The structuring of Svech's salaries that way was mostly due the escrows negotiated coming out of Covid. For the first 2 seasons of Svech's deal the maximum escrow amounts as agreed to by the NHL and NHLPA per their MOU that extended the CBA were higher than normal as the players had more of their salaries withheld to payback the overages from the Covid impacted seasons.
Those baseline maximum escrow percentages for Svech's contract were 14% in year 1 and 10% in year 2. They are 6% for the next 3 seasons. At the time Svech signed that deal, most players/agents intentionally were negotiating lower salaries in the seasons where the Covid related larger escrows were in play. Those high escrows and large balances due to the NHL guarenteed that the player would keep less of their salaries those years than normal.
Jordan Martinook's contract shows the same setup over those same first 2 years ($900k, $1.8 million, $2.7 million). Dougie Hamilton's deal also shows that desire to avoid losing larger percentages of salary to escrow in 21-22, and 22-23 ($6.3 million, $6.3, $12.6, $12.6, $11.55, $8.4, $5.25). I'm sure there are plenty more examples of that temporary switch in thinking where players wanted lower salaries upfront. I think Dougie's deal is the best example of it.
All about making sure the players keep more of their salary. Now that we are back to smaller escrows, most sizable player deals that start next season will return to the players wanting as much of their money upfront as possible.