What. The damn point of what I said is that Yzerman has a running history of digging in his heels and not moving off his number or his value.
I'm not saying he should magically get ultra-deals for everyone... but when you have an executive that pretty much exclusively plays hardball with his players... he's not going to all of a sudden bend over and take it in future negotiations. Yzerman, being a superstar player for 20 years who received a pretty blessed position in seeing executive activity while he was playing, has shown a pretty good proclivity to understanding what young leaders are looking for. Stammer stuck in Tampa because he could get close to total dollars based off the 8 years and Yzerman knew Stamkos liked the area, the team, and the home feeling.
Larkin's activities right now are not anywhere near indicative of "not trusting that he'll go out and build a winner". 8M is the barest of minimums that his contract should be. Anything starting with a 7 is an insult (judging that he had a 5x6.1M that ate up some RFA years and this is his first full UFA deal).
No, what "us fans" need to do is understand the market for players and the effects of UFA/RFA, the impact of what that extra year that Detroit can give Larkin over other teams, and that while 8M is a lot of money annually, it's also kind of the barest minimum that a guy of Larkin's stature is going to get. Like if the Wings sign him to 8x8, that's a hometown discount.... that is not an overpayment. What we need to understand is that the team isn't looking to jettison pieces at the first sign of "oh god, he might leave for nothing!"
It's more disappointing that Larkin has been a legitimate 1C and people are willing to boot him out the door because he has the f***in temerity to ask for 9M annually.
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