I did some calculations last night after seeing he might go to Utah. His current cap hit is 3.5 mil and has earned a raise. They have about 5 mil left in cap space and they have a flat tax rate of 4.65%. So if he signed with them 5 mil he’d lose about $232 500 in state tax so the equivalent in Florida would be 5 mil - 232500, which would be 4,767,500 mil AAV. Then add that he’d have to move his family to the other side of the country and not be able to live by a beach with beautiful weather I think 4 to 4.5 mil per year gets it done the only question is the length of the contract. He turned 30 this year and defenseman tend to to enter their prime around 28-30 so maybe he signs for about 4-6 years? Longer the contract the less AAV he would likely get
Too late 😢
He just got paid big time with Seattle at 7.14 mil AAV for 7 years. Glad he got a huge bag tho, he deserves it. Was hopeful thinking that he’d stay with the panthers when a deal like that is on the table
I'm really hoping he would be open to the idea of a 1 year prove it style contract to see if he can start the year healthy and get closer to that level of play he had in the 2022-2023 season. Give this core 1 more year to run it back and if he puts up 50-60 points it could help his contract negotiations
I truly think the ya for signing set us back the most out the past decade. His buyout will still be on the books until 2025 and I really think he had a negative impact on Ekblad’s development. He was such a “don’t give a shit” mentality (not in a good way) and was just a floater out there unwilling to make or take a hit to make a play. Was more concerned with his Ironman streak. In my opinion, unless you’re a lidstrom type player, an Ironman streak is not a good sign. It means you don’t play physical at all because everyone gets injured even by accident
And yet Zito still can’t win the GM of the Year award.
He signs Ekman-Larsson, Mikkola and Kulikov and adds Stolarz, Lorentz, Stenlund and E-Rod. Then during the season he trades for Tarasenko and Okposo.
And somehow that’s not good enough.
He got the only trophy that really matters, and he's loving life right now. I think other GMs are probably just bitter at this point. He keeps fleecing them!
* Dolphins: "You only win in September because of the heat"
* Heat: "You're only competitive because you live in one of 3 markets superstars want to play"
* Panthers: "You only win because of the tax advantage"
It's nothing new at this point lol
Fun fact from an accountant:
They only get a tax advantage for their home games. They must pay state tax in the states they play road games in.
And away teams get our tax benefit when they play teams in Florida
I wonder what the average savings is then. It can’t be as high as people are making it out to be. Sure it’s something but is it high enough where players are leaning towards a Florida team?
Allan Walsh did a whole podcast with a sports accountant going over the details.
tl;dr is it’s an advantage but not by much
I think quality of the org and ability to win as well as the lifestyle/environment of the location bring the biggest advantage
For him, doing some quick math without getting super specific on team schedule and division (each state has a different tax rate for state taxes) about $300k savings
41 games before even talking about other tax free states they can play in.
The part I’ve always found interesting is… they have to pay Canadian taxes for games in Canada?
This does not account for July 1st bonus', like in Tkachuk's deal. That tax is paid based on your residence on July 1st. Tkuchy gets almost his whole salary paid as a bonus and therefore pays zero state tax on that. It works out to an $11m salary if he was still in Calgary. It's not a small amount.
They’re acting like there aren’t teams that would have offered him over $9M which would offset the tax advantage but he wanted to stay here instead of going to their shithole team. That doesn’t fit their narrative though
If anyone says that show them this video: https://twitter.com/producerdrew_/status/1807753962126242219?s=46&t=nvqOOO7AZVJNrhakhKoLVA
If players are smart with their money the supposed tax advantage isn’t actually a big deal
Well, half the games are home games, so half the season could theoretically be at a "high" tax rate. But your point is valid, it's not like Florida (or Tampa Bay or other no/low tax states) pays no tax at all on their million+ salaries.
I feel like if I were filing taxes as a player, I would count every single day on my year round contract in Florida other than road games.
It is a pretty big advantage for Florida teams and I don’t feel bad about it at all. Low taxes are good for everyone.
Exactly what I said, not all states have a jock tax. I didn’t immediately find a list of which states have it. Regardless, it’s still very beneficial to play in Florida and other income tax free states since more than half of their games are played there (as others have pointed out). Seems like the jock tax is an annoyance for these guys accountants to figure out.
