leave more teams with more money available. And then we'll see, I think, the chair shuffling around like we've seen in other sports. I think what you meant is that their stuff is there. That's my

mantra. It's my mantra for 20 years. Don't know what I mean. It's really bad. Their stuff is really bad. The good thing the teams have people to do that for you. It's, it's, it's, It's not like the three of us are pulling up stakes. Like, you know, Hart's moving from Edmonton to Los Angeles here. Like, it's a little bit different when players go from market to market. Let me, we are sort of flirted with the cascading talk early in this conversation. Let me see if I can drill down with you a couple of seconds here, Hart. As far as, who does this contract affect most?

Like, the cascade here is going to go initially to whom? Is it Kyle Connor? Is it Martin Nachis? Is it, you sort of like looked at Connor McDi. David and put him in a separate file. Is it Jack Eichol, like the cascade here for like hits who first on the beach? I think the most obvious one is Kyle Connor, another winger. And then I think Jack Eichael just like, you know, in the non-Connor McDavid division of

reading guys that need to sign, he's going to probably be the next highest paid guy that are like the next contract that will be the highest. So I think those two. And like I said, it's a, it's a magnet. So, you know, Jack Eichol, I don't think he was going to say he should be the same as Caprizo or or even the same as Drysidle. But Drysidle is 14 million, like I said, is over 15 next year. And I think the argument is going to be, okay, I'm not the same as those guys, but I'm not X amount less, right? I'm not, you know, 5 million less or 4 million less.

And it just pulls guys towards that. So, yeah, I think those two are obvious ones, you know, in Kyle Connor and Eichol. I think the other interesting thing is contract structure. Like we saw, for example, when Stolar was just signed with Toronto, the cap had maybe seemed a little light. But then when you look at the contract structure, he got lots of trade clauses and he got basically all the money paid and bonuses. That does have an impact for guys. And so even like Capriza, if you look at it, because he's only getting a million dollars of base salary, I would bet you are right on the show right now. He's going to actually make more than what his contract was announced today.

Because when the league minimum salary goes up, everyone has to make the minimum. the new minimum wage. And so after this CBA that was just signed, the next one, I'm sure the minimum will be over a million because that's where this one ends. And so he's going to actually get a little tick up on his contract, just like a Schisturkin, well, he's going to get a raise next year because he's only supposed to make below the, below the new minimum of $8.50 next year. So that's another, like it's not a lot of money when you're making hundreds of millions,

like what's a few, you know, $100,000 between friends. But that's another thing just with contract structure. It's like another, it's like a little tip he's going to get, you know, when the next CBA comes a little increase. And so structure definitely impacts that. You look at like Anaheim, they don't mess with structure. You know, that was a flat seven million each year, right? And with a little bit of clause, nothing, not like a full no trade or anything.

So that's the other thing, teams that are willing to give whatever structure you want, that can impact the clause. We've seen like, you know, St. Louis in the past that's bit them where they didn't want to give structure. Where Vegas, you know, I think they'd give Iko whatever he wants to get the cap at as well as possible. Fall is here and everybody's getting back from vacation, headed back to school. And you know what that means?

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But the thing at the, I find fascinating, it's like I never realized that if your base salary is a million and you get $12 million dollars in bonus, money, that that base salary could actually increase if the NHL minimum wage, say, jumps by $500,000? It will. Yeah, that happened, like, in the last CBA, Austin Matthews actually got a raise. I think Mitch Marner as well.

You have to, you know, they don't count signing bonus as part of like the towards the minimum and, hey, everyone's got to make minimum wage. So even these guys making big money, I know like Shisterkin's one. I think Sean Walker's another one next year that will get small bumps and their cap it as the result will get adjusted up. I was going to say that, but so it does impact your cat bit, though. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, we didn't know they were going to raise the minimum wage.

Oh, no, hang on. Yeah. Let me, let me, let me jump in the one thing. And Hartle, heart will echo this one. The one thing that owners, like, we keep hearing about the hill that they will die on. No outside money. No outside money in the system. This all gets, this all gets accounted for on the cap.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So basically, it's like you take the contract and you're revising it a little. So you've got to recalculate what the total comp divided by the years. And so it changes the cap it. You know, not a lot because, you know, if Caprizov's at a million, let's say by the end, the minimum is going to be like 1.3, you know, it's not a huge increase, but it will definitely adjust the cap hit.

And you see some guys like Awesome Matthews, the deal he finished previous. He had a funny cap hit number because he got like a bunch of $25,000 and $50,000 in the later years. And Hart, were you surprised they didn't just go $125 million and then have Caprisoff take a job with the tree planting company, somewhere in California. Yeah, I mean, it's something to consider, you know, maybe in Minnesota, it's like, does something with lakes or, you know, they already have, they already have so many trees. They don't need more trees. I've, no aspiration in Minnesota.

I've been telling Greg, like, honestly, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the caprice off or McDavid or Eichel or Kyle Connor meme coin, I'm telling you, like, that's the way around it. Just, just start a meme coin and, you know, and get your owner to dump in 10 million bucks. It's how you get around things now. It's funny, but it does raise the question, like the famous Stamco's meeting in Toronto where the Canadian Tire CEOs, they're talking about endorsement deals. Like, obviously, you know, allegedly with Kauai Leonard, the, the Clippers put money into

that business, but like they kind of did it clumsily, right? And also if the, if, if, if Kaui Leonard's company didn't have like the name in it, you know, it would have been so obvious that he was a recipient, like you could, there could be some real gray area here, right? Like, what's to stop a good friend of Craig Leopold, you know, making Capriza of a big endorsement deal to sell, you know, Ford cars at the local dealership. And who knows, maybe 20 years later, you know, he gets his money back. But, like, we're entering a gray zone.

