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Originally Posted by jayswin
But if Nurse is smart he'll maybe engage in good faith discussion with the Oilers, but ultimately test free agency where he can take every interested team and get the best contract available from every GM, and take that contract with the Oilers if he wants to stay or go to a wicked US city if any of them are the on the upswing and interested.
Not a shot at Edmonton as I fully believe Tkachuk will do the same and they'd both be stupid not to. This was the same boxed in deal that Brad negotiated, both are a failure and will create major cap hits at best and lost players at worst when they're up.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jayswin
Kind of. If Tkachuk is happy in Calgary and with the direction of team at the end of this contract then we at least have that RFA negotiation period at the end of year three.
But if A) the team is still faltering and looking like they won't contend in this build or B) he's shrewd or has shrewd direction and sees it as a no brainer to take a high AAV awarded for year four and negotiate with the whole league a year later (possibly still taking Calgary's deal after putting it through the whole league ringer to elevate it as much as possible), then I believe he'll most likely take the arbitration award and do what's best for him (A full UFA contract and choice of where to play).
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I may be mistaken, but I believe Tkachuk could start negotiating an extension in the summer after year 2? So it's really a 2 year opportunity delay he has before becoming a UFA. 99% of people lock down the guaranteed $50M+ contract as soon as it is available, rather than waiting and gambling on the possibility of increasing that value by 20-30% and/or have more control over their location in 1-2 years. Tkachuk could be the rare individual to take that gamble, as his father has already achieved generational wealth, he could afford to purchase insurance against the risk of waiting, and he just seems like the kind of guy who might bet on himself (and crave self-determination).
In both cases (Nurse/Tkachuk), the player has tremendous leverage to achieve similar value in an extension as what they'd get on the UFA market, without waiting.
The teams also have the ability to recover some assets by trade if the worst-case scenario becomes likely.