With Senators center Shane Pinto heading into the final year of his contract this season, the team and his representatives held extension talks over the offseason but were too far apart in terms of his value. As a result, those discussions were put on pause with Pinto’s camp wanting to get through the start of the season without any possible distractions.
It appears that will soon be changing. Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that there’s an expectation that the two sides will meet again soon to rekindle those talks.
There have been some interesting moments in contract talks with him before. When he was a restricted free agent back in 2024, there were suggestions that his camp was hoping to solicit an offer sheet in the hopes of landing a contract that was closer to the value they were seeking from the Sens. Considering he wound up signing a bridge deal soon after, clearly one never materialized.
That bridge agreement was a heavily backloaded two-year, $7.5MM pact. The deal sees Pinto receiving $5MM in salary this season. With the qualifying offers being the lower of either his current-season salary or 120% of the AAV ($3.75MM in this case), he’s already set for a raise in his cap charge with his qualifying offer checking in at $4.5MM with salary arbitration rights next summer.
Pinto’s performance and the quickly rising salary cap ensure that he’ll be getting a higher number than that on his next deal. Last season, he picked up a career-best 21 goals and 37 points in 70 games while largely playing in their top six.
This season, he’s off to an even better start. The 24-year-old is tied for the league lead in goals with six through five games and while a shooting percentage of 40 is clearly unsustainable, both sides are certainly hoping that another career year offensively is on the horizon.
Garrioch relays word from a league source that suggested that Ottawa’s offer to Pinto’s camp was a longer-term offer in the $5MM to $5.5MM range, one that would lock him in as their third pivot for years to come. With Tim Stutzle now moved to center and the acquisition of Dylan Cozens at the trade deadline last season, the hope is that those two will lock down the top two center slots for the foreseeable future.
But with that offer coming in not too high above the qualifying offer, it’s understandable that Pinto wouldn’t have wanted to sign that type of deal this early. Meanwhile, a league executive suggested to Garrioch that Pinto might be looking to land a contract with a price tag between Cozens ($7.1MM) and Stutzle ($8.35MM). While his offensive production to-date wouldn’t necessarily justify that, it’s also reflective of the expectation that salaries are set to jump quickly in this new cap environment.
There is definitely some risk in restarting discussions while Pinto is in the middle of a hot streak and Ottawa’s offer certainly won’t be pegging Pinto to keep producing at his current level. But if he has done enough for the Senators to up their original proposal, it might be enough of a step to see if the two sides can get something worked out.