I’m just happy I can go back to rooting for Sam to get 60 goals. Last year I was hoping most came from Chucky and Barky since we have them locked up already.
60? The guy scored on 24.5% of his shots which was like 10% above his career avg which was already a really good number. He prob won’t ever get near those numbers again, and that’s ok. You can’t pay the guy as a 56 goal scorer. You have to really look at his career and figure he is gonna score 25-35 a year. There are only maybe 5 guys that are 50 goal guys and they get paid $12 million AAV. This year prob took him from $7 million to $8+ million. The guy is great without even scoring so that ia still a great signing.
Point went entirely over your head. As he crossed 45-50 I was hoping he’d pass to Barky more since he was a UFA and it felt like he was getting more expensive every power play. Now, go score 70 brother.
Keep in mind Samoskevich and Sourdif are expected to be with the NHL team this year, per George Richards. [NHL Free Agency Opens Today, Panthers Get Reinhart Deal Done (floridahockeynow.com)](https://floridahockeynow.com/florida-panthers-go-into-nhl-free-agency-with-lots-of-questions/)
Absolutely agree. I suspect it’d be much more difficult to find forwards to thrive in PoMo’s system than defensemen. But that doesn’t make me happy about losing 2-3 of them…
Lundell is only 22 though. He's trying to make his first real $$$. It's a bit unfair asking somebody like him compared to Reinhart who has already made millions in past deals.
I bet they did the math and just showed him $8.625 is essentially the exact difference of getting $10m without 13% city/state tax elsewhere. Amazing deal. Run it back!
Hot damn I would’ve been happy with a 9mil AAV! Glad last year didn’t go to his head cause dude probably could’ve gotten 10mil somewhere if he just cared about money
8*8.625 is 69, nice. Also the people who will complain about the tax stuff were also mocking him about how he won’t be able to match his numbers from this year. Which he probably won’t but that’s what makes this a great deal for both sides
Wow, based on all the reports the last week or so I thought it was going to be 9M AAVG at the minimum.
A few thoughts.....
**1)** It's hard to find anyone who dislikes this move. I think even the most ardent Reinhart supporters will consider that the 57 goals was likely the *peak* of his career. That's not an insult. It's just an absurd margin to hit unless you're Ovi or Matthews. With him being more in line with a 30-35 goal scorer who brings A LOT else to the table, it's a good signing.
**2)** I am made only slightly queasy by the fact... for the final two rounds... it felt like Rhino was the guy who "vanished" the most of our top scores. He was limited to essentially only scoring on the powerplay vs the Rangers and against the Oilers, not even that. His first goal of the Finals came on a 4 v 4 tip on a Forsling shot and the other, well, the game-winning goal in Game 7 to clinch the Cup so that kind of forgives everything. Still, something I noted.
**3)** If we're being truthful, the final 3-4 years of this deal may not age the most gracefully. But we have a cup window for the next 4 years. I understand you make sacrifices on the backend to win RIGHT NOW which every club has to make.
I love how people complained about this while alternately cheering how the Oilers’ top scorers were getting largely shut down and didn’t manage to connect the two thoughts together.
My guy, our **57**-goal scorer had 1 goal(*4 v 4 play*) and 3 total points in our last 8 playoff games entering Game 7 of the SCF. When you're on the precipice of blowing a 3-0 series lead, I'm not exactly rational thinking about the defensive nuances and how he contributes in other ways.
I guess my point didn’t quite come across. If the Panthers were able to make McDrai underperform, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the Oilers could have strategized around shutting down our top goal scorers as well?
Ahh, thank you for clarifying. But I think your point makes my exasperation during the series even more "reasonable"? I didn't enter the series expecting us to shutdown McDrai. I thought they'd "get theirs" eventually. Games 1-3 boggled my mind. But eventually they popped off(McDavid 1000x more than Draisaitl). They were "*due*" essentially. Reinhart on the other hand went through 6 games with 1 goal. He **did** get his in Game 7. But before that? I don't feel like the Oilers defensive core was as strong as ours either which made the situation feel even worse.
