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With the NHL preseason underway, the opening night roster is taking shape for the Ottawa Senators. But one order of business yet to be addressed is getting a Shane Pinto contract extension wrapped up.
Shane Pinto Contract Extension
Shane Pinto is entering the last year of his two-year, $3.75M deal he signed back in the summer of 2024.
It’s a priority of the Senators to get a deal done with the centre, although throughout the offseason, there has been more or less radio silence around Pinto.
Shane Pinto is coming off a season that saw him score 21 goals while adding 16 assists in 70 games. But those stats only tell half the story of what Pinto brought to the Senators’ lineup.
Throughout the second half of the season and into the playoffs, it was Pinto’s line that took on the strongest defensive responsibility. The trio of himself, Ridly Greig, and Michael Amadio was elite down the stretch.
There was an argument to be made that it was Ottawa’s best line from the Four Nations break on. Even in the postseason, they did a solid job against the top-end players on the Maple Leafs.
Shane Pinto In The NHL Post-Season
You may remember Shane Pinto scoring a huge short-handed goal in Game Four against the Maple Leafs. It was a goal that showcased Pinto’s value to the team without being on the power play.
So now, it’s time to sign Shane Pinto to an extension that will keep him in Ottawa for the foreseeable future.
He has yet to have that breakout offensive season, in part because of opportunity, but also because of his missed time due to injury and suspension.
We have all heard that agents love to use contract comparables when negotiating extensions. Luckily for Ottawa, Pinto’s offensive numbers haven’t been elite, and in theory, they shouldn’t lead to the team breaking the bank.
Steve Staios Speaks On Shane Pinto Extension
So with all of that said, Steve Staios was asked where things stood with a Shane Pinto extension. Although he made sure not to tip his hand too much, Staios stated the following.
Shane Pinto is an important part of this team, and I look forward to having more discussions to make him part of this core moving forward
We need to do a little bit of reading between the lines on this quote. One area to focus on is Staios explaining that he wants to make Pinto a part of the core moving forward.
You may be asking why this matters—let’s take a look. First and foremost, Staios mentions “making” Pinto a part of the core moving forward. Now, with any core piece, you would expect a contract to be at least mid-tier in length (3+ years).
What This All Means
With the cap rising, there’s no reason to think the Senators wouldn’t want to go long-term with Shane Pinto. After all, we’ve seen just how important he is to this team at both ends of the ice, and that’s something Staios realizes as well.
The other big question to consider is what kind of money Shane Pinto could get on a long-term deal. To figure that out, I want to use Anton Lundell’s contract as a comparable.
Lundell, like Pinto, had production that was largely in the 35–45 point range. That said, he was also extremely important to the Panthers in the defensive zone, just like Shane Pinto.
Shane Pinto Contract Comparison
Lundell signed a six-year extension at $5M per season back in July of 2024. Although Lundell was more proven than Pinto and slightly younger, he also plays in a no-tax state, which needs to be taken into consideration.
If we allow those factors to cancel out, it’s not unreasonable to imagine Pinto comes in at the same range—or perhaps slightly above—considering the rise in the salary cap over the next few seasons.
When the Lundell deal was signed, it accounted for 5.68% of the salary cap.
If we take 5.68% of the salary cap and apply it to the start of the 2026–2027 season, when Pinto’s extension would kick in, we get a number of just over $5.9M.
With all of this in mind, I am going to project Shane Pinto to sign a contract that pays him $6M per season for the next six seasons. In layman’s terms, it would be a six-year, $36M deal—one that would take Pinto into his early 30s.
Although there’s always risk with signing a young player long-term, what Pinto has shown makes me confident that the Senators would get surplus value out of this contract.
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