Frank Nazar’s contract is already a steal for the Blackhawks
One of the rising stars in the Windy City is looking like a franchise mainstay.
The Chicago Blackhawks are still rebuilding, no question about it. However, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel thanks to a young core headlined by Connor Bedard. However, Frank Nazar is starting to make a name for himself in his second full season with the organization.
Through eight games this season, the Detroit native has scored four goals and five assists for nine points, and is currently leading the Hawks in scoring. This comes just a couple of months removed from Nazar signing a seven-year contract extension, which will carry an AAV of $6.59 million through the 2032-33 season. For a guy who is already producing at a young age, and a contract that won’t change while the salary cap rises, Chicago might have one of the best steals in the game with Nazar.
On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yatemchuk and Carter Hutton discuss how great Nazar’s contract is already looking.
Tyler Yaremchuk: If you do the percentage of the cap thing here with that Nazar extension, by Year 5 of that deal, he’ll be making the equivalent percentage of what a current player is at $4.87 million. So, I hope that makes sense. Imagine five years from now, you have a guy in Nazar who’s probably going to be in the 90-100 point range, and he’s making the equivalent of what is $4.8 million in today’s cap world. That is insane value.
Carter Hutton: This is that rebuild where betting on guys at times pays off. We always see these deals that work out and they’re horrible down the stretch, but you’ve got to take a chance. You have to know the character of players and where they’re at. … Ryan Donato, what he’s done for this team, creating offense to kind of relieve a little bit of pressure for Nazar, for Bedard, where you have a little bit of that secondary scoring, is going to be super helpful for the Hawks, so they can be in meaningful games.
That’s one thing that I think is so important when we talk about developing and rebuilds and where teams are at is – how long do you want to leave your star players in a losing culture? You create such bad habits. We’ve seen it with Buffalo…so, you don’t want to let that creep in, and I think this is an important factor for the Hawks, getting off to a good start, and that’s what they’re doing right now.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…