Carolina Hurricanes do the Maple Leafs an enormous favour with high-profile deal

Saturday morning, the Hurricanes announced they signed 22-year-old Seth Jarvis to an eight-year extension worth a total of $63.2M and will carry a cap hit of $7.5M. The deal sounds pretty standard until you dive deeper into it the way Daily FaceOff's Frank Seravalli did which revealed that Jarvis' cap hit should be $7.9M if it wasn't for the deferred signing bonus that he is due to be paid July 1, 2032, one day after the eight-year deal expires. The Canes will still be charged with a cap hit for the 2032 season, but it will be very minimal.

Deferred salary contracts are allowed under the CBA, but Jarvis is the first high-profile player to have such a structure, which begs the question - Why have the Leafs, who have the cap genius Brandon Pridham in the front office, not used it in negotiations with William Nylander, Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Mitch Marner in the past? Using the deferred salary could have gotten the Leafs much more cap space than they had during the flat-cap era and could have led to them keeping Zach Hyman among others.

With Jarvis' new deal seemingly setting a new precedent, the Leafs would be wise to at least explore the option of deferred salary on an extension for Knies. A deferred salary on a Marner extension would also make it easier to digest for Leaf fans and possibly limit the amount of distain he is going to receive if he signs an extension with an AAV significantly higher than his current $10.9M cap hit.

With the structure of Jarvis' new deal being revealed publicly, it will be interesting to see just how many teams and players lean towards using the deferred salary -- teams for cap savings and players for long-term security.

Source: Daily FaceOff
Hurricanes, Seth Jarvis agree on extension