I don't think the organization loving/hating Dvorsky has anything to do with the math on giving a 6 year contract to a guy who will be 34 at the start of next season. That would be horrible no matter what we think of Dvorsky.
As for financial commitments, I think Dvorsky is irrelevant to those considerations as well. We have 3 more years of him on his ELC. Thomas, Kyrou, Buch, and Parayko are the only players currently under contract by the time he's owed any raise. They'll combine for about $31M against a cap that is projected to be over $115M. Any financial commitment we make to a 2C now won't prevent us from whatever contract Dvorsky has earned. He is also not eligible for UFA until after the expiration of all our current contracts, so he could be bridged for contract #2 as well. The cap over the next 1-3 years is a far bigger concern than whatever eventual contract Dvorsky can earn.
But again, we also invested heavily in ROR, who had 5 years of term when Thomas was a bit less down the development path than Dvorsky currently is. And a year later, we gave Schenn an 8 year extension (while he had 1 year left on his deal), which doubled down the heavy investment we made to acquire him the day we drafted Thomas. We made two heavy investments at center despite planning for Thomas to eventually be a top 6 C.
Obviously we need to be smart about the acquisition, even a heavy investment with substantial term on a smart acquisition wouldn't mean that we have soured on Dvorsky.
