Winnipeg Jets: Predicting Contracts for 3 Jets RFAs this Offseason
The Winnipeg Jets have three key restricted free agents this offseason. Here is our prediction for their new contracts for next season.
The Winnipeg Jets have a number of players that will become either unrestricted free agents or restricted free agents (“RFAs”) this offseason.
Of the seven players that are due to be RFAs, three of them were key members of the Jets during the 2021 season.
Those three players are Andrew Copp, Logan Stanley, and Neal Pionk. All three of these players are under the age of twenty-seven and have the potential to be mainstays for the Winnipeg Jets for years to come.
Here are our predictions for the contracts that Copp, Stanley, and Pionk will get from the Winnipeg Jets during this offseason:
3. Andrew Copp
Andrew Copp is coming off his best season statistically as a professional, and oddly enough, it was during a shortened 56-game season.
The twenty-six-year-old had 15 goals, 24 assists for 39 points along with a +2 plus/minus and 20 penalty minutes. Copp also had a four-goal game this season against the Vancouver Canucks in late March:
Copp was the Jets’ utility player in 2021. He started the season on the third line, but when injuries occurred or trades or suspensions happened, Copp was promoted to the first or second line and performed well. He was the lone player on Winnipeg to jump around the top-three lines.
The Ann Arbor, Michigan native was also a force on special teams. He contributed six goals and six assists on the man advantage and was also the Jets’ top penalty killing forward, with the most shorthanded time on ice among Jets’ forwards.
After a career year like this past year, it is safe to say that Copp earned himself a raise from his most recent contract that carried an average annual value (“AAV”) of $2,775,000.
If you look at similar players who play a similar role within their team, some have a much higher AAV than Copp. One of those players is William Karlsson of the Vegas Golden Knights. Karlsson was Vegas’ best penalty killing forward and scored the same exact amount of points as Copp, but his contract is extremely different than Copp’s most recent one as Karlsson’s is for eight years and carries an AAV of $5,900,000.
Other similar players to Copp including Bo Horvat has an AAV of $5,000,000, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins new contract carries an AAV of $5,125,000, and Jakub Vrana’s contract has an AAV of $3,350,000
As Copp seems to get better by each passing season, our prediction is that the Jets will try and tie him down to a four-year deal with an AAV of $4,750,000.