He's not coming back, as it should be. Very dumb to burn a year off an ELC of a superstar for a lost season. This is some very short sighted thinking. Very HF Habs.
Looks like burning a year worked out great for Caufield, gonna work out great with Hutson and should be the same with Demidov, although it won't happen in his case.
It's actually quite the opposite. The sooner you can sign a superstar longterm, the better off you'll be down the road because the cap keeps going up. Short sighted is thinking the ELC is the gravy.
A longer ELC means more time for the player to completely breakout and more money you risk paying down the road, which is worth a lot more than that single ELC rebate year you're burning.
Also, it's not a "hfhabs thing" as many teams have done that, including Hughes purposefully burning one year on Hutson. I'm glad he did it because that has the potential to save us a few mil on the cap. We'll be paying Hutson 7-8 mil per instead of 8-9 or more a year later.
Demidov's ELC will also inevitable carry bonuses, making the rebate small compared to what you can cummulatively save year after year by signing him earlier.