A talented veteran that our young players can look up to and learn from is a ****ing leader, whether you said it or not.
Keep moving those goalposts. You implied I wanted him signed just for his leadership, then I refute that, then you yell at me saying "YES HE IS A f***ING LEADER". Ok whats your pont?
We wouldn’t have dead weight contracts if we didn’t make stupid decisions in free agency, or by retaining our guys. I see Panarin as a good short term move and a bad long term move. The problem there is we shouldn’t give a damn about the short term. You said it yourself, this team isn’t going to compete until the dead weight is gone. Why are we signing Panarin to the largest contract in our franchises history if his peak is going to be burned while we’re in the early stages of our rebuild?
This is the crux of our disagreement, I think Panarin is going to be a great player for many years. Yes, beyond the first 3 where he is "at his peak". I wouldn't be interested in signing him unless I thought otherwise, because he is not just a stop gap. As i've previously explained, he would be a foundational piece that this young team could build around for years to come. Why do I have to keep re-explaining my points? It's as if you don't care what they are, that you aren't here for a discussion, but just to stroke your ego.
Stability? I’ll tell you what ****’s up your teams stability. Albatross contracts. Panarin is not an 11M player now in his prime. In 3-4 years when this team is ready to hopefully compete, he’ll be even less worthy of that contract.
We have ~$43 million dollars coming off the cap in the next 2 seasons. The cap will rise on average at minimum $2 million per year, probably closer to $3 million, judging by the yearly growth since the previous lockout. This doesn't even consider the windfall of money, and thus cap increase, for when seattle enters the league. Cap rose close to $5 million when Vegas entered the league. The team will be stuffed to the brim with ELCs and young players for a very long time. Why not spend some of that 50 or so million in cap space on the best UFA winger since Kovalchuk (in 2010)? And even still, Gorton isn't necessarily going to offer him a Tavares max contract. He could very well get 11mill/5 years or take a bit less money over 7 years if NY is his preferred destination. We saw Tavares leave money on the table to go to Toronto.
If you want a veteran option or two to shield our younger guys, sign them to short term and affordable contracts in free agency.
If we don't land Panarin, I'd probably expect this be the route to take. Though I don't feel this will be of much use. Perhaps Pavelski would sign a 2-3 year deal. I don't want to see the team offer a long term contract to a player like Duchene, Nyquist, Skinner etc.
Panarin was not an 11m player for Columbus this season. He’s a very good player but he’s not 12-13% of your teams overall cap space good. There are only a handful of players on the planet that are.
Don't know what CBJ games you were watching (id guess little to none judging by this comment), but he was far and away their best forward. He consistently made his linemates better and opens up ice when he is on it. Has the puck on a string whenever he carries it. Makes some pretty unbelievable passes on a nightly basis. This season scored 87 points, next highest 3 players scored 69, 61, 47. Last season he scored 82, next 3 highest were 57, 48, 46. This is in a Torts system. He was more than a PPG player in the playoffs both last year and this year, and has scored 26 in 27 playoff games lifetime.
