I'm still going to come back to the free agent/contract discussion. Hey, it is summer and a long way to training camp.
The Shattenkirk situation is, in many ways, a case study.
Let's say that he had come to the Rangers and said, "I really want to play here. The best offer I have from elsewhere is 6 years at an average cap hit of 6.85. Match it and I'm yours."
As an organization, what do you do. It is long contract for a puck moving D. So you say to yourself, "OK, we'll take 3-4 good years, and just deal with what he will be like at ages 34 and 35. We know he might be down on the depth charts, slower, and a hindrance to the cap....but 3-4 good is worth 2-3 bad."
Or do you say, "he is exactly what we need, a right-side PMD, but at that length of deal, we don't match it. Let him sign elsewhere."
It's not as easy being a GM as many would assume it is. These are difficult decisions on every level imaginable.
My take: though it is easy to say that you can't sign a player based on what he has done in the past, in this day, age, sport, and marketplace, you have no choice but to sign a player based on current production, even past production. If you feel the player is worth the risk, you do it, and live with the consequences. And, if you are strong mentally, you don't beat yourself up with contracts that go bad. Being a GM is not a job for the timid. So, yes, I'm willing to sign players at age 28+ to long-term contracts. I know that it might go bad, and go bad quickly. I know that in the long term, it is certain to go bad. I also know that while the player is productive, it would be a good, empowering, and highly productive move that moves you up in the standings and wins you an extra playoff round or two.. I'm not advocating signing a raft of UFAs, as in the old pre-cap days, but a judicious use of cap space (clearing a contract like Stepans' and using the money elsewhere, for example.
But it comes back to that same question, a question w/o a scientific, analytical answer: how do you know which 28-30 year olds to sign, especially if the analytics show the player to still be productive, and which to pass on? How do you know how that player will be in 4 or 5 years? Yes, there is a comparative aging curve to study, but you just don't know, do you?