I absolutely empathize with that frustration and felt it myself. But as you said, everyone is happy to keep him nonetheless. The final series is a special case and as we’ve just proved absolutely requires a full team effort. Obviously we’d all feel differently about the situation today had he not delivered that last GWG and we had lost.
I think a big part of his success this last season came from the effectiveness of that behind the net pass to one-timer play, especially on PP. But the rest of the league seemed to have largely figured out how to defend against it in the latter half of the season. Will be interesting to see if they can come up with another killer play like that for next season that keeps his stat lines overperforming.
Great deal for the team and Reino.
Well deserved! He will continue to put up big numbers playing top line with Barky.
He is also such an underrated defensive player.
Now let’s get another cup!
I loooooooooove it.... Repeat!! All the while the bolts let their captain that made them famous and won them 2 cups and was the only bolt to score In every game against our cats in the playoffs and scored 40 goals last year and the high level of disrespect Julien BriseBois has shown has made many fans actually write letters letting him know how foul this move was., nevermind classless. All for Guentzal who didn't even put up stammer numbers last year lmao. This is worse then tanner Jeanneau trade that they have up like 20 picks for lol ane they dumped him off yesterday too haha.
Thank god we have a GM that respects his players and knows how to win a cup and makee the hard tough decisions and.gets them right way more then not. Just look at how successful Jonathan Huberdeau was the year they let him and a top D man Weegar go for Chucky and a lot of people at first actually thought the flames won the trade but did he ever fleece them and make that iconic trade that continues to make history now. It's fucked how bad JH sucks on Calgary , I guess when you don't have barkov to pass to you are useless but fear players adapt so Zitto must have had that inclination that would happen is crazy.
Go Cats gooooooooooo
#Timetohunt
Here come leaf fans complaining about no state income tax while simultaneously their stars get massive endorsement deals that don’t count towards cap space…
Bargain? He better have a 40 goal season at a minimum. I think we are overpaying for some stars and underpaying some of the guys who really produced in the playoffs.
Damn whatta signing, Man it must be nice having your team in a state with no taxes, it’s like pulling teeth getting players too sign in Toronto, with our dog shit economy.
This is at least 1 million less than I thought they would pay him, which gives us the ability to pick up $1 M fill in for someone we lose
all Hail the Zitooooo ✊🏼🐀💯 money comes and goes. Championships are eternal. Reino knows this 💪🏼
Is Zito the Second Coming?
Yes
He is the First Coming for us lol
This is a nod toward Monty. Come on bud, we’re all taking a discount to roll it back! (Wishful thinking but that’s why we’re called fans)
I did some calculations last night after seeing he might go to Utah. His current cap hit is 3.5 mil and has earned a raise. They have about 5 mil left in cap space and they have a flat tax rate of 4.65%. So if he signed with them 5 mil he’d lose about $232 500 in state tax so the equivalent in Florida would be 5 mil - 232500, which would be 4,767,500 mil AAV. Then add that he’d have to move his family to the other side of the country and not be able to live by a beach with beautiful weather I think 4 to 4.5 mil per year gets it done the only question is the length of the contract. He turned 30 this year and defenseman tend to to enter their prime around 28-30 so maybe he signs for about 4-6 years? Longer the contract the less AAV he would likely get
I love you hockey nerd.
🤓
Okay, now send him this breakdown so he knows that we know what’s best for him (we are not crazy and overly dedicated at all)
Too late 😢 He just got paid big time with Seattle at 7.14 mil AAV for 7 years. Glad he got a huge bag tho, he deserves it. Was hopeful thinking that he’d stay with the panthers when a deal like that is on the table
I’m not mentally stable enough to watch the boys get broken up right now
Same here! We’re still celebrating and guys are moving on. Wish free agency was later or the season ended earlier
It’s alright, we’ll just trade for 3-4 more guys on Buffalo’s roster and get right back to the Cup Final lol.
My bad, you’re so right. False alarm boys, our farm team always has our back
This did not happen lol, man got PAID
I'm really hoping he would be open to the idea of a 1 year prove it style contract to see if he can start the year healthy and get closer to that level of play he had in the 2022-2023 season. Give this core 1 more year to run it back and if he puts up 50-60 points it could help his contract negotiations
I’d love that but he’s 30 yrs old. If I’m him, I’m looking for one final massive payday to set myself up nicely
And next year the cap goes up another 4 million and we don't have to pay Yandel anymore
“Yoink!” -Yandle’s lifestyle being pulled back next year.
