Frankie No Nose Finds A Home

The Hawks commit to the first of their ensemble.

For the past two summers, as a (small) section of Hawks fans beseeched Kyle Davidson to bring in any kind of top tier NHL winger (ok, basically me), the cry from the Davidson-phants was that the Hawks couldn't sign anyone long term, as they had to keep the powder dry for all the extensions they would have to hand out to the ace prospects Davidson has acquired. Once they all turned into gold, obviously. It was a patently ridiculous notion, especially in a rising cap world. But at least we're starting to get a hazy outline of what the actual numbers might look like down the road, as they've extended the first one of the supposed next generation, and that's Frank Nazar.

The headline is that Frankie No Nose has signed a seven-year extension, which kicks in after this upcoming season, for a cap hit of $6.59 million per year. There are two ways to look at it, and we'll go through them. What we can safely say is that the Hawks are totally sold on Frank Nazar, after just 50+ NHL games. Nazar gets some serious bank in his second and third full seasons (it has a base salary of a combined $17 million in '26-'27 and '27-'28), and security. He loses a couple years of free agency, and will hit the market at 29. If the Hawks even let him get that far. But there's many miles to go before we sleep on that one.

Looking around, it's hard to find comps for Nazar. Extending a guy before he's even racked up a full season's worth of NHL games doesn't have a lot of precedent. Certainly, there are few examples from his draft year. Juraj Slafkovsky, who went straight into the league from being the #1 pick, starts an eight-year extension this season for $7.6M. He's a little ahead of the 0.5 points-per-game mark that Nazar has put up so far.

Logan Cooley is probably the leading light so far of that draft class, but he has yet to sign an extension.

If we go by the previous year's draft class, we get a little more info. Matthew Knies inked an extension worth $7.7M a year. Wyatt Johnston is coming in at $8.4M. Dylan Guenther is coming in at $7.1M. But all these players have scored at a higher rate than Nazar has so far, and played twice the games before getting their paper.

Matty Beniers, who is also a center and has scored just a tick above Nazar's per game rate has a $7.1M hit. Logan Stankoven, who is right on Nazar's scoring rate, just signed an extension with Carolina for $6.0M per. But he's also played double the number of NHL games. Matthew Coronato penned pretty much the exact same extension that Nazar got this summer.

Looking at all of these, it feels like Nazar is coming in at just about the right number, maybe even a little high, considering that none of these deals were signed after just 50 games in the league.

For Nazar, it's not hard to understand where he's coming from, but it also feels a little safe. I've never been in a position to turn down $46 million, and that day isn't likely to come. Nazar is such a long way from unrestricted free agency that it becomes more understandable why he took this deal. Still, in a world where Nazar balls out over the next two or three seasons, becomes the next iteration of Nazem Kadri, even as a restricted free agent he probably banks more than the money he will be getting in years 4-7 of this contract. He may have cost himself some money, though with the front-loading of the actual salary on it, that's been mitigated.

The deal is a wager of sorts from Davidson, but it's not as outlandish of one as it first seems. With the cap ballooning, a $6.5M hit isn't the chicken bone in the throat it used to be. Let's be real here, there's minimal chance that Nazar becomes some sort of bum the Hawks or any team doesn't even want on the roster. Maybe stardom is something that never comes for him. Maybe his ceiling is just a #2 center on a bad team, a #3 or #4 center on a good team. I don't think that's what the future holds, but that is worst-case.

In previous years, that player might be overpaid at $4 million per year. In two years, $6.5M won't seem ridiculous. It won't be great, but it's certainly something a team can manage around.

But if Nazar is everything the Hawks think he will, everything I think he could be, well now the Hawks have carved out some space, considerable space, in the future. It's a risk, simply because the sample size they're going off of is so small. There is a feeling of propaganda to it. That Davidson has such a hard-on to prove that his raft of prospects are special and worth the patience that he'll jump the gun on proving it by signing Nazar quickly. But that's not a huge crime.

If I were a betting many, and my Fanduel/DraftKings/TV accounts certainly suggest that I'm not, I'd say Nazar outplays this contract before it even kicks in. That's the hope. That's the bet. It's probably a good one.