Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
And yet Chiarelli was fired two seasons after making the Finals. And if the Kings don't make the playoffs and win a round or two this year people will start wondering about Lombardi. Managing the cap is a huge part of the job of GMing an NHL team in 2015. It's the difference between engineering a narrow window for success and a wide one.
I understand you have to pay to keep your top players. But it's a matter of timing, value, and age. Negotiating a big 8-year contract where you get 4 years of the player's prime at the cost of overpaying for the final 4 years may be worth it. However, Gio won't be 29 or even 30 when his next contract kicks in - he'll be 33. That means, optimistically, he'll have maybe 2 more seasons of top play left in him. So is getting 2 years of a player's prime worth overpaying him for 5 or 6 years? I don't think it is.
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That's an excellent point, and because of this, I think Treliving will be able to bring him down to a more reasonable AAV, especially if Gio is looking for a longer term (which I suspect he is). Not the $9M that some people are fearing, but closer to $6.5 to 7.0. He'll likely still be overpaid in the last few years but that's the price you pay for value in the first few years. It's also not a reason to trade him given what he bring to this team (IMO), unlike others are suggesting.