Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
I don't think there is any forward in the league that I would definitely want more than Kopitar moving forward. Toews, Kane, Crosby, Tavares, maybe Seguin and until this year Getzlaf would be about equal with him for me.
So I would say he is not not a top 5 player, but not necessarily a top 5 player. The 13ish way tie for best player sounds about right.
The Hurricanes are the only team in recent memory that have won a cup without having at least two of the top 25 players in the league at the time (almost always including C, D and/or G).
The Kings still have top 25 C and D, and a G on the fringe of that. There chances of a cup are much better with Kopitar than without.
|
Well said. On top of that, how often does a team get to have a No 1 C (one of the best in the league), a No 1 D (arguably the best in the league) and a No 1 goalie (there are less than 10 of them in the league right now)? Only 2 teams have that right now IMO... we haven't been able to have that combo in 25 years.
If you got the window, you go for it... whatever happens in the future, happens. Maybe 2 years will suck of having to dump draft picks for cap dumps, but I'll bet we see another round of compliance buyouts. The CBA expires in 6 years, so if we do get any kind of variation of a compliance buyout, this could very likely be more like a 5 year, $10M AAV deal (with extra dollars in Kopitars pocket for a buyout).
(Side note : I noticed both Gaborik and Carter's deals $$ value drop to $3M in 3 years, I'd expect if their window is closing in 3 years, some team looking to reach the cap floor will probably take on their contract, probably for a 2nd round pick.)