Penguins, Conor Sheary come to terms on a new deal

The Pittsburgh Penguins and Conor Sheary have come to terms on a new deal. The new contract will see the 25-year-old forward make $9 million over the next three years, with an annual cap hit of $3 million.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced that they have re-signed Conor Sheary to a three-year deal. The contract is worth $9 million in total, carrying an annual cap hit of $3 million for the 25-year-old winger.

This deal makes Sheary the sixth highest-paid forward on the Penguins roster. He trails Carl Hagelin ($4 million), Patric Hornqvist ($4.25 million), Phil Kessel ($6.8 million), Sidney Crosby ($8.7 million and Evgeni Malkin ($9.5 million).

This also leaves the Penguins with $3.28 million in cap space remaining with no free agents left to sign from within the organization.

Per CapFriendly, the three players with the most comparable contracts in the NHL are Tomas Tatar, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Nino Niederreiter. Sheary had 23 goals and 30 assists in 61 games last season with Pittsburgh. So when comparing to those with similar contracts, it makes this deal all that much better for the Penguins.

For comparison, Tatar had 25 goals and 21 assists in 82 games last season. Pageau had 12 goals and 21 assists in 82 games last season. And the third comparable contract, Niederreiter, had 25 goals and 32 assists in 82 games.

Another point in favor of Sheary is that the analytics point to him being a very effective skater. When looking at the Relative Corsi-For percentage of each Penguins player who played 41-or-more games in 2016-17, Sheary ranks third on the roster with a 3.96 Rel.CF%.

Sheary’s 3.96 trails only that of future Hockey Hall of Famer Sidney Crosby (5.61) and fellow wing Patric Hornqvist (5.93). This makes an even stronger case that this $3 million AAV was a bargain of a deal for a 25-year-old with plenty of hockey left to play.

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Sheary was an undrafted free agent out of UMass – Amherst, where he played 138 games. He scored 38 goals and added 66 assists to his NCAA career.