Quote:
Originally Posted by Resolute 14
So Montreal gains because Carolina might be worse five years from now?
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Montreal gains because they made Carolina agree to a dollar amount and a term they didn't want to agree to. Aho is a UFA In 5 years now.
That's likely the new reality now, since the Matthews contract.
The premium UFA's used to only get high AAV after their ELC if they agreed to a long term contract, giving up UFA years.
Matthews and Aho got the dollars and got the term, Tkachuk has indicated he'd like to do the same. Calgary will be under some pressure now to give in, because the threat of an offer sheet is out there.
Paying premium RFA"s more dollars now and them hitting UFA earlie will help parity. Most of the top teams have dome very little to improve themselves; instead, most are just trying to solve their cap issues. The lower teams have taken advantage of that by improving. Chicago is an example of that.
With the best team getting worse, and the worse teams getting better (due partly to teams not being able to pay younger players less than before), you see more and more that bubble team make the playoffs and advance farther than expected.