Setting the market: What Trevor Zegras and Cole Caufield’s contracts could look like

On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss how Dylan Cozens’ big seven-year $49 million payday could be used as a template for other young restricted free agents looking to get paid such as Cole Caufield of the Montreal Canadiens and Trevor Zegras of the Anaheim Ducks. 

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s take this contract, and maybe take a look at what it could mean for two other restricted free agents and young players coming out of their entry-level contracts and needing new deals; that’s Trevor Zegras and Cole Caufield. In a side-by-side comparison Dylan Cozens throughout the course of his early career has actually been the least productive of the trio but maybe he’s a bit more well-rounded when you look at the way these three guys have gone in their early careers. With the $7 million price tag Cozens got, do you think one of Caufield or Zegras could blow this contract out of the water? Or are they in the same ballpark?

Frank Seravalli: No, I think they’re a bit north of this and the numbers kind of spell that out clearly. You might look at total points, and I just talked about goals being an absolute premium and it’s the tear that Cole Caufield has been on since Martin St. Louis arrived as head coach. It’s incredibly impressive and you can see he’s already well north of those players in fewer games, almost 50 fewer games than Cozens and almost 30 fewer than Zegras so that goal number stands out for ‘Goal Caufield’.

Zegras, he’s one of the truly talented playmakers of his generation. 117 points already and is north of Cozens and Caufield in that department, on an 82-game pace he’s averaged 63.5 points. So, while Cozens has been growing as of late I think if you’re Caufield sitting there now on the Canadiens, Montreal is going to drastically reshape their salary cap picture as soon as we pass this deadline. Those two sides have been talking, I think that gets done after they free up space after this deadline to make it happen. Same thing in Anaheim, you want to buy as many of the best years as possible so even if that contract right now in the short term could look painful in years one-to-two, you’re going to be laughing at years three-to-eight and their quality.