Sorinth
Registered User
- Jan 18, 2013
- 11,729
- 6,395
What is and isn't reasonable is in the eye of the beholder and we have no way of knowing one way or the other what Laine considers reasonable.
But as hypothetical counters to your points,
He failed to live up to his current 8.7m deal so it shouldn't be used as the base
Molson has shown he's willing to front load deals and use signing bonuses that helps reduce the cap hit while the player still gets paid
He will likely want to go from his current M-NTC to a full NTC/NMC, that will come at a cost to the dollar amount
And then there's all the personal reasons that might be willing to give up money for security, family, friend, roster building reasons.
For example, suppose the rumours of Ehlers really wanting to play with Laine are true and reciprocated by Laine. Given that we could be negotiating with both players at the same time if they do really value playing together on the Habs then they will have to take fairly deep discounts to do so. So it becomes a question of how much money are they willing to leave on the table to make that happen, because it's safe to say if Laine is at 9m or higher then it's not just going to happen, but at 7m each it suddenly is something that's workable, are both guys willing to give up 2m a year to make their dream a reality? Who knows but it's a possibility.
Anyways it's not like I feel like we need a discount or we shouldn't sign Laine, and Laine is still very clearly still shaking off the rust from his long absence so until we see him back to form it's kind of pointless to discuss.
