Gauthier departed BC in the spring of ’24 after his sophomore season. In 159 games, his production line reads 61-53–114. The winger knocked home 41 goals last season (tied for 11th in the NHL with Detroit’s Alex DeBrincat), and goals equals dollar signs.

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“It’s the league’s new reality,” said Leonard’s agent, Matt Keator, who was also legendary Bruin Zdeno Chara’s longtime representative. “The cap will keep going up … teams are rewarding young talent early and payrolls are adjusting, layering in bigger salaries at the top.”

Keator also represented Carlsson in the landmark Philadelphia offer sheet (five years/$90 million) that the Ducks ultimately matched. He is convinced — and, likely, correct — that some of this summer’s eye-popping contracts will look light as the anticipated boosts in the league salary cap come to fruition.

“We’re already seeing it to a degree,” said Keator, who recently added son Ryan as a partner in his Boston-based Win Hockey Agency. “Some of the deals signed late in the season, or even July 1 or later, now look modest. We keep telling our clients to wait, just be patient, the numbers will only get bigger.”

Some of what happened in recent days was exacerbated by an added pressure point, the Sept. 15 phase-in of the NHL’s reworked collective bargaining agreement that reduced maximum player contract term length from eight years to seven. The reduction, in theory, will spare clubs at least that one year of being stuck with an underperforming roster asset — a factor clearly in play, too, in this nascent trend of long, rich deals lavished on young twentysomethings.

The 22-year-old Cutter Gauthier had a breakout season for the Ducks, potting 41 goals, leading to his new 6-year, $13.5 million AAV pact with Anaheim.Kyusung Gong/AP Photo/Kyusung Gong

Barring injuries, Leonard, 21, and Gauthier, 22, most likely will be delivering at peak performance at the time their deals expire — meaning they’ve been assured prime pay during their prime earning years.

Long gone are the days when proven NHL veterans, with high-production years on their resumes, found themselves being told they had aged out when it came time to be rewarded with deserved payouts in their early-30s. The “new reality,” as termed by Keator, is that baby-faced kids will be rich men years before the first strands of gray hair pop out from under their helmets.

The Senators, meanwhile, assumed the underlying risk of an underperforming-asset-to-be when extending right winger Drake Batherson for eight years, $86 million ($10.75M average) on Wednesday.

Batherson (career-best 33-38–71 last season) is 28 years old, and has a year remaining on an expiring contract. He is a big, strong, proven performer. He also will be age 37, and likely three years or more past prime performance, when the new deal expires. The Senators factored that latter reality into the average layout, and also were influenced by a unique challenge: convincing high-end talent to make Ottawa a chosen long-term workplace. Exhibit A: not all 32 franchises deal with the same market variables.

Earlier this month, the Bruins faced head-on the reality of Carlsson’s paradigm-shifting deal when rewarding promising center Fraser Minten with a seven-year, $50.4 million extension that kicks in next season. The sturdy, steady 22-year-old fits the paid-on-promise model to a T.

After only one full season, he brought a modest 20-20–40 career line to the bargaining table. Whether he grows into a No. 1 center remains to be seen. If not, he’ll be paid as such with $7.2 million per season on a deal that will expire on the cusp of his 30th birthday.

The Bruins also got into the latest trend of signing young players to bigger-than-normal contracts, inking Fraser Minten to a 7-year, $50.4 million extension. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

The added new reality here for all 32 teams is that front offices, including top-tier management and their amateur and pro scouting staff, have very tight windows to separate the haves from the have-nots. The pressure is greater than ever to be correct with their forecasting.

Most players are drafted at age 18. The creme de la creme reach the league by age 20. The trend established this summer saw the prime kids rewarded with fortunes as their entry-level contracts expired. It’s a costly model that, as noted here upon Carlsson’s landmark deal, will force teams to fill out rosters with a greater number of lower-wage stick carriers — a group that will grow on a percentage basis with each new megadeal a club places at the top of the pay pyramid.

The near future likely will see a majority of teams relegating upward of 50 percent of their payroll to maybe three or four elite players, then fill their rosters out by dime-a-dozen contributors.

It can work. It forces management to be right when identifying the truly elite performers for those big paychecks. But even one miss up top, a $15-million-a-year boo boo, could lead to a disaster. Trimming back maximum-length deals from eight years to seven won’t make the pain go away.

