We've Seen This Nikishin Standoff Before

Alexander Nikishin is reportedly asking for eight million a year. He's played one NHL season. The number would make him the third-highest-paid guy on a Stanley Cup team, ahead of Slavin, ahead of Jarvis, behind only Aho and Ehlers.

If that feels familiar, it should. This is basically the summer of 2024 again.

What happened with Necas

Two years ago Martin Necas was the story of the Canes offseason. He was an RFA, he'd filed for arbitration with a hearing set for August 4, and the rumor all summer was that he wanted a long-term deal and preferred it somewhere other than Raleigh. His name was in every trade conversation from June through camp.

Eric Tulsky had just taken over as GM. His options were a long-term deal, a bridge, or a trade.

He did the bridge. Two years, thirteen million, done on July 29 with a week to spare before arbitration.

The reason was pretty simple. Necas had put up 71 points in 2022-23 and then 53 the next year. Carolina didn't have the cap room to pay eight million a season for a guy who might be a 70-point winger or might be a 50-point winger, especially with Jarvis unsigned behind him.

So Tulsky didn't guess. He made Necas prove it on a short deal.

How that turned out

Necas came out of the gate the next season and put up 43 points in 28 games. Everybody, me included, started asking whether Carolina had blown it. He was a bargain at $6.5 million and headed for a huge raise.

Then in January they traded him for Mikko Rantanen. Rantanen didn't work out here, so at the deadline they flipped him to Dallas for Logan Stankoven.

Stankoven scored 66 seconds into Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.

I'm not saying Tulsky drew that up on a napkin in 2024. Nobody plans a three-step chain like that. But the bridge deal is what made every part of it possible. A long-term Necas contract at eight million isn't a tradeable asset the same way. The short deal kept the door open.

Where the Nikishin thing rhymes

Same GM. Same basic question: do you pay a young player for what he might become, or do you make him show you first?

And same public noise. Trade speculation is already out there — the reporting is that moving him would probably mean taking on Kotkaniemi's $4.82 million too, which tells you exactly what kind of conversation is happening.

The comparables are brutal for the eight million ask. Somebody actually ran the numbers on this. No projected third-pair defenseman in the entire league makes that; the top of that group is Romanov at $6.25 million. Bump Nikishin to a second pair and eight million ranks ninth out of sixty-two guys, right in with Victor Hedman and Thomas Chabot. Nobody in that top ten has anywhere near as little NHL experience.

Where it doesn't rhyme

I want to be fair here, because the situations aren't identical.

Necas had five NHL seasons and a 71-point year on his résumé when he asked. There was actual evidence. Nikishin has one season, and he was very good in it — he led the entire playoffs in offensive zone time percentage, which for a first-year defenseman is not a small thing.

But that's the whole problem. One season of good underlying numbers is the argument for a bridge deal, not against it. It's the same argument Tulsky made about Necas, and Necas had four more years of tape.

The other difference is that Necas had arbitration as leverage and a hard date on the calendar. Nikishin's situation doesn't have that structure, which means this can drag.

What I think happens

Same as last time. Something in the four-to-five range on a two or three year deal, signed later in the summer than anybody's comfortable with, after a month of people on Twitter deciding he's already gone.

Then one of two things. Either he plays like a top-pair defenseman and Carolina pays him properly in 2029 knowing exactly what they bought, or he doesn't and they've got a movable contract.

Tulsky doesn't pay for projection. He didn't with Necas, he didn't on July 1 this year when he signed nobody, and I don't think he's going to start with a defenseman who's played 80-something NHL games.

The Necas thing looked like a screwup for about four months. Then it turned into Stankoven scoring in the Cup Final.

I'd let the man cook.