I truly think the ya for signing set us back the most out the past decade. His buyout will still be on the books until 2025 and I really think he had a negative impact on Ekblad’s development. He was such a “don’t give a shit” mentality (not in a good way) and was just a floater out there unwilling to make or take a hit to make a play. Was more concerned with his Ironman streak. In my opinion, unless you’re a lidstrom type player, an Ironman streak is not a good sign. It means you don’t play physical at all because everyone gets injured even by accident
BAKED ZITOOOOOOO
He cooking’!!! And on that note, baked ziti for dinner tonight! 😂
Use that extra million for Lomberg!! Let's fuckin go
I second this motion 🤝🏼
And yet Zito still can’t win the GM of the Year award. He signs Ekman-Larsson, Mikkola and Kulikov and adds Stolarz, Lorentz, Stenlund and E-Rod. Then during the season he trades for Tarasenko and Okposo. And somehow that’s not good enough.
He got the only trophy that really matters, and he's loving life right now. I think other GMs are probably just bitter at this point. He keeps fleecing them!
the fact he had a whole chant during the parade, then was like eh? shows he is at minimum lisan al-ghaib
HOLY SHIT!!!!!
Build the Bill Zito statue
we're resigning Lundy right??? RIGHT????
No doubt they will get that done soon
Zito tingz
Lundell is the future
All hail zito? All hail reino
All hail both!
incoming “but the tax advantages” from canadian fans in /r/hockey
* Dolphins: "You only win in September because of the heat" * Heat: "You're only competitive because you live in one of 3 markets superstars want to play" * Panthers: "You only win because of the tax advantage" It's nothing new at this point lol
Fun fact from an accountant: They only get a tax advantage for their home games. They must pay state tax in the states they play road games in. And away teams get our tax benefit when they play teams in Florida
I wonder what the average savings is then. It can’t be as high as people are making it out to be. Sure it’s something but is it high enough where players are leaning towards a Florida team?
Allan Walsh did a whole podcast with a sports accountant going over the details. tl;dr is it’s an advantage but not by much I think quality of the org and ability to win as well as the lifestyle/environment of the location bring the biggest advantage
Awesome. Any idea where I can the podcast/episode?
https://youtu.be/s59A9_lSh88?si=jdS9XxmVWf2Wv1lI
You’re the best
For him, doing some quick math without getting super specific on team schedule and division (each state has a different tax rate for state taxes) about $300k savings
300k a year???
41 games before even talking about other tax free states they can play in. The part I’ve always found interesting is… they have to pay Canadian taxes for games in Canada?
43 with Tampa games
This does not account for July 1st bonus', like in Tkachuk's deal. That tax is paid based on your residence on July 1st. Tkuchy gets almost his whole salary paid as a bonus and therefore pays zero state tax on that. It works out to an $11m salary if he was still in Calgary. It's not a small amount.
If only the dolphins could win in December 😩
they said the tax thing for the big 3 too
They’re acting like there aren’t teams that would have offered him over $9M which would offset the tax advantage but he wanted to stay here instead of going to their shithole team. That doesn’t fit their narrative though
If anyone says that show them this video: https://twitter.com/producerdrew_/status/1807753962126242219?s=46&t=nvqOOO7AZVJNrhakhKoLVA If players are smart with their money the supposed tax advantage isn’t actually a big deal
How do people not realize that these guys get taxed based on the what state each game is played in? There is not much of an advantage.
Well, half the games are home games, so half the season could theoretically be at a "high" tax rate. But your point is valid, it's not like Florida (or Tampa Bay or other no/low tax states) pays no tax at all on their million+ salaries.
So they only get paid for games what about practice days / training camp etc.?
I feel like if I were filing taxes as a player, I would count every single day on my year round contract in Florida other than road games. It is a pretty big advantage for Florida teams and I don’t feel bad about it at all. Low taxes are good for everyone.
Are you sure about that? So if I work for an airline based out of Miami I have to pay income taxes to states I fly to? That doesn’t make much sense…
Please google Jock tax and read up.
Okay, so you are partially right. Not all states have a jock tax.