Connor Hellebuyck, the three-time Vezina Trophy winner, says he’s played his last game in Winnipeg, demanding a trade despite his longterm deal with the Jets.Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

TRADE WINDS

Hellebuyck leaves Jets grounded

The Jets, as expected, opened camp sans franchise goalie Connor Hellebuyck, the ex-UMass Lowell stopper triggering a suspension when choosing not to report after months ago requesting a trade out of Manitoba.

Winnipeg general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff said he has been underwhelmed with the offers he has received for the 33-year-old, who in 2025 won the most recent of his three Vezinas (and was named NHL MVP), and earlier this year backstopped Team USA to Olympic gold.

“I have to get this right,” said Cheveldayoff.

No doubt about that. The proof: Montreal’s trade of Patrick Roy in December 1995.

The surrounding circumstances are somewhat different, but a lot of what is at play is reminiscent of the Canadiens’ hasty, now long-regretted trade of Roy. GM Rejean Houle, only months on the job as Serge Savard’s successor, made an emotional decision (in hand with Savard) to wheel Roy, then 30, to the Avalanche along with forward Mike Keane.

The return was risible: Andrei “The Empty Tank” Kovalenko, Martin Rucinsky, and Jocelyn Thibault — all of it a deep pocketful of next-to-nothing. Rucinsky, then 24, proved to be a decent, though not impactful, winger in Montreal for a few years.

Roy, then with two Stanley Cup wins under his belt with the CH, was in his 12th season in Montreal. He went on to win another two Cups in Colorado en route to the Hockey Hall of Fame. In his final game in Montreal, he was hosed at the Forum by the Red Wings, allowing nine goals before coach Mario Tremblay hooked him midway through the second period. A stomping, steaming Roy could be seen yelling at Tremblay at the bench as Pat Jablonski took the net.

The emotional St. Patrick demanded a trade right after the game, a deal that Savard labeled as necessary.

“The team revolved far too much around him,” noted Savard. And Savard was right — oh man, was he right. Roy was in net for their last Cup win in ’93. Now, 33-plus years later, they’re still waiting for their next one (as is every other team in Canada).

Cooler heads in the front office would have told Roy to pipe down, take a five-day vacation, and come back feeling refreshed. It would have been possible, even in hockey-crazed Montreal.

This would have been Hellebuyck’s 12th season with the Jets, and the third year of the seven-year, $59.5 million, no-trade deal that he now has chosen not to honor. Like Roy in Montreal, he wants out, albeit without yet making clear what convinced him he no longer wants to be a Jet for life.

The path to a deal indeed looks narrow for Cheveldayoff. Buffalo and defending Cup champ Carolina both look like ideal landing spots. Cheveldayoff might have to convince another GM into swapping out an established No. 1 in favor of Hellebuyck.

One example would be Florida, where GM Bill Zito in June obtained Jacob Markstrom, 36, from the Devils. Hellebuyck is younger, and would be an upgrade, which would mean the Jets would need more in a deal.

Or, if the Roy scenario proves valuable, perhaps Cheveldayoff can coax Hellebuyck in from the trade ledge. Keeping him in the Jets net would be by far the best deal. CBA rules prevent the Jets from tossing him more money, so the appeal would have to be crafted around other factors — related, no doubt, to the reasons Hellebuyck have not made public.

ETC.

Making a good first impression

Unknown, undrafted right winger Tom Zocco arrived in Buffalo last weekend as an unsigned invitee to the Bruins’ prospects camp. He played in both games, including ample time in the top six and on the power play, against the Sabres hopefuls and made a solid impression among the Boston cognoscenti.

Within an hour of his last Black and Gold shift Monday, he hustled to catch a prearranged car for a three-hour drive to London, Ontario.

Zocco, who grew up on Staten Island, N.Y. (home to one indoor rink, the Staten Island Skating Pavilion), will play this season for Dale Hunter’s OHL London Knights. A year from now, he’ll be a 21-year-old freshman for NCAA Division 1 Quinnipiac, hoping his circuitous, unconventional career path one day leads to NHL work.

“You know what? I liked him,” said new AHL Providence coach Trent Whitfield, bench boss for the two games in Buffalo. “When he gets into higher-level situations where he has to dig in defensively, that’ll help [his game]. Offensively, you know, he’s off the charts — great shot, makes plays, slick through the neutral zone.”

