I admit I haven't seen Horvat playy but looking at his stats he doesn't appear to be a playmaker with almost a 50/50 split of goals and assists ove his career. His plus minus tends to the negative.
to be fair, these numbers are heavily swayed by:
1. playing 2c behind pettersson
2. being on a non-playoff team for so long
he has a really good shot and more skill than people give him credit for. very good power play guy, elite face-off guy, checks the intangibles box (captain, high compete level), solid two-way player.
not a star level player but IMO he's a #1 center in the sense that he could be the top center on a good team. on a contender, he's a #2.
the hope is that johnson or the 2023 pick end up as the eventual #1, but in the short-term, having horvat - jenner - sillinger - kuraly down the middle is pretty solid given how good the wingers are on this team.
If not than paying him 8mm or so for 7 years seems a bit risky to me. Short term I think he fits in the cap. Longer term he could be a cap hog if KJ, Marchenko, Chinakpv, Jiricek,, et al. develop the way we all hope.
i think it's more likely to be something around 9m over six years rather than 8m over 7.
either way, the cap is going to go up by about 10m over the next four years. by then, the going rate for a second line center on the open market is going to be around 9m anyway. first line centers will be in the 10-12m range.
jiricek's ELC is going to slide, so that's three cheap years
after this one. johnson, marchenko and sillinger each have another ELC year after this. chinakhov is an RFA this summer.
johnson/chinny are both 10.2(c) guys so they're ineligible to sign offer sheets or go to arbitration. that'll keep their contracts low. marchenko and sillinger also won't have arbitration rights after their current deals IIRC.
in other words, none of those deals will break the bank. the contracts
after their next ones will be pricy, but by then horvat could be off the books and the cap will be way higher anyway.