I'm not saying that it wouldn't happen, but I think that would be going against the spirit of the CBA to have actual numbers. And at this point it's pretty obvious they are bickering over numbers (duh).
"We'll give you a year contract at 6M and then we can reassess in January realizing the huge favour you gave us" *wink wink* might be alright.
"We'll give you a year contract 6M and then on January 1st we'll guarantee have a new 9M x 5 years contract to sign" I think would be going against the spirit of the CBA if somehow caught.
It would be hard to enforce, but the bigger issue is that Tkachuk has no guarantee and no recourse if January 1st comes around and the contract isn't there. If he gets injured in the first game, or gets in a fight with Giordano forcing him to be traded, he's out of luck.
The Flames also have no guarantee Tkachuk signs it on January 1st if he's leading the Art Ross trophy race at the time and is now asking for a 10Mx4 year contract at the time. Again, no recourse, no guarantee until pen is to paper.
And the Flames might not want to have a substantially higher cap-hit the following years as well. Using this year as a discounted RFA year to bring down his to contract's AAV cap-hit might make it tough this year but helps the next 4 or 5 years depending on term.
|