Perfetti's next contract: How long? How much?

If it's a two-year bridge deal, then there are two obvious comparables. The first is 23-year-old Senators centre Shane Pinto , who signed a two-year, $3.75 million contract with Ottawa this summer. Perfetti, 22, has outscored Pinto by five points with much less ice time in his career. The second is Winnipeg's own Gabriel Vilardi , who signed a two-year, $3.4 million AAV bridge deal last summer.

Perfetti is two years younger than Vilardi was when he signed that contract, with marginally better offensive production than Vilardi had when he signed. The salary cap has also increased to $88 million this summer - if Perfetti gets the same percentage of the cap that Vilardi did, his AAV will be $3.625 million.

If Winnipeg were facing a short-term cap crunch, there would be a compelling argument to sign the bridge deal and sort things out in two years' time. I suspect the Jets want Perfetti to prove himself, scoring a lot over multiple consecutive seasons before committing to a long-term contract. He's been injured, he's interspersed his excellence with prolonged slumps, etc. There is truth to those arguments but it comes with risk.

Perfetti is going to get more opportunity this season than he did one year ago. There's an obvious top-six forward job available now that Sean Monahan and Tyler Toffoli are gone. Monahan's departure opens up a power-play job and I think Perfetti is first in line. He's a leading candidate to get power-play time - and not just time but the frequency of puck touches that lead to point production.

I think the end result of all of this is a bridge deal below $4 million. I think the Jets would match just about any offer sheet and don't expect teams (or Perfetti) to go down that route. It's also my opinion that Perfetti is a strong candidate to score more than enough in the next two seasons to earn quite a bit more when his bridge deal is done.

There should be an opportunity here - say, six years at a little over $6 million - to sign a talented young player to a contract that he outscores through the heart of his career. I'm not sure if the Jets will take it, but I'd like to see them try - even if I understand some of the arguments to wait and see.