The NHL’s summer silly season officially has its first cautionary tale, and it arrived not on July 1 but on May 12, the day the Columbus Blue Jackets locked up Charlie Coyle for six more years.
The 34-year-old centre, coming off a 58-point season in his first year with Columbus after being acquired from the Colorado Avalanche last June, signed a six-year, $36 million extension at $6 million per year, running through his age-40 season.
It is a deal that made the hockey world do a double-take. It also made one prominent voice in Toronto media think immediately of a very specific Maple Leafs star.
Charlie Coyle’s $36M Deal Has Huge John Tavares Contract Implications for the Maple Leafs
Carlo Colaiacovo, the former NHL defenceman drafted 17th overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2001, did not need long to connect the dots. He took one look at the Coyle deal and went straight to the most uncomfortable comparison available.
“6 years for a 34-year-old? Tavares must be just throwing haymaker punches at his garage wall,” Colaiacovo posted on X. “Guess we are in line for a crazy summer of spending.”
6 years for a 34 year old? Tavares must be just be throwing haymaker punches at his garage wall. Guess we are in line for a crazy summer of spending https://t.co/cXvD4fAzB9
— Carlo Colaiacovo (@CarloColaiacovo) May 12, 2026
The joke lands because the math is genuinely uncomfortable for Toronto. Tavares, at 35 years old, signed a four-year extension with the Maple Leafs in June 2025 worth $17.52 million total at a cap hit of just $4.38 million per year, a deal that TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun reported Tavares could have fetched $8 million per year on the open market.
He left roughly $14 million on the table across the life of the contract to stay home and continue representing the franchise he grew up supporting. At the time, it looked like a generous hometown discount and sensible cap management from a club already navigating tight salary obligations.
Then Don Waddell walked up to the podium in Columbus and announced six years for a centre of similar age at $6 million per season.
The comparison is not perfectly clean. Coyle posted 58 points in 82 games in 2025-26, his first full season with the Blue Jackets after the trade from Colorado, playing the most durable stretch of his career. He has not missed a game in five seasons, a durability argument Waddell leaned on heavily when justifying the term.
Tavares put up 38 goals and 74 points in 75 games in 2024-25 and is a significantly more impactful offensive player. The Coyle deal arguably overpays for a lesser player at a higher AAV.
But that is not really the point Colaiacovo is making.
The point is that the market for veteran centres is clearly trending in a direction that makes Tavares look increasingly undercompensated. And as the Leafs head into an offseason already defined by uncertainty around Auston Matthews’ future, the optics of their franchise’s former captain sitting on a $4.38 million cap hit while comparable centres earn $6 million is a conversation that is only going to get louder.
For his part, Coyle was emphatic about why he chose Columbus over the open market.
“I’ve seen what we have,” Coyle said. “I’ve seen our potential and I’m excited for it. This is a place that we can win, and I see that potential, and I didn’t want to leave that.”
Waddell said he had no hesitation about the term. “We all age differently. We see a lot of players that are still going at that age,” Waddell said. “Barring something that we can’t predict, that Charlie keeps himself in that condition, that he’ll be able to play through this contract.”
For Toronto, the summer that follows will be defined by far bigger decisions than one contract comparison. But if the opening salvo of the 2026 offseason is Columbus handing a 34-year-old centre six years at $6 million, Colaiacovo’s read on the situation feels right. It is going to be a very expensive summer.
