It's not as insane as everybody is making it out to be. There have been a few crazy contracts mostly thanks to one special GM, but most have been quite reasonable.
This is the storyline every year. The biggest thing is that the RFA status puts players in a corner, no matter what. He can't sign with another team without the team giving up a ton of draft picks, which limits his potential offers. The longer he waits to sign in the season, the smaller the cap hit the team can feasibly offer him. I don't see what motivation BT has to give in. While Tkachuk is awesome, the Flames can handle things without him for a period of time. That's where having Gaudreau/Monahan/Lindholm/Backlund/etc is important. And knowing that the forwards are relatively healthy, and Bennett can slide into that spot, means there's even less motivation to give in.
Ultimately, the team is able to proceed without the player, and the player loses money by not playing.
On a side note...can offer sheets be presented at any time? Let's say a team like Arizona waits until November 30th, and offers a 7M annual cap hit. At that point, the Flames would need to trade a player to make room for that pro-rated cap hit, but Arizona doesn't need to give up 4 first rounders. Is that possible?
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