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PIT

Kevin Hayes

Pittsburgh Penguins RW Age 34 UFA

2025-26· Data as of July 27, 2026

$7.1M AAV
1 Years Left
UFA Expiry

Status derived from CBA rules; edge cases (Group 6 UFA, 10.2(c), 35+ contracts) may be misclassified. Years remaining are not yet tracked.

46 Value Score
46th percentile among forwards
Verdict Low sample

Overpaid ~$1.2M/yr across 2 seasons so far · current season thin

Track record Judged as-of — with only the model and data available each season — this deal has cost −$2.4M over 2 seasons through 2024-25. See how past calls held up →

Career ledger 2014-15 onward · 11 seasons in window

−0.21 cap-years of deficit ≈ −$18.0M

Judged as-of — each season priced with only the model and data available then — Kevin Hayes has cost 0.21 cap-years more than he's delivered across our data window. One cap-year = a full season's salary-cap ceiling.

Career still active — this total will keep moving.

Why this verdict

Why this verdict

Where this contract sits vs. the market

Each dot is a real free-agent signing (2015-2026): 1082 comparable forward deals. The line is the going rate at each talent level, the market convention we price against. Real signings scatter around it; comparable players don’t all sign for the identical number.

Pay, % of cap
← lower talent higher talent →
Cap hit $3.6M Market rate $2.0M −$1.6M vs. the open market

The page’s headline verdict, −$1.9M/yr, refines this by adjusting the market rate for age, contract term. The plot compares to the raw market curve; the verdict adjusts it.

Structurally similar active deals

This contract sits in the Veteran depth region of the contract map. These are the active contracts whose shape is nearest to it, closest in spend, term, age, and role (not how they aged):

Comparable by the shape of the deal, not by team or playing style. Archetypes are broad regions on a continuum; a deal near a boundary is genuinely in-between.

Career Trajectory
VALUE SCORE050100PAY DELTA+$5.1M−$5.1M2014-152016-172018-192020-212022-232024-252025-26
Outlook

Outlook

Aging Curve

Past his peak window

Production index for forwards. The dot marks Kevin at age 34.

Empirical production-by-age index (delta-method WAR fit, 2010-11+). Illustrative of typical aging; the dollar model prices age with a separate, softer decline.

0.250.500.751.0182226303437
2 seasons · −$2.4M

How this deal's surplus has accumulated — each elapsed season judged as-of, scored with only the model and data available that season (no hindsight) and priced at the player's age that year. This retrospective runs through 2024-25; the current-season verdict is shown above. The waterfall builds the running total left to right; the subtotal below is a tally to date, not a forecast. Single-season value is noisy, and early-year deficits partly reflect a lower salary cap — the same AAV was a smaller share of the cap then — while the model tends to underprice an elite player's early-career season, so read the early seasons with extra caution.
Partial record: part of this deal falls outside our as-of coverage, so only its 2023-24–2024-25 seasons are graded here.

$02023-24: −$1.4M−$1.4M23-242024-25: −$1.1M−$1.1M24-25Subtotal through 2024-25: −$2.4M−$2.4MTotal
2 seasons · subtotal through 2024-25 −$2.4M
Full stats

Full stats

Career xG IMPACT/60 0.1

On-ice expected-goals impact per 60 — RAPM-adjusted (teammate- and competition-adjusted) where career 5v5 ice time clears the reliability floor, a raw on-off xG differential otherwise. Not wins. The RAPM figure is career-pooled (one value across seasons); the on-off fallback shows the most recent season.

Production

Counted outcomes — totals and rates that carry shooting and goaltending luck.

SeasonGPGAPTOI
2025-262844812.5
2024-256413102312.0
2023-247913162914.5
2022-238118365417.6
2021-224810213117.9
2020-215512193117.5
2019-206923184117.7
2018-197119365518.3
2017-187625194417.4
2016-177617324916.6
2015-167914223613.7
2014-157917284513.0
On-ice & expected

On-ice shot shares and modeled expected goals — these stabilize faster than goal totals, but xG is an estimate, not a count.

SeasonCF%xGxGF
2025-2652.24.415.5
2024-2553.011.844.1
2023-2445.814.253.4
2022-2349.817.378.2
2021-2244.29.843.8
2020-2150.015.354.9
2019-2049.221.562.4
2018-1950.520.972.3
2017-1845.517.364.7
2016-1743.614.158.1
2015-1648.911.045.2
2014-1551.112.648.3
CF%
Corsi-for percentage — share of shot attempts while on the ice
xG
Individual expected goals from the player's own shot attempts
xGF
On-ice expected goals — team's xG while this player is on the ice
Playoff track record

Playoff track record

About as expected for his caliber (39th pct)

Caliber-adjusted +0.04/60 39th percentile among veteran playoff scorers
Raw vs regular season −0.54/60 1.76 playoff · 2.30 regular-season pts/60 · 19th pct

56 playoff games · 5 postseasons

Descriptive only — not part of Value Score or Fair Value. Playoff samples are small and team-dependent; shown for the record.