1. That was not in the cap era. Many teams in the cap era have their players take less than they would on the open market, ESPECIALLY as RFAs. This includes our direct rivals in Tampa and Boston.
2. People keep saying that nobody on that Detroit team took a discount, but how do you know this? Just because there was no cap, it doesn't mean that the owners were fine keeping everybody together and throwing whatever money they wanted at them. Them being stacked and having a high payroll does NOT mean that players were not taking discounts compared to what they could have gotten on the open market, so that they could keep the Dynasty together.
3. Go back and look at player salaries back then, and tell me it was the same thing. Shanahan made $625,000 in his first year in St Louis after that offer sheet, less than league minimum today. 3 mil total in his first 3 seasons with St Louis. Shanahan, in his highest paid year in the league, made less than what Nylander is asking as a 60-point RFA winger coming off his ELC in a cap world.
4. As somebody who left a situation to go to another team, only to miss out on cups with his old team, I'd say he's in a good position to comment on this holdout and whether he thinks it will be worth it for Nylander, especially in a cap environment where he's much less likely to have options or luck out and end up on a different Dynasty a few years later.
