I don't think Schenn will be that hard to resign, even if he finishes with 60 points, that's really where he was expected to be at this point. With the flat cap, player expectations will be deflated, and no one is going to give up the picks required to make an offer Hextall can't match. Schenn also knows this team is going somewhere, and I think he wants to be part of it. He might get more than Simmonds, I'd think something like Couts. And it won't surprise me if Hextall extends Simmonds with a sweetner over his current salary to take his deal into his early 30s.
They'll be dumping a lot of salary off the defense the next two years (Medvedev $3M, Schultz $2+m, Streit $5.25M) and bringing in cheap forwards, so they can afford to pay their core guys over the next 3-4 years without any pain.
I think VV is here for the same reason Manning is here, until some big young guys show up. This team really doesn't have a lot of size, and you don't want Simmonds playing enforcer, Gudas is a marked man, who else brings that aspect to this team? In two years they'll have Morin, Provorov and Sanheim on defense with Myers on the way, maybe Ghoul as a forward, AK, Lindblom, won't surprise me if Hextall looks for a bigger guy who can skate for the 4th line. Konecny and Leier will bring speed, but you need to balance the water sprites with some bullfrogs.
