Probably walk on all 4 (or trade in Hoglander's case).
Also that Suter projection is horrific. His resume/profile hasn't changed since he signed his deal here and he'd be looking at a contract similar to Heinen.
Yeah. That projected Suter contract is laughable. It's clearly an analytics projection based on his scoring rates/underlying stats...rather than actually considering context and properly assessing what he is as a player.
The same reason he was available to us on a 2-year sub $2M "bargain deal" is the reason he'll be available to somebody for a relatively cheap "bargain" contract again after this one. Same reason Chicago walked away from him when faced with the prospect of paying him more, and let him wander off to Detroit...who also cut him loose.
He's a useful "utility player". That's it. His numbers aren't really a reflection of anything that he does particularly well. They're a reflection of the fact that he's versatile and
just good enough to make himself an option for playing "3rd wheel" on a Top-6 line with much better players in the absence of actual Top-6 scorers.
As we've seen with him, and just saw again with the price for Heinen...teams don't pay these guys. They don't tend to give them term or dollars, and they're generally loathe to make any major commitment to guys that they fully view as temporary "filler".
I'm a bit confused, Hoglander scores 24 ES goals last season. Why exactly do you guys want to walk away from him at 2.5m? That's tied withgguys like Aho, Keller and Boeser.
I get he wasn't great in his first playoffs, but he plays a style that should thrive there and I don't put a lot of stock into a young player's first post season. We spend a lot of time talking about guys providing excess production for their contract, and even at 2.5m that seems like a very good deal.
The thing is...Hoggy's game
isn't really built that well for the playoffs. It's built to be a little buzzsaw in the regular season, where he's only effective at all when he's running at absolute maximum intensity and effort at all times. But when the playoffs hit...he simply doesn't have another gear to get to. He's not big enough, fast enough, or skilled enough to elevate from there when the speed and physicality all ramp up and everyone else starts to join him up there at 110% effort.
Nobody is saying that, they're saying he isn't worth his potential arbitration award, which is what a qualifying offer would commit you to.
Technically though, once you set that process in motion with a guy like Hoglander by submitting his QO...you're on the hook for potential player elected salary arbitration. Where things can get super goofy with a player boasting Hoggy's potential stat line. It can put you in a really awkward spot where you're paying well north of what he's worth...but not meeting the "walk away" threshold. So you're stuck with him. At a price that could be something stupid like $4M+ if he somehow replicates his unsustainable goal-scoring again.
Hoglander is going to be a really tricky deal to figure out. I love the guy, he's a good player who is currently providing crazy value at $1.1M. But he's also an awkward "misfit" who doesn't play well with Top-6 players, but isn't suited to a checking role and doesn't contribute anything at all to STs either. He's also more of a fringe 15-20G guy. He's always going to shoot at a higher rate than most, simply because of the type of goals he scores. But that's still going to fluctuate and dip from the insane SH% bender he was on last year.
So what is a small, slowish, defensively mediocre, non-STs contributing ~15G - 30pt winger really worth going forward? He's an infectious pesty little buzzsaw when he's "on" so there's value added there. But it's tough to commit a lot of salary and term to a player like that. As much as he's a personal favourite of mine to watch, when he's going.
I think there's a very high likelihood that unless he opts to take a super team-friendly deal that makes sense, he ends up trade bait. Maybe even sooner, rather than later. He's just unfortunately in that sort of mushy part of the roster without a well-defined role, where you ideally want to be able to continue churning guys over and trying to bring in "homegrown" talent to replace him on cheap ELCs/starter contracts like the one he's on now, and Podz just got.