How good a player is relative to his peers is just the starting point. Then other things are factored in like...... how many RFA years? How many UFA years bought? How long is the deal overall? Age can play a role as well if they're young enough to have potential upside rolled into their deal.
These things play a big role, yet you keep ignoring them. But they're why Seth Jones has the same cap hit as Fox. It's also why Werenski has the 3rd highest cap hit and not Makar who is 9th.
In your analysis I guess the market froze back in 2021. Lucky for the owners NHL contracts will be the only part of the economy not hit by inflation. Then there is the impact of the "flat" cap era being over. Something that had an impacted on those 2021 deals. Not sure it was a ton but it wasn't zero.
Models are only as good as their inputs.
1) Does that model, parse RFA yrs vs UFA yrs, the amount of UFA yrs bought the length of the deal, etc.? This is why I brought up Werenski/McAvoy in my previous post. They signed for 6yrs instead of 8. Its what worked best for both sides. But there is no way they're not somewhere between 10-11mil if they had signed a 8yr deal. Which makes Dahlin at 8yrs 10mil per look good.
2) How do they factor in NHL production? For example, Dahlin has played in the NHL for all 5 of his post draft seasons. Whereas Fox only played his D+4 and D+5 season before signing (College for the first 3). Dahlin's D+4/D+5 seasons have slightly better production than Fox on a much worse team. But would Dahlin effectively be punished and have his overall production in the model lowered due to his first 3 years? It shouldn't and won't in a real negotiation, but it may in the model depending on how it was set up.
3) What is the sample this model even uses? They're not many dmen to use in this category.
As I said previously, he may take less per year on a shorter deal or just take a team friendly deal like the 9-9.5mil you suggest. But Dahlin has a fairly straightforward argument for a 8x10 deal.
