The cap league impact of Nick Leddy’s new contract.

On Monday, Garth Snow and the New York Islanders locked up one of their young, key assets to a long term deal, signing Nick Leddy to a seven-year, $38.5M contract. 

Leddy, along with Kent Simpson, was acquired by the Islanders back in October for T.J. Brennan, Ville Pokka, and the rights to restricted free agent goalie, Anders Nilsson.  Leddy was originally drafted by the Minnesota Wild and his rights were traded to Chicago, along with Kim Johnsson, for Cam Barker back in 2010.  Leddy was the 16^th overall pick by the Wild back in 2009 out of the University of Minnesota. 

Since arriving in New York, he has been a decent addition for the Islanders.  Both he and Johnny Boychuk were acquired on the same day and were paired up right away. They have since been one of the leagues better defensive pairing, helping to vault the Islanders to the top of the Metropolitan Division, and only one point behind Montreal from being the best team in the Eastern Conference.  Leddy has been used in all situations for the Islanders and has been everything the Islanders could have hoped for.

The 23-year-old Leddy was headed to restricted free agency at the end of this year but is now locked in long term for the Islanders with other main stayers like Travis Hamonic, John Tavares, and Jaroslav Halak. 

From Frozen Pool, let's take a look at his numbers so far this year, and his previous five seasons as well.

There are a few things we can see from looking at this year compared to previous years.  First off, he has already set a new career high for goals scored with eight.  His career high in points is 37 back in 2011/12 and at this rate, he will surpass that number as well.  Leddy is obviously enjoying the larger role he has taken on with the Islanders compare to the Blackhawks, where he was primarily used as a third pairing, or if lucky, a second pairing at best.

If we look at his average cap hit of $5.5M, let's see where he falls in compared to other defensemen making the same type of money. I am going to use the NHL.com and their fancy new stats to compare these guys.  Here's what we have at this point in the season.

For those that are not familiar with these new stat categories, I will try and give you a definition of each one I have selected for comparison.