Islanders: Way Too Early Predictions For 2021 RFA’s

Looking at next year’s RFA class for the New York Islanders. Predicting contracts for Adam Pelech, Anthony Beauvillier, and Ilya Sorokin.

Right now, the Islanders have Mathew Barzal, Ryan Pulock, and Devon Toews as RFA’s. Lou Lamoriello is going to have his hands full with trying to get those three back but the RFA conundrum doesn’t end there.

Next year, the Isles have three RFA’s of note with Adam Pelech, Anthony Beauvillier, and Ilya Sorokin. While obviously, the priority is this offseason, I wanted to take a way too early look and predict what I think each player is going to get.

These predictions are going to be based on what they’ve done in the league so far and what I’m projecting them to do next year.

Adam Pelech

As we saw both in the regular season and the playoffs, the Islanders are a completely different team with Adam Pelech on the ice vs when he’s not. At just $1.6 million against the cap, he’s an absolute bargain but that only lasts for one more year.

This upcoming year will be his age 26 season so he’ll be looking to cash in during the prime of his career. But Pelech is a difficult contract to project because he’s not a point-producing defenseman but his value to this team is unmatched on the blue line.

I think we could see a similar deal to what Chris Tanev got in 2015. He signed a five-year $22.25 million ($4.45 million AAV) deal before his age 26 season. I think we see a little bit of a raise for Pelech but the same number of years.

Prediction: Five Years $24 million ($4.8 million AAV)

Anthony Beauvillier

We finally were able to find out what Anthony Beauvillier is at the NHL level. After a couple of years of ups and downs, Beauvillier finished with 39 points and 18 goals which is a pace of 47 points and 22 goals.

For my way too early guess, I think we see roughly 45 points for Beau in 2020-2021. While that won’t give him a massive payday, I think we can look at something similar to what Charlie Coyle signed before 2015.

Coyle, going into his age 23 season signed a five-year $16 million ($3.2 million AAV) contract. $3.2 million against the cap might not be enough for Beau, but I don’t think it’ll be too unreasonable.

Prediction: Five Years $20 million ($4 million AAV)

Ilya Sorokin

This is a tough one. Sorokin has never played a game in the NHL but is expected to be a solid goalie coming over from the KHL. He signed a one-year $2 million deal for next season and will likely need a bump in salary after that.

Could Sorokin get a deal similar to Tristan Jarry, who just received a three-year $3.5 million aav deal? I would think Sorokin would yield a little bit more than Jarry but at around the same age it’s not that far off from what I think Sorokin will be getting.

Prediction: three-year $12 million ($4 million AAV)

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The Islanders would probably have to try to move on from Semyon Varlamov at that point and there’s the Expansion Draft to worry about as well. The cap isn’t going to be easy to navigate for the second season in a row.