After scoring just 15 goals and 44 points in 75 games during his contract year with the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames, Elias Lindholm may have cost himself upwards of $30 million on his next deal.
Lindholm, 29, rejected the Flames’ contract offers at the start of the 2023-24 season and was subsequently traded to the Canucks in January for a package that included Andrei Kuzmenko, Hunter Brzustewicz, and a 2024 first-round pick. He managed just six goals and 12 points in 26 games with the Canucks to close out the regular season.
But even after heating up with 10 points (five goals, five assists) in 13 playoff games with the Canucks this spring, Lindholm still looks to be in line to earn significantly less on his next contract than he would’ve had he taken any of the Flames’ eight-year offers last fall.
Using data from AFP Analytics, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli dug into the topic of what the future might hold for Lindholm on Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Who are some guys, Frank, whose stock maybe isn’t what we thought it would be? A couple of names who I know you’ve talked about in the past, and maybe we’ll start there because they’re on teams who are now out of the playoffs, but it’s Elias Lindholm in Vancouver and Brett Pesce in Carolina. They’re both quality players, but is their payday maybe not gonna be what they thought it would be back in January?
Frank Seravalli: Well, how about you go back to last September or October for Elias Lindholm when he was with Calgary? I think their offer was, at the very bare minimum, eight times eight for $64 million. They might’ve gone even as high as $8.5, which would be $68 million. The latest AFP projection that we have is five times $6.75 million … which is $34 million. So, if you’re doing the math at home, that means that Elias Lindholm, if it comes anywhere close to that, at the very least probably cost himself $30 million between September and now.
