Well it's a good thing he's on an ELC still, and it's a good thing he's not making 8M next year either. It's really silly to zero in on the fact the AAV starts with a 7 and get worked up over a contract which is equivalent to Plekanec making 5.75M and 6.9M instead of 5M and 6M on his contracts with the Habs. Again, if we're going to be actually rebuilding and acquiring high end talents people are going to have to accept that AAVs for good forwards start with a 7 to 10 now. We have had AAVs under 7M for so long because we haven't had a legitimate top 6 center without massive glaring flaws in his game since Plekanec, and because we traded Pacioretty before his UFA years after he got completely swindled as an RFA.
Danault was cheaper because you can't play him on the PP and you need to spend elsewhere to counteract that. Domi and Desharnais were cheaper because they can't play defence and you need to spend elsewhere to counteract that. Suzuki is paid 0.8% of the cap more than Plekanec was because he's signed for 8 years under a cap which will dramatically rise in 3 to 4 years just as we enter a competitive window, and because he's an all situations top 6 center that is already extremely defensively responsible and fits well on your PP1 and PK1 and has a lot of development runway left to go, on top of some very strong playoff performances already at a young age.
Why would we rather give him 6.5M for the next 4 years and walk him straight to free agency and either lose him or have to pay him 10+ in a few years instead of locking him in at 7.875 for his entire prime? That doesn't make any sense at all, this is the perfect time to pay a little more in year 1 to save a lot in year 5-8. Why should we care about maximizing every cap dollar in 2022-23? All the complaining about this extension just makes no sense to me, we got excellent value here.
