Drury on the hot seat if he already offered $11m as reported.
Backed himself into a corner.
Either he honors that number if Shesterkins agent walks back and agrees now, or Drury recinds to a lower number and pisses off his star player.
Either way, all these goalies that are A tier just in the - or even side taking ~$8m/per is making Igors (A+ tier) ask of $4m extra a bad look in a capped league for a position that, if he gets hurt, the team has a serious burden to try and cover.
As stated before by others, you can't just compare contracts. It might work for owners/organizations, but it doesn't work for the players. Dallas isn't NY, and while some might prefer Dallas, that doesn't change how far your money can go. Whether Igor stays in his apartment in Manhattan (may have already moved), or lives in CT like Kreider, speeding more time traveling, the expensive are just going to be different for at least 8 years, while be taxed a higher rate. Again if you're an owner or in position to sign players you probably don't care and all you see is numbers against the cap, but for players it means a lot to have more of your money not go to your bank account or investments. A change where tax is calculated at a central NHL location would even it out a bit, but taxes don't work that way and they already said the feeling is leveling the playing field would be too complicated.
Realistically if you say Igor is a 9-9.5M goalie in a market like Dallas, then he's going to need 11'ish or more in half the league. Maybe more if if you include big signing bonuses as that will be taxed at a higher rate. That doesn't even take into consideration for insane living areas. It's just too hard to put a cap on a goalie in the NHL when comparing contracts.
If Igor takes less of an early signing bonus to not get hit with NY taxes, he's losing out on investing that money and having it grow. It's not just "Insert" how much the difference is over the period of the contract.
But unfortunately the goal is to win and if you're an Owner/GM, you have to think about your team first and not the player who is taking a hit on income playing for you over another team, and I just don't know how you do that paying 11+ on a goalie.