Why are young defensemen signing long term? 

A rapidly growing trend across the NHL is teams locking up young defenseman to long-term deals, and for considerable dollar amounts.

Already this week, the New Jersey Devils have locked up defender Luke Hughes, signing him to a seven-year contract extension that carries a cap hit of $9 million through the 2032-33 season. On Wednesday, the Anaheim Ducks signed blueliner Jackson LaCombe to an eight-year extension, also making $9 million a year, making it the largest contract in franchise history.

At a time when players are seeking bridge deals, it is a bit of a head-scratcher to see other rising blueliners inking contracts that will go well into the 2030s.

On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yarmechuk and Carter Hutton discuss why this trend is starting to grow, and which player could be the reason behind all of it.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Cale Makar can sign an extension next summer. I’m not sitting here saying Jackson LaCombe or Luke Hughes or whoever is Cale Makar or could command Cale Makar money, but if Makar sits there and goes, ‘Whoa, I’m worth what Kaprizov’s worth, and he gets $17 million.’ Then, every one of these defensemen who goes, ‘Well, maybe I’m not Cale Makar, but I’m within 20 points of him every year, so I won’t get $17 million, but maybe I want $12 million? Maybe I want $13 million. Like, I really do think Cale Makar could mess up this entire market in 12 months, and teams could be sitting there shaking. I think that’s why a lot of these teams are rushing to get these guys locked up now.

Carter Hutton: I guess for me, term was always important as a player. I think some of these guys have to weigh that now, right? You start to look at the fact that there’s injuries, there’s things that come into play that you can control. If you can control the term and the numbers start to get where they’re at, you know, it really helps these contracts.

For a guy like Cale Makar…obviously the Kaprizov contract changes the landscape. But that’s a bit of a unicorn contract for me, where there is no other superstars. But Cale Makar can change the whole standard.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…