The only thing is we had that attitude the 1st time around with these players, it didn't work either.
Tree is screwed either way, on the one hand, you let him walk and that's Gaudreau and Nylander that go.
Or we overpay and then have a shit time with Marner re-signing.
I feel like we can probably try for Reinhart (inflated shooting %) or Lindholm 7 years at 8.5-9.5M versus Nylander at 10.5-11M for 8 years.
It's the attitude that should always be had. Overpay top end players if you have to, the rest will fall into place. This is what happens when you play the "let's wait and see how he does " game instead of giving them a little more at the time. GMs waste so much cap space on terrible players that it almost saves them sometimes anyway.
Treliving is definitely not screwed. He had plenty of options last off-season. He chose this route. All he has to do now is get him signed. It's that simple. If he doesn't, it's on him. If he wasn't serious about going this route, he should have traded him in the off-season. But he didn't. Now Nylander is having another career year... He made his bed.
But obviously there's always a limit but that limit shouldn't be an issue if both sides are serious at making it happen. Like Boston and Pastrnak were serious and made it happen. Seems like both sides are very serious about making it happen, so it's finding something that is fair.