It's not a question of whether Bolland is a better player than a guy like Goc. The question is, how much better is he? 4 million better? Even Bolland's biggest fans would be delusional to admit that.
Bolland's reputation comes from his playoffs four years ago. It's ridiculous to overpay to the extent we did because the guy had one great postseason for our GM four years ago.
I would say Bolland is 2 million better than Goc, with 2 million over payment, BUT Bolland also has much higher upside due to his age, and history. Goc is what he is at his age, where Bolland has been hampered by injuries, so he hasn't had much opportunity to reach his potential. Also consider that he was not needed to produce points in Chicago ever. In Florida he will be leaned on to produce 5 on 5, more regularly with likely more ice time.
And we signed Bergenheim for one playoff performance, and I remember when he was signed people thought it was an overpayment at the time, but IMO he was our best, most valuable signing that year. It's too bad he missed a year and a half due to injury, but he came back last year and didn't seam to miss a beat.
The thing with comparing Goc with Bolland, is that Goc is a much more replaceable asset than Bolland. Good 2 way centers that excel at pk, with grit and scores at even a .5 clip are not very common in the nhl. In fact I challenge anyone to find an identical skill set, at his age, in free agency now.
And as someone else mentioned, 2 million overpayment with 69 million cap, and going up, is a drop in the bucket, if he stays healthy. And I'm not saying that it's not a risk, it is a tremendous risk, but Tallon isolated the type of player he needed and payed what he had to, thanks to the maple leafs driving up the price.