Maybe I misunderstood - thought you were saying like Zadorov they missed Cole on his last contract, not the current one.
I think he was probably the team’s third best defender if you look at his whole season’s worth of work, but not by a huge margin and recognizing he fell off at the end of the year.
Agree he wouldn’t make a huge difference but there’d be a clearer path forward than with Myers locked up for three years.
I kind of am playing both sides but Cole showed he wasn't a $3MM guy last year. He was good the first 20 and then tailed off as the season went, and then looked really bad playing injured in the playoffs. There's a load management argument to be made separate to this. And we had the space to afford him at the time and he provided what we needed.
But we're on the same boat there given what you've said.
Me saying I'd rather have Cole than Myers contracts going forward but that Cole at his ticket last year actually made sense given the teams salary make up versus this year aren't intended to be dichotomous sentiments
I feel like both those things can be true