Bennett is a UFA this summer. A left handed #2 center. Would you give him 10 million?
If it costs 10M to get Bennett, no way!
I think that folks are little off their rockers suggesting a 10M payday for Bennett. As much as I like this player, I think that pays g him that kind of money is a fool's errand, personally.
There is no way Hughes crashes through the Cap hit benchmarks he has established based on the contract awarded by Bergevin to Suzuki, followed by his own contracts offered to Caufield and Slafkovsky.
I'm not saying too not overpay a little for Bennett to snag him, but jumping from 4.425M a year to 10M a year for a player that brings value, but stil remains a 40-50 point player at the NHL level is ludicrous.
I understand the need for a 2C and I'm the first to suggest it needs to get solved sooner than later, but the repercussions on the team's Cap structure at 10M will likely cripple our chances to keep a winner together longer and might just give us an infinitesimal window for a Cup run over the length of Bennett's contract as players like Hutson and Demidov look for sharp raises in their 2nd NHL contracts.
We'd become a strong two line team with revolving depth players on a really small dime at that point and that hasn't gone so well for teams like Toronto and Edmonton so far, even though bad management also plays a big role in how bad they have been in the past (maybe not for a short period in the future, though).
Bennett remains a #2 C and is not an elite 1st line C. In Montreal, based on a shutdown C philosophy, where that C can also produce 70-80 points, ideally, Bennett would not exactly be a 1a, 1B C either. Of course, he is a gamer come playoff time and fits the expression, "Some players get you to the playoffs and some players get you through the playoffs," and that has value as an intangible.
I'd argue that Suzuki (and Caufield) have also demonstrated that they raise their level of play come playoff time and they did that as youngsters who could have been crippled by pressure at the time. Instead, they rose to the occasion.
Another such player, in Bennett, will certainly help this team a great lot, but not at 10M.
I think that 8M X 7 years would be plenty, personally, with the contract heavily front-loaded and bonus-laden to make the 8M be closer to 8.5M placed in an actuarial context of present VS future money.
8.5M, given the new Cap context?
10M for a role player, even if the role is important is too much money, even if ewe have room to fit it in.
