Full breakdown of Connor Bedard's first ever NHL contract.

On Monday, the Blackhawks officially announced that they had signed young Connor Bedard to his first ever National Hockey League contract. The news was announced on Bedard's 18th birthday and while this is your standard entry-level contract, it will come with a bigger than usual cost attached for the Chicago Blackhawks.

That's because the Blackhawks have given Bedard everything on this deal including the maximum possible salary of $855,000, the max signing bonus of $95,000, all of his Type A performance bonuses and all of his Type B performance bonuses. That means that although Bedard's contract will carry a cap hit of $950,000, the average annual value of his contract will actually be $4.45 million.

That's because with his full performance bonuses, Bedard can reach an additional $3.5 million in each year of his deal. In the case of Performance A bonuses, a player can earn up to 4 of them in a given season with each being worth an additional $250,000 up to a cap of $1 million.

Here are the milestones that a forward like Bedard can achieve to claim a Type A bonus:

20 goals
35 assists
60 points
Top 6 forward on his team in terms Time On Ice.
Top 3 forwards on his team in terms of Plus Minus Rating.
0.73 points per game
Selected to the All Rookie Team
Selected to the All Star Game
Named All Star MVP

Type B bonuses are worth $2.5 million, are capped at just 1 per season, and are considerably more difficult to achieve. In order to earn a Type B bonus, Bedard will have to be among the top 10 NHL players in any of the following categories in a given season:

Goals
Assists
Points
Points Per Game

Alternatively, he can win any of the following awards:

Hart Memorial Trophy
Selke Trophy
Conn Smythe Trophy
Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy

He can also be named to the 1st or 2nd All-Star Team, a selection made each year by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

Many of these milestones, including most of the Type B bonuses, require a minimum of 42 games played in a season so it will be very interesting to see how much the Blackhawks plan to utilize Bedard right out of the gate.

While this is a good deal of investment on the part of the Blackhawks, no one in their right mind is going to question their decision making here. Not only is Bedard considered to be one of the best talents to come out of the NHL draft in years, but the Blackhawks have plenty of cap dollars to work with. Keeping one of your young stars of the future happy as you go through a rebuild seems like an easy decision.