What the comps tell us about Thomas Harley's next deal

Let’s start with the most recent update.

Or non-update, if you want to call it that.

I reached out to Thomas Harley’s agent, Andy Scott, yesterday to see if there had been any update on contract negotiations for the Dallas Stars restricted free agent.

Scott politely told me we’d have to chat at another time because he was working on things for Edmonton Oilers center Leon Draisaitl, who is currently eligible for an extension, on the other line at the time.

Harley, effectively the Stars’ second-best defenseman, is the last piece of vital business for Stars general manager Jim Nill before training camp starts in roughly three weeks.

The 23-year-old defender was issued a qualifying offer in June for $874,125, and both sides have said the right things. Both sides want to get a deal done; both want a long-term future for Harley in Dallas.

That’s great when it comes to an SEO-filling perspective for people in my business. In fact, I’m just writing the line “Stars see Harley as a big part of the future,” so someone finds this story when googling “Thomas Harley contract??” this week.

But money talks here, and that’s the only reason Harley isn’t signed yet. Similar to Jason Robertson before the 2022-23 season, when he missed the entire preseason waiting on an RFA deal, narratives are trumped by dollars and term.

So how do you figure out value for a 23-year-old defender who scored double-digit goals and was second on the team with 21:03 average time on ice per game?

Back in July, Kyle Stich over at AFP Analytics – a company that provides insights to agents and other clients on player values when it comes to contract negotiations – had projected Harley’s value on a long-term deal, seven years or more, at slightly under $7 million per season.

Since that deal, the market has moved slightly when Brock Faber signed an eight-year extension worth $8.5 million per season with the Minnesota Wild. According to Stich, market-wise, that moves Harley over $7 million in fair value.

There’s also the potential impact of a looming deal for Moritz Seider. The Detroit Red Wings defender is also an RFA right now, hasn’t signed and has a projected long-term value of around $8.6 million, according to Stich.

Seider is a better player than Harley; he’s going to get more money, so they aren’t exact comps. But if Seider gets more than $8.6 million, Stich said it would likely inflate the market slightly for Harley, potentially in the $7.3 million range for a long-term deal.

That’s long-term; the more interesting market question for Harley is what happens if he and the Stars hammer out a short-term or bridge deal.

Market-wise, Harley’s value on a two-year deal likely tracks around $4 million per season, and that’s been a constant projection and estimation I’ve heard all summer. It tracks well with the bridge deals that Noah Dobson signed with the New York Islanders (three years, $4 million AAV) and Evan Bouchard (two years, $3.9 million AAV) signed with the Edmonton Oilers as fair comps.

And those would probably still be the comps if the St. Louis Blues hadn’t offer-sheeted and signed Philip Broberg away from Edmonton.

Broberg signed a two-year contract with an AAV of $4.58 million. Harley’s camp will likely argue that’s a comp for Harley, while the Stars would likely argue that’s an outlier.

From the Stars’ perspective, signing Harley to a long-term deal around $7 million would create some cap headaches heading into this season. Dallas currently has $6.2 million in cap space with this current group of players.

(Please note this is just how it’s presented in PuckPedia; these are not my projected lines and defensive pairings.)

A short-term deal is simpler for Nill and his staff this season, but it also makes long-term planning much more difficult.

Wyatt Johnston is going to get a huge raise next summer. Jake Oettinger is likely going to see what his good pal Jeremy Swayman gets with the Bruins and want something similar. Mavrik Bourque will need a slight raise off his entry-level contract, and Jason Robertson will be one season removed from his next raise.

Adding Harley to that list of things to figure out next summer doesn’t sound fun, for anyone.

From a timing perspective, there’s no reason to panic for Stars fans about a deal getting done at some point, but it would be prudent of Dallas to hammer something out sooner than later.

The Stars will want to sign Harley before the Red Wings sign Seider; that’ll likely help the team bottom line. Normally, I don’t like spending too much time worrying about offer sheets, but each day Harley isn’t signed is another day another NHL GM with oodles of cap room – perhaps in Calgary, Columbus, or San Jose – could wake up and see if Harley would be interested in a Broberg-type deal.