Last night, it was announced that the Ottawa Senators signed D Jake Sanderson to an eight-year deal with an AAV of $8.05 million. This extension (coming on the eve of the final year of Sanderson’s ELC and kicking in in 2024-25) falls into GM Pierre Dorion’s tendency of signing young players to long-term deals (see also for just one example: his fellow 2020 NHL Entry Draft class member C Tim Stützle, who was given an eight-year, $8.35 million AAV deal in September of 2022) and has some reason for being defended when looking at his arc from his time at the US NTDP through his college years at the University of North Dakota to present. I definitely had some thoughts on this when the news first broke, but now that I have slept on it, I have a chance to give it a more thorough evaluation and break down how this looks from a data standpoint.

When looking at raw numbers over the course of his high-level career to this point, the Whitefish, Montana native has steadily seen an increase in offensive productivity. Over the course of two years with the US NTPD, he scored 21 points over the course of 41 games. In his draft year, Byron Bader’s star probability model, which, for defensemen, projects the likelihood that they will average 0.45 PPG over the course of their NHL career, had Sanderson at 15%. In his freshman year with the Fighting Hawks, Sanderson put up 15 points in 22 games. As a sophomore, in his final season at UND, Sanderson averaged over a point per game, putting up 26 points in 23 outings, and subsequently signed his ELC while recovering from a hand injury, therefore forgoing his final two years of college eligibility to join the Senators in 2023-24 (the first year of his ELC was eaten up by the 2022-23 campaign even though he did not play, as Sanderson was not eligible for an entry-level slide). In his first campaign, he was quite reliable for the Senators, posting 32 points in 77 games, good for eighth on the team and second behind Thomas Chabot for points behind a defenseman. In reward for his efforts, Sanderson was given an NHL All-Rookie selection, forming a pair with Buffalo D/2021 first overall selection Owen Power. Bader’s model currently has Sanderson’s star probability at 45%, after having been 12% at the conclusion of his freshman year and 25% upon the end of his NCAA career.

Bader’s model is somewhat limited, though, in that it is solely made to project offensive productivity when placed in the context of skaters. When looking at JFresh’s model, he has Sanderson’s projected WAR in the eighty-seventh percentile, and appears to have a profile where he does not really excel in one specific area but does not really have any significant weaknesses, either, therefore having all the makings of a very solid, two-way second pair defenseman. Bearing in mind his upward trajectory, while he likely will not end up being as productive as, say, Miro Heiskanen, he should be more than serviceable for the big pay day he is getting. I must also stress again that the salary cap is going to increase, therefore making the overall cap percentage impact less significant as time goes on. Overall, maybe Sanderson’s deal is a “big bet” as JFresh describes it, but there is ample reason based off of his trends to think it will be one that pays off fairly well. I would say Dorion was pretty justified in going to such extreme lengths to tie up his former fifth overall selection, just as he to this point is proving to be with 2020 third overall selection Stützle.