Those are some good points. Though I do think Swayman still needing 2 more years to get to UFA and him being a bit less established than both Saros & Sorokin works against him and his contract value.
I don't think $8.25 makes him a bargain. I think that's more of the max he could get (2 RFA years @ $6M/yr + 6 UFA years @ $9M/yr = $8.25M/AAV).
I disagree with him being much less proven that Sorokin (who lost his starting job this year in the playoffs). We shouldn't act like Jussi Saros has some super-long history of top notch netminding either. This isn't Hasek or Roy in their primes here. He won't even see the end of that contract. They bought years he won't even be there for, either LTIR'd or bought out.
But him being a bargain is relative to the rising cap. Next year, it's market value.
Say in 2-3 years the cap is over 100 million and now he's a steal. This is a league where very soon we'll see skaters making 14-15 million a year. That's almost double Swayman at 8-8.5 million.
At the end of the day, it's an investment. Most of the time investing in a player for the prime years of their career is a solid investment. Historically in the salary cap era that has almost always been the case with a few exceptions. Look at Ottawa giving Jake Sanderson 8 million after 1 whole season. Pay for future performance, not the past. Every player carries a level of risk but if you believe in the player and that player performs up to the value of what you are paying him, then it shouldn't be an issue. The only bad contracts are those where the player isn't living up to his salary.
If I'm a team, I would much rather pay a guy for his best years than pay him later on when his best years are behind him like Nashville did with Saros.