And we'll have to see what happens in the NBA and how hard they come down on it. Or if they say, hey, this is like, you know, it looks fishy, but we can't prove it. It is interesting for, like, the future of the salary cap. And what does that mean? I just it was one of those deals where it was so sloppy that you're just like yeah they weren't trying to really do this worthy because it's just so obvious well that's Mark Cuban's whole that is Mark Cuban's argument yeah at mom part you and I are probably the same level of junkie to this Cole quiet thing I've consumed every piece of media and everything about it I'm just

utterly fascinated not only by how Pablo Torre has been like doling out the information but but just by pushback in Cuban what the clipper said yesterday it's it's it's really, I mean, it must be like crack for you. I mean, as far as being a guy run. And I'm ready to subscribe. I'm ready to subscribe to the Wish Finds Out podcast where you uncover things in NHL. That's right. You let me know when you're ready.

The Wish Finds Out podcast is just like what happened to the Buffa Slug logo. It's not like anything that's going to win me a pull it's for. You know. You never know. What happened? What happened with the mandatory, the mandatory two minute penalty for the Jersey talk? Get to the bottom of that.

It's still in the rules. but when have we ever heard that one called? Is that collusion? Why are we measuring sticks anymore? Yeah, they're fine. You can use whatever you want, except for length, right? Except for length, which I've always wondered, like, if, who's the smallest? Like, let's say, apparently Logan Stankhoven, according to you.

Like, let's say Logan Stankhoven loses his stick and goes by the bench and whoever is the tallest player. Like, if it's like Charo was playing on the Carolina Hurricanes and handed Logan Stankhoven, his stick. Now, Chara has an exemption. He could he was allowed to use a longer stick than allowed. If Logan Stankhoven used to Dano Chara's stick, would it be a penalty?

No, because it doesn't have the exemption. It's not a, it's not a penalty because there is a this is hilarious exemption to things in the NHL. If something is funny enough, then you don't get a penalty for it. And so I think that would probably fall under it.

I want to ask you real quick, I know we're almost running out of time here. We are, yeah. What surprised you in the new CBA with the contracts? Like, is there anything that really you were like, I can't, I can't believe either the players or the owners signed off on this? Yeah, why are we getting rid of double retentions? That's in the bucket of who wanted this other than maybe a couple guys at the league

office, but teams sure didn't want that. The players, I don't think they knew really what that would be. Can I, can I jump in? I think there was at least one team that did because I think that, there was at least one team who sort of wanted to force smaller market teams. If they're going to spend money, that they were going to spend money to make their teams more competitive. It's actually the idea being that if smaller market teams improve in the standings and have success, that their franchise value will grow.

And if that's true, and it is, then other larger market teams franchisees value will grow. And it's a way just to make sure that small market teams don't. don't just bank all this dead cap space. And it's an incentive to get those teams to spend money on players. That's the way it was described to me. My rebuttal would be, sorry, go ahead. My rebuttal would be, you know, another way to grow league revenue is have lots of interest in trades and trade activity and speculation and then actually having trades happen.

I don't disagree. Again, just the messenger here. That was that was the reason that I was told. I kind of remember there being somebody at the league, and I don't want to say who it was. I'm not quite sure I'm right on this, but I remember somebody saying that the league wanted to also uncomplicate trades. Like some of the machinations that were having with these trades with their attention and everything else was kind of like complicating the trade deadline. And they didn't like it being that complicated. But I don't want to say that for sure, but I remember hearing something at the time about that.

Those were complicated because they're typically, they're actually. three different trades and it would take a long time to make them. My one little quick rant, though, that I know teams are complaining about is with the playoff cap, so you get a cap charge for players that were buried in the minors during the year, right? But if that player plays for you in the playoffs, you have to take his full cap hit. So let's say Utah has Connor Ingram and the minors all year. They're going to have an $800,000 playoff cap charge for him.

And then if they dress them in the playoff game, he still has his $1.95 million towards the playoff cap. So you're actually playing extra in the playoff cap. if you have a guy in the minors during the year. That doesn't seem right. Do you, do you, do you believe James, James Myrtle theory that teams will dress like Joe the plumber as a backup goalie in order to free up cap, cap, uh, cap room in the playoffs? That was Myrtle's new theory is that teams will just dress whoever making league minimum

as their backup goalie in a playoff game. Can you, can you dress a cow? Can you dress a cow as a backup goal tank? Can you, can we dress livestock? Team's, teams have been talking about that. The cotton candy came out. Get your rest. out of here.

You're backing up Brobowski tonight. But you know in the playoffs, if your backup gets, if a goalie gets hurt, your third goalie can come down and get dressed and get on the bench

and play if there's another injury, right? So it's not to say that that your real backup who's up in the press box can't still get in that game if you have some injuries. So yeah,

that's a very viable solution. I think that's going to happen. This is so, I mean, this is actually what, I mean, like, I'm surprised if the Florida

of the Florida Panthers had already thought about this, to be honest. You think they haven't. Heart, we got a boogie. Thanks as always for stopping by. I know this is a catnip day for you.

This is big around Puckpedia. Enjoy it, and there are more coming. Thanks for always being on the watch. Thanks so much. I said 16 hours last night, every day this week, every day this month. I can't get up my head. I lost all ambitious day to day.

because you can call it all right I went to the dark man and tried to give me a little medicine I'm like now and that's fine I'm not against those methods but he knew it's me and myself and how this is going to be fixing my mind

I'm doing on the bag of I turned on the music I do want to bang it I turned on the music It's enough And I'm out And sometimes losing I've been on the days that we're wrong