Given that Ryan O'Reilly's agent has said that negotiation for a new contract will start at $6,500,000, I thought it might be interesting to see how Ryan's compensation, thus far in his career, compares to his 2009 draftmates. I used the CapGeek fact sheet on ELC's as a guide and credited Tavares, Dutchy, Hedman, and Kane with maximum bonuses they could have earned. You can find the CapGeek page here. For the lockout season, I prorated the contracts, but not bonus, at (48/82) percent.
Name | Entry Level Contract | Lockout | 2013/2014 | Total Compensation |
John Tavares | $5,250,000 | $2,341,463 | $5,000,000 | $12,591,463 |
Matt Duchene | $5,350,000 | $1,902,439 | $3,750,000 | $11,002,439 |
Victor Hedman | $5,250,000 | $1,756,097 | $3,000,000 | $10,006,097 |
Evander Kane | $5,250,000 | $1,756,097 | $4,500,000 | $11,506,097 |
Ryan O'Reilly | $2,700,000 | $3,085,365 | $6,500,000 | $12,285,365 |
As you can see, Ryan has currently made more than a $1 million more than Duchene, $2 million more than 3rd place draftee Hedman, and only trails first overall Tavares by about $300k.
Fun Fact: Tavares, Duchene, and Kane are all set to make $6 mil for the next 4 seasons. If ROR signs a contract at $6.5 million, he will have made more money than any of them 9 seasons after their draft. This holds true even if he makes only $5,660,000 for the next two seasons.