NHL teams tended to award lucrative contracts to players before the pandemic, when the salary cap promised to rise steadily. Unfortunately, in recent years, there has been little or no increase, and the big contracts are putting teams in a bind. The effect is quite noticeable, as the majority of free agents signed small deals this summer. Now that the cap is set to rise over the next few years, the leagues stars are starting to be stingy. That was the case with Nathan MacKinnon, and will soon be the case with Auston Matthews. The Leafs star will soon sign a contract worth 13.5 million per year, according to Nick Kypreos. Matthews would then become the league's highest-paid player, ahead of Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon. <blockquote class=twitter-tweet><p lang=en dir=ltr>Insider Drops Major Bombshell Regarding Auston Matthews' Next Contract <a href=https://t.co/aHSmrFcGIm>https://t.co/aHSmrFcGIm</a>- Hockey Patrol (@HockeyPatrol) <a href=https://twitter.com/HockeyPatrol/status/1683670688371200000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>July 25, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src=https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js charset=utf-8>