9. Will the pressure that comes with big money impact the young guns?<\/p>\n
The San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks combined to give forwards Macklin Celebrini<\/a>, Leo Carlsson<\/a> and Connor Bedard<\/a>\u00a0a grand total of $259 million during the offseason.<\/p>\n Each will be expected to deliver with the big money in their back pocket.<\/p>\n Carlsson, the Ducks\u2019 21-year-old center, initially signed a five-year, $90 million offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers on July 3. The Ducks matched it on July 9, making Carlsson, at that moment, the highest-paid player in the NHL with an AAV of $18 million.<\/p>\n Bedard, the Blackhawks’ 21-year-old center, signed a five-year, $75 million contract ($15 million AAV) on July 18. A shoulder injury will likely prevent him from competing in training camp, delaying the start of his season.<\/p>\n Celebrini, not surprisingly considering he set a Sharks record with 115 points (45 goals, 70 assists) last season, signed a five-year, $94 million contract ($18.8 million AAV) on July 29. The contract begins next season.<\/p>\n Anaheim took the next step last season and reached the Western Conference Second Round. Carlsson will be front and center in its push to go further. A strong start is paramount to that; a step back and he’ll feel the heat.<\/p>\n San Jose took a step forward by competing for a playoff spot, ultimately falling four points short.<\/p>\n Celebrini has become one of the faces of the NHL. He is entering his third season. The Sharks are primed to take a step similar to the one the Ducks took last season. It’s on No. 71 to lead the way.<\/p>\n The Blackhawks finished last in the Central Division last season. That can’t keep happening on Bedard’s watch.<\/p>\n Big money, big pressure. All eyes will be on Celebrini, Bedard and Carlsson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"9. Will the pressure that comes with big money impact the young guns? The San Jose Sharks, Anaheim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-848487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}