McDavid and Drai are already slowing down physically. It's clear as day. McDavid is slower even before the injury. I don't know how many more years they have left in their prime. I'm not sure some of you guys are comfortable with 16M for McDavid and 14M for Drai and still call it a discount. That's insanity. Broberg and Holloway won't be cheap for much longer. Look at how much Bouchard is going to make? He went from 1M to 9M in 3 years and he has warts.
An injured McDavid just put up 42 points in the playoffs. In doing so his top speed, overall speed bursts and total distance skated were 99th percentile. In fact his top speed these playoffs was faster than it was in the 2022 playoffs. His top speed in the regular season was also slightly faster than it was in the 2021-2022 season. Suggesting that it is clear as day that he is slowing down is pretty hard to justify.
Under normal circumstances the current revenue numbers would dictate a cap in teh mid 90's or more. This has been limited by the need to resolve the covid issue. But it will have to return to normal soon. The one big unkown going forward is what happens with the next CBA. It is possible that there is an agreement to limit escrow my modifying the formula for calculating the ceiling. If that happens though there will probably have to be some other modification to the existing cap calculation.
In any case though once all of the core is signed you should have lots of options going forward. The cap would probably rise by $5M+ per year.