There are actually quite a few non-Oiler posters who said this is a decent deal for us. It's the typical Oiler haters that are coming in here and knocking this deal... and a few others that are entitled to their opinion, provided they are being consistent is the Eriksson, Ladd, Okposo and especially the Backes threads.
Lucic got the term he wanted. That was the price of getting him for the Oilers. Deal with his decline in play and cap situation in the future.
The risks of the deal are:
1) CBA now limits the variance between cap hit and salary paid. Think it is 35% difference. So, Lucic's lowest yearly compensation is just a shade under $4 million.
2) With that in mind, you can't know how the teams that have traditionally added these higher cap hit, lower salary contracts will be faring in 5 years. Arizona has a bunch of young talent in their system and should be competing within 5 years. Carolina is re-tooling. Building a solid looking blue line with Faulk, Hanifan, Bean, Fleury, etc who will be entering their prime in 5 years. They lack a big time forward to replace E. Staal. Florida appears to have turned a corner and they shipped out the Savard contract they acquired last year to NJ a couple weeks ago. So, their time of adding these contracts could be at an end given the talent they have on their roster now. LV, don't think they can survive if they don't ice a decent roster.
3) They can always buy out the final years of his contract. Just means that each year that they buyout, there will be $4 million spread over a 2 year period. Gives them a smaller margin of error on future contracts.
But, that is the price of doing business.
