The "credentials" argument is never going to be resolved here. There are 2 different philosophies about paying players:
1)Pay players for what they've done thus far in their careers- The rationale for this is you are paying a player for their actual demonstrated (and possible sustained) level of performance. The downside/risk is that you are paying a player for performance already gone and not necessarily for what they are going to do while under that new contract.
2) Pay players for what you think they are going to do under that new contract- The rationale is that you don't want to pay a player for what they've done in the past, but rather what they'll be. Locking a young player long term while "overpaying" in the first couple years is that you trust this player is going to outperform their contract and you won't have to worry about the UFA years when the price would be even higher. The risk is the player doesn't turn out to be what you think he is.
Teams in the past have typically gone for #1. This means you usually "win" on most of your contracts on young players and RFAs, but lose on older players and UFAs, because they are either no longer worth the $ as soon as they sign that contract and almost never going forward.
Many teams are now moving towards #2. See the recent contracts of Dylan Guenther and Seth Jarvis. Teams are betting on guys they've identified as cornerstone pieces and locking them up. It means they might be overpaying for the 1st couple years but will potentially have bargains as they get to what would have been the 3rd contract.
There's lots of issues I have with the people arguing for the #1 type philosophy but there's one main issue I have with it in regards to Swayman, and it's this:
The huge majority of people now saying Swayman hasn't proven anything and doesn't "deserve" to be paid like a top 5 goalie are the same people who all during the season were talking about Swayman being a top 5 goalie and an untouchable player on the team. They were all for trading a vezina winning Ullmark in order to clear the way for Sway. There was almost no talk of "Well maybe we shouldn't... maybe Sway can't handle a 60 game load.
I'd just like to imagine this scenario- All goalies in the NHL are miraculously made UFAs. Name all of the goalies you'd take ahead of Swayman to be your goalie for the next 8 years.
So I think you are missing huge pieces in this analysis.
The volatility of the goaltender position vs other positions. Half of the top six paid goalies this year had average to below average seasons relative to average starting goalies. lts like if some years Pasta scored 60 goals and some years he scored 20. If forwards were that swingy I doubt Seth Jarvis would be getting such an early commitment. That volatility has been baked into goalie contracts. A few have broken through to 8, 9, 10 million dollar deals after proving over multiple seasons they were more consistent than the pack, but even those guys like Vasi, Bob, Sorokin, etc have had pretty mediocre to even bad seasons with those big AAVs. It’s just a totally different ball game in net projecting guys.
I mean shit, a year ago people would have called you crazy for suggesting 8x8 for Swayman. Shit, before the playoffs no one was calling Swayman a top 5 netminder. Making a big bet based on recency bias is how Nurse got a 9.5m deal.
All that is why all the comps for Swayman are in the sixes. That volatility has been built into the price for goalies of Swayman’s resume. Even at 6.5 AAV, he would be the sixth highest paid goalie in the league, it’s not like that is squeezing him. Should Swayman sign for 8 years at that number? Nope, just like Saros, Helly, Demko, etc didn’t. They all took medium term deals to cash in again later.