| Nick Obergan. 30th May, 2011 - 1:21 pm
 Over the past few months I have lauded the brass of the New York Islanders for their willingness and ability to lock up a few of their young forwards to establish a core going forward.
After signing their top snipers Matt Moulson and Michael Grabner to extensions, young leader Kyle Okposo is the latest of the group to commit to the Islanders organization, signing a five-year, $14 million contract extension. This deal keeps the 23-year-old with the club through 2015-16, and buys out one year of unrestricted free agency.
There are many layers of reasoning and levels of commitment to this contact that make it interesting, albeit difficult to properly judge.
On one hand, Okposo is considered to be a very good leader, already having been named an alternate captain at the beginning of his sophomore season in 2009-10 at 21-years-old. With team captain Doug Weight retiring, committing to Okposo long-term makes him the odds-on favorite to be the team's next captain while establishing consistent leadership for the next five seasons.
The devil on the shoulder would point to Okposo's disappointing production thus far as an argument for him being overpaid. But truthfully, he had a solid rookie season with 18 goals and 39 points in 65 games, while showing modest improvement as a sophomore with 19-33-52 in 80 games; not first-line material, but decent numbers for a young player. Last season he only appeared in 38 games due to injury, posting a mere 5-15-20, but he did improve from a -22 in 2009-10 to +3 last year, a significant improvement for a team that finished with the third-worst point total.
But if you look back to his days at University of Minnesota (prospect opportunities and point totals are routinely lower in University), Okposo put up 24-24-48 in a season and a half (51 games), earning him UCHL Rookie of the Year, First Team All-Star and Playoff MVP in 2006, en route to being chosen seventh overall in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. So clearly, the ability is there, he just has to stay healthy and continue his improvements at the NHL level.
It is also important to know that the Islanders have formatted this contract realizing that they are paying more for his future production than current production in terms of point totals.
In 2011-12 Okposo will earn only $1M, and the contract escalates to $2M, $3M, $3.5M and then $5M in the final year of the deal. Essentially, Okposo will be underpaid for the first two seasons of the deal, while his production should be at par during seasons three and four, and he could be either appropriately paid or overpaid in only his final season depending on how he progresses.
The guess here is that during his prime, his point production will fit that of a second-line winger at around 25-40-65, and not worth a $5M salary; but the Islanders are also fully aware that they are upping the value based on his leadership and what it means for their organization with a new arena coming soon as the organization looks to improve on their years of futility.
Grade for Islanders: B
Grade for Okposo: B+
Nick is RealGM's NHL Feature Writer. You can reach him by email nick.obergan@realgm.com or on twitter @NickObergan |
