It was interesting that the sticking point for Peitro signing in St. Louis already wasn't the $7.7M/year offer but the structure of the contract. The only stipulation that I would want on the contract as a front office is that the NMC is lifted/altered for the last three years.
Hall has made $6M/season for the majority of his career. Bumping up to $7M, considering the flat cap, is probably where he would land, and much like Peitro, the only stipulation that I would need on structure would be a removal of trade restrictions on the back end of the contract.
At 30 years old, I think that Markstrom ends up somewhere at $5M/5years, much like Lehner.
It is a good time to be signing UFAs. There is a realization that there is a three year window where it's going to be hard to cash in. The big leverage is a player deciding where he wants to go, but I don't think that there are going to be outlandish bidding wars.
Maybe a GM will get inventive in a way that we haven't seen yet.
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"By Grabthar's hammer ... what a savings."
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