I disagree with you. I think Gaudreau and Mangiapane get 9m and 6m respectively. Marner is at 10.9, Panarin at 11M. Gaudreau is only slightly worse than those players. Mangiapane is almost a lock to score more than 30 this year. 6M is likely a starting point for him. You could be correct on Kylington. He's a very hard player to comp. He's worth 5.5 this season, but his lack of past success may keep his number down somewhat.
Lucic won't waive for Seattle. 0 chance of that. He likes Calgary and wants to win. If you could find a team competing that's a budget team then maybe. Seattle is a bad hockey team.
Marner is an anomaly in every aspect here, awful example. Panarin went to the market to get paid and that was before the flat cap which we are still in (cap going up 1M doesn't change it from being a flat cap era). Landeskog is a slightly worse player than Gaudreau and was asking for 9M on the market, instead he signed a team friendly deal to stay in Colorado and get the extra year. The situation with Gaudreau will be about the same, but have a higher number. 8-8.5M is the range Gaudreau will likely fall into at 8 years. No other team can offer that 8th year, at 8.5Mx8yr a different team would have to offer over 9.7M just to give the same amount of money.
Mangiapane scoring 30 doesnt lock him for 6M by any means, did you forget who Calgary's GM is? He is arguably the best RFA negotiator in the league.
Comparable contracts for Mangiapane at age 26:
Beauvillier: 24, paced 26 goals 49 points, strong 2-way game = 4.15M x 3 years
Konecny: 22, 22 goals 49 points, based more on potential = 5.5M x 6 years
Buchnevich: 26, paced 30 goals 73 points, strong 2-way game = 5.8M x 4 years
Bjorkstrand: 26, paced 26 goals 64 points, excellent 2-way game (on rebuilding team) = 5.4M x 5 years
Teravainen: 24, 21 goals 76 points, excellent 2-way game = 5.4M x 5 years
How do you know where Lucic will and won't waive to? He literally waived for the expansion a few months ago (to Seattle). Again I'll use Anton Stralman as an example, like Lucic he has a M-NTC and was on a highly competitive team (way more of a contender than the Flames). He did not block a trade to Arizona, a team clearly tanking with zero intention to compete for the final year of his contract. Lucic could very well be satisfied with his career next year and want to be closer to home for the majority of the season (then might get moved at the deadline for a final run). He may want to buy a retirement home down south too. You are speaking in absolutes when that is not at all the case.