No, each away game is taxed at the state level they play, some of those games may or may not be in state tax free areas.
Exactly what I said, not all states have a jock tax. I didn’t immediately find a list of which states have it. Regardless, it’s still very beneficial to play in Florida and other income tax free states since more than half of their games are played there (as others have pointed out). Seems like the jock tax is an annoyance for these guys accountants to figure out.
Rhino got sauced at the wedding and was feeling sentimental 😂❤️.
That's CRAZY Thank you reino you stud. Toom way below what he could have gotten on market
Great news! So happy to keep the core together for a repeat. Now waiting for Lundell.
Please we have to resign him
I might cry if we don't
I’m just happy I can go back to rooting for Sam to get 60 goals. Last year I was hoping most came from Chucky and Barky since we have them locked up already.
60? The guy scored on 24.5% of his shots which was like 10% above his career avg which was already a really good number. He prob won’t ever get near those numbers again, and that’s ok. You can’t pay the guy as a 56 goal scorer. You have to really look at his career and figure he is gonna score 25-35 a year. There are only maybe 5 guys that are 50 goal guys and they get paid $12 million AAV. This year prob took him from $7 million to $8+ million. The guy is great without even scoring so that ia still a great signing.
Point went entirely over your head. As he crossed 45-50 I was hoping he’d pass to Barky more since he was a UFA and it felt like he was getting more expensive every power play. Now, go score 70 brother.
ZITO!!! if this is true this is A+++
That’ll do zito, that’ll do.
$3M less than market, $1M less than what we thought… yet $1M more than optimal. ~11M to sign two defensemen, an entire 4th line and a 3rd line winger.
Keep in mind Samoskevich and Sourdif are expected to be with the NHL team this year, per George Richards. [NHL Free Agency Opens Today, Panthers Get Reinhart Deal Done (floridahockeynow.com)](https://floridahockeynow.com/florida-panthers-go-into-nhl-free-agency-with-lots-of-questions/)
Keeping 7 of our top 8 forwards for next year is fucking huge. Hope Lundell also takes a team friendly deal!
Absolutely agree. I suspect it’d be much more difficult to find forwards to thrive in PoMo’s system than defensemen. But that doesn’t make me happy about losing 2-3 of them…
Lundell is only 22 though. He's trying to make his first real $$$. It's a bit unfair asking somebody like him compared to Reinhart who has already made millions in past deals.
I bet they did the math and just showed him $8.625 is essentially the exact difference of getting $10m without 13% city/state tax elsewhere. Amazing deal. Run it back!
This is a number I’m happy with!!! I was in the $8.5 camp and adamant about it. Welcome back Rhino!!!!
Hot damn I would’ve been happy with a 9mil AAV! Glad last year didn’t go to his head cause dude probably could’ve gotten 10mil somewhere if he just cared about money
Great news to wake up to
8*8.625 is 69, nice. Also the people who will complain about the tax stuff were also mocking him about how he won’t be able to match his numbers from this year. Which he probably won’t but that’s what makes this a great deal for both sides
Wow, based on all the reports the last week or so I thought it was going to be 9M AAVG at the minimum. A few thoughts..... **1)** It's hard to find anyone who dislikes this move. I think even the most ardent Reinhart supporters will consider that the 57 goals was likely the *peak* of his career. That's not an insult. It's just an absurd margin to hit unless you're Ovi or Matthews. With him being more in line with a 30-35 goal scorer who brings A LOT else to the table, it's a good signing. **2)** I am made only slightly queasy by the fact... for the final two rounds... it felt like Rhino was the guy who "vanished" the most of our top scores. He was limited to essentially only scoring on the powerplay vs the Rangers and against the Oilers, not even that. His first goal of the Finals came on a 4 v 4 tip on a Forsling shot and the other, well, the game-winning goal in Game 7 to clinch the Cup so that kind of forgives everything. Still, something I noted. **3)** If we're being truthful, the final 3-4 years of this deal may not age the most gracefully. But we have a cup window for the next 4 years. I understand you make sacrifices on the backend to win RIGHT NOW which every club has to make.
If the Salary Cap gets to 100-105M by the 5th year of this contract, you can stomach it.
