☀️ Good morning and welcome back to The Nosebleeds.

📝 Some big names in the NHL have re-signed with their respective teams this week—we’ll discuss.

🏒 The puck is dropped and here we go.

🍁 Breathe Toronto—Auston Matthews is staying put

4 years, $13.25M AAV for Auston Matthews to remain a Toronto Maple Leaf, making the Arizona boy the highest-paid player in the NHL.

Leafs fans are relieved I’m sure, but this is an interesting contract for Matthews and the Leafs. Matthews will be 30 by the time this contract expires, and he’ll be set up for a massive pay day.

The term of this contract is what makes it so interesting. It has been reported that Matthews wanted a three-year deal and the team wanted five, so they compromised at four. If you’re the Leafs I don’t know how you don’t push for a longer-term contract. I’ve heard people say that a four-year deal aligns with the Leafs’ window, but I disagree. This deal creates the team’s window. Matthews will probably go get as much money as possible on his next contract, giving the Leafs five more years to win the whole damn thing (Matthews’ current contract expires at the end of the 2023-24 season, therefore, he is signed for five seasons), or they’ll have to start over once again.

It’ll be interesting to see how this impacts Nylander and Marner’s contract situations moving forward, and how Treliving navigates through it all.

Other notable signings

Brandon Hagel: 8 years x $6.5M AAV

The Tampa Bay Lightning lock-up a key top 6 forward for the foreseeable future. Highly underrated player.

Evan Bouchard: 2 years x $3.9M AAV

Bridge deal for Edmonton’s top offensive defenseman and powerplay quarterback. Not signing Bouchard long-term will probably cost Edmonton in a few seasons, but they do not care. The Oilers believe their time is now, and will carefully allocate every dollar for the remainder of McDavid and Draisaitl’s tenure in Edmonton.

Alexis Lafreniere: 2 years x $2.3M AAV

I really thought Lafreniere was going to be an absolute stud in the NHL. I was more impressed with his World Junior Championship performance as a draft eligible forward than I was with McDavid at the same age. But Lafreniere has been extremely average for the Rangers since he entered the league. Maybe he can take a step forward with more opportunity on a strong Rangers team.

😢 Shohei Ohtani tears UCL

No other way to put it, this sucks.

As a baseball fan, you hope this doesn’t impact Ohtani’s ability to both pitch and hit effectively moving forward. For Ohtani, this injury may cost him a couple $100M. Last week, we discussed Ohtani’s true value and tried to project his next contract. But if this injury is something he can never fully recover from, we can throw all of that out the window.

Let’s hope Ohtani comes back next season the same player he has been the last few seasons.

🩸 Bloody Good Play of the Week

It feels like Lionel Messi is in the running for this prestigious accolade every week…

Not only was this a freaking dime from Messi, but it came in extra time to tie the game. Absolutely unreal play from the 🐐 when his team needed it most.

Inter Miami went on to win this game in penalty kicks and took home the U.S. Open Cup.

🤔 NHL Trivia

With his fresh contract, Auston Matthews will become the first NHL player ever to make more than $13M in a season.

• Question: who was the first NHL player (or players) to earn more than $10M annually"?

Answer at the bottom.

📺️ Weekend Watchlist

⛳️ The main event for this weekend in sports is definitely the PGA Tour Championship.

• Many players will be taking home an absolute bag. The winner takes home $18M, second place $6.5M, and third $5M. Every player who finishes in the top 10 will take home at least $1M. Always fun to see what players tighten up the most with so much cash on the line.

• After round 1, Viktor Hovland, Keegan Bradley, and Collin Morikawa are tied for the lead after the first day of play. World #1 Scottie Scheffler is only a shot behind, and is the current favorite to win the tournament according to DataGolf.

⚾️ Not a ton of quality matchups in the majors this weekend, but there is one series that really stands out:

• Cincinnati Reds vs. Arizona Diamondbacks

  • The two best rookies in the NL (Elly De La Cruz and Corbin Carroll) will face-off in a four-game series that began on Thursday night with massive postseason implications. The Reds currently hold a 0.5 game lead over the Diamondbacks for the final wildcard spot. This series could determine who gets to play October baseball and who goes home.

🏈 College Football also returns this weekend.

• We’ll get our first look at 2022 Heisman Trophy winner and projected 1st overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft Caleb Williams in action as the USC Trojans take on San Jose State on Saturday night.

👋 See y’all next week!

Trivia Answer: teammates Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were the first two players to cross the $10M annual salary threshold.

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