When the Jets re-signed Scheifele and Hellebuyck, continued to trade futures for rentals, and held onto own UFA rentals like Ehlers, Iafallo, Appleton, Pionk, they were in essence going all in on the past couple of seasons and the next few. They can't really go half-baked now. All of the main contenders have core players on contracts that will age poorly. Draisaitl will be making 14M at 37, Rantanen 12M through 37. McDavid will be making 16M+ as a 38 year old. On the Jets, Scheifele and Hellebuyck will be 37 in their last contract years, and Connor and Morrissey will follow them.
In contrast to other teams, the Jets core players will be making 2/3 or less of the salary of other top contenders' stars. More importantly, in contrast to many other contenders the Jets can't just take the 7M extra from letting Ehlers go to fill the roster via free agency. They are also constrained from getting prime players on the trade market due to trade restrictions. Also, you gotta give to get, and the Jets' prospect and pick pool has been diminished by years of trades.
Now is also a different cap world than when Wheeler and Schmidt contracts caused problems... the flat cap era created a crunch, but the big cap inflation of the next few years will create more than enough space for a team like the Jets that thrives with depth of talent.
Ehlers is a luxury that the Jets can afford, so why not keep him?