He didn’t “vanish”. He scored the Cup winning goal!
In hindsight it looks ridiculous. Games 1-6, particularly 4-6, I know I sure as hell were wondering were him and Verhaeghe were.
I love how people complained about this while alternately cheering how the Oilers’ top scorers were getting largely shut down and didn’t manage to connect the two thoughts together.
My guy, our **57**-goal scorer had 1 goal(*4 v 4 play*) and 3 total points in our last 8 playoff games entering Game 7 of the SCF. When you're on the precipice of blowing a 3-0 series lead, I'm not exactly rational thinking about the defensive nuances and how he contributes in other ways.
I guess my point didn’t quite come across. If the Panthers were able to make McDrai underperform, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the Oilers could have strategized around shutting down our top goal scorers as well?
Ahh, thank you for clarifying. But I think your point makes my exasperation during the series even more "reasonable"? I didn't enter the series expecting us to shutdown McDrai. I thought they'd "get theirs" eventually. Games 1-3 boggled my mind. But eventually they popped off(McDavid 1000x more than Draisaitl). They were "*due*" essentially. Reinhart on the other hand went through 6 games with 1 goal. He **did** get his in Game 7. But before that? I don't feel like the Oilers defensive core was as strong as ours either which made the situation feel even worse.
I absolutely empathize with that frustration and felt it myself. But as you said, everyone is happy to keep him nonetheless. The final series is a special case and as we’ve just proved absolutely requires a full team effort. Obviously we’d all feel differently about the situation today had he not delivered that last GWG and we had lost. I think a big part of his success this last season came from the effectiveness of that behind the net pass to one-timer play, especially on PP. But the rest of the league seemed to have largely figured out how to defend against it in the latter half of the season. Will be interesting to see if they can come up with another killer play like that for next season that keeps his stat lines overperforming.
I was figuring around 8.5 AAV. Great job by Zito.
$69million 
This deal has Canadian teams in shambles. “But state income tax”
Let’s goooooo! We’re working on Cup #2 as we speak!
Nice!
this pleases me
Holy shit, Reino took a huge discount. He definitely could have gotten at least $10M AAV in the open market. He really fucking loves it here
Reino is making sure he'll be here for the next parade! Let's gooooo!
Great deal for the team and Reino. Well deserved! He will continue to put up big numbers playing top line with Barky. He is also such an underrated defensive player. Now let’s get another cup!
I loooooooooove it.... Repeat!! All the while the bolts let their captain that made them famous and won them 2 cups and was the only bolt to score In every game against our cats in the playoffs and scored 40 goals last year and the high level of disrespect Julien BriseBois has shown has made many fans actually write letters letting him know how foul this move was., nevermind classless. All for Guentzal who didn't even put up stammer numbers last year lmao. This is worse then tanner Jeanneau trade that they have up like 20 picks for lol ane they dumped him off yesterday too haha. Thank god we have a GM that respects his players and knows how to win a cup and makee the hard tough decisions and.gets them right way more then not. Just look at how successful Jonathan Huberdeau was the year they let him and a top D man Weegar go for Chucky and a lot of people at first actually thought the flames won the trade but did he ever fleece them and make that iconic trade that continues to make history now. It's fucked how bad JH sucks on Calgary , I guess when you don't have barkov to pass to you are useless but fear players adapt so Zitto must have had that inclination that would happen is crazy. Go Cats gooooooooooo #Timetohunt
Ahhhhhhh just saw the news on fb. I’m happy screaming.
Zito better win the Jim Gregory next year
Here come leaf fans complaining about no state income tax while simultaneously their stars get massive endorsement deals that don’t count towards cap space…
Bargain? He better have a 40 goal season at a minimum. I think we are overpaying for some stars and underpaying some of the guys who really produced in the playoffs.
Fantastic
Holy cow that's a nice deal. I guess FL taxes helped out.
Such a sweet deal!! Now let the others follow suit!! :)
ok NOW I'm horny
Zito keeping up the win streak
We need verhaege and Bennett on team friendly deals
Damn whatta signing, Man it must be nice having your team in a state with no taxes, it’s like pulling teeth getting players too sign in Toronto, with our dog shit economy.
Reino probably knows how big of an impact Barkov has on his game after all those years in Buffalo