There’s many miles to tread for Zocco on that narrow career path, but that’s high praise for a kid who three times went through the NHL draft without hearing his name called. He scored but one goal in the rookie tournament — in part because there is only one puck, which prospect James Hagens buried six times in the two games. But Zocco clearly made an impression.

Zocco was unaware the Bruins had any interest in him after his year playing for USHL champion Sioux Falls, where he led the Stampede offense (60 games: 22–48–70). Then the phone rang a couple of weeks ago.

“And it was my agent [George Bazos] with this random call, asking, ‘Hey, do you want to go to the Bruins’ rookie camp?’ ” recalled Zocco. “And I was like, ‘Uh, yeah.’ I mean, why wouldn’t I want to go there?!”

With but that one rink on Staten Island, Zocco played some of his early-teen years in New Jersey. He also played three seasons with the Triple-A Long Island Gulls, one of Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy’s career-building stops. Prior to his USHL season in Sioux Falls, he played a season for the BCHL Coquitlam Express. He led them in scoring, too (19-34–53 in 49 games). Notice a trend here?

Following his strong season in Sioux Falls, where he finished fourth overall in USHL scoring, Zocco felt he finally would be selected in this June’s NHL draft.

“Yeah … maybe a late round,” mused Zocco, reached by phone in London. “But you know, some stuff doesn’t go your way, right? So you just [have to] bounce back and show people what they missed out on.”

Now he’ll have an NHL veteran in Knights coach Hunter helping to build details into his game, followed by at least one season under the keen-eyed Rand Pecknold’s direction with the Bobcats.

“He’ll learn there; Rand will teach him good,” offered Whitfield. “They’ll push him in the right direction.”

Young Bruins prospect Dans Locmelis is happy to be healthy and back on the ice again.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

Former UMass standout Dans Locmelis submitted two solid performances in the Bruins’ rookie tournament, his game showing not a hint of the shoulder (labrum) surgery that cut short his time in Providence last season. “The best thing is just to play hockey again,” said the Latvian-born centerman. “But for sure, it’s nice to be healthy again and back to 100 percent. But I’ve been feeling really good all summer, so I was confident going out there.” … By the weekend, the list of players on NHL camp tryouts had nearly tripled from the previous weekend, but none of the names carried much sizzle. The Lightning brought back versatile veteran pivot Luke Glendening, 37, for a potential redux performance. He played two seasons there (2023-25), just on the far side of their two Cup wins. Ex-of UMichigan, Glendening began his pro career with a short stay with AHL Providence. … The top USHL scorer last season was Alex Pelletier, a Lincoln Stars forward who posted 48-37–85 totals. An Avon Old Farms grad from Granby, Conn., Pelletier is now in Chestnut Hill for his freshman year at BC … Cooper Simpson, a Youngstown forward and 2025 Bruins third-round pick (74th), was the USHL’s No. 2 scorer (34-40–74). Now 19, he’s begun his freshman year at North Dakota … One potential impediment in moving Helleybuyck is his 24-34 postseason record. He carried the Jets to the Western Conference finals in 2018, but hasn’t moved them beyond Round 2 since … Bruins GM Don Sweeney would not say at his Wednesday presser if he took much of a stab at landing Chris Kreider, who signed on with Montreal for a $2.15 million guarantee. Kreider, a Hub homeboy, was there to be had, his hand up, and the Bruins had plenty of room on the payroll to accommodate him. The read here: Sweeney’s interest was tepid, in part because he wants roster room for a kid or two (Hagens? Locmelis?) to gain a foothold. There’s logic there, if they ascend. A sure bet would have been the big-bodied Kreider making for a better power play (124 career PP goals in 14 seasons, including an NHL-best 26 in 2021-22) … The NHL will not say that either Houston or Austin are shoo-ins for the next round of expansion (at a price of $2 billion or more). In part, that’s because the league office does not want to usurp the last-call rights of the board of governors. Why not add both? Florida (population 23.4 million) has two teams. Why can’t Texas (31.7 million) have three? … Try as he may, Alex Ovechkin will not easily rid himself of Vladimir Putin’s evil political stench. The game’s greatest goal scorer appeared in a commercial for Putin’s United Russia party, standing right behind foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. “I’m for peace and love,” Ovechkin has been telling the western hockey media, noting to one and all he’ll one day return to live fulltime in Russia. The International Criminal Court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin, following investigations around crimes against humanity related to his ordered invasion of Ukraine. The game’s greatest goal scorer didn’t know where this puck was going on this one?

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.