The Dallas Stars extend restricted free agent defenseman Thomas Harley to an eight-year contract worth $87 million. His new contract will have an annual average value of $10.5875 million. And who does he owe that number to? Luke Hughes of the New Jersey Devils.
Remember, Luke Hughes held out for most of training camp as a restricted free agent looking for a new contract. He wanted to be paid like a top defenseman in the NHL, similar to Jeremy Swayman was with the Boston Bruins last year. Although Luke Hughes and Swayman were different types of RFAs, Swayman wanted to reset the market for his peers.
While Swayman may not have been reset the goalie market in terms of highest AAV, he reset the market for goalies signing extensions as soon as he did. To remind, Swayman signed an eight-year contractA $66 million contract with an AAV of $8.250 million on October 6, 2024, and his peers followed shortly after.
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People like Linus Ullmark ($8.250 million over four years), Jake Oettinger ($8.250 million over eight years), Thatcher Demko ($8.5 million over three years) and of course Igor Shesterkin ($11.5 million over eight years). The Swayman deal then landed Dustin Wolf ($7.5 million over seven years) with the Calgary Flames, Lukas Dostal ($6.5 million over five years) with the Anaheim Ducks and Filip Gustavsson ($6.8 million over five years) with the Minnesota Wild.
So in retrospect he helped the guys behind him, just like Luke Hughes did. He once signed his seven-year contract for $9 million per seasonthe Anaheim Ducks signed Jackson Lacombe to an eight-year contract with an AAV of $9 million the next day. Which meant that Lane Huston of the Montreal Canadiens would get $10 million, right?
“Not so fast, my friend,” as Lee Corso famously said on College Gameday for years until his retirement last season. Hutson ultimately signed an eight-year, $8.85 million per season deal with the Canadiens, staying within their structure. However, he could have gotten more, but his general manager convinced him and showed him what Connor McDavid did with the Edmonton Oilers; so Hutson took less.
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But when you looked at the numbers, there was a justification for Huston to get paid more than both Hughes and Lacombe based on points and how he was used in the Canadiens system. Similar to Harley, the market said he was a $10 million defenseman based on his play and point production. Not only was he offensively gifted, his defense has improved tremendously.
That’s something you can say about another $10.5 million defenseman in Evan Bouchard’s role with the Edmonton Oilers. Remember, Bouchard signed a four-year, $10.5 million extension with the Oilers over the summer. While his offensive numbers are excellent, Harley has a better overall game.
It looks like Thomas Harley is about to get Evan Bouchard money, which makes sense since they’re statistical twins (feel free to voice it in the comments from Stars fans and Oilers fans; just don’t expect me to care enough to join in). pic.twitter.com/yFVolfLPDB
— David Castillo (@DavidCastilloAC) October 28, 2025
So the market was set before this Thomas Harley deal with the Stars was finalized. Yes, the Stars and Harley were always posting a new expansion. Star GM Jim Nill knew there was time, but he also knew the price for Harley was going up. Harley was seen as part of the Stars’ future, so they made sure to sign him now to make this deal work.
As we can see, it will be a youth competition. The players coming out of their entry-level deals and becoming RFAs make sure they help the players behind them. Jeremy Swayman did it last year, Luke Hughes did it this year. Expect salaries to continue to rise as the salary cap increases.
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