Quote:
Originally Posted by transplant99
Well...no.
Unless he has no desire to stay in Calgary, there is a very simple way to keep him.
Offer him what he believes market value is, but do so for a longer term than he is likely to get as UFA.
Don Meehan is his agent and the best in the business in understanding what will work for both client and team and is up front and honest about it with both.
No question that MT is positioned brilliantly to have leverage when the time comes, but that certainly does not mean its 9M or UFA.
Again though...that is some 14 or 15 months away....lots of time for BT to get that info, have a read on things here and make a decision.
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Uh, having to pay whatever he feels is satisfactory to get him signed in Calgary pretty much is treating him like a UFA. It's still a matter of having to make a better offer than he believes he'll get from anywhere else that he would prefer to play.
If he doesn't like the offer from the Flames, and the Flames don't pay him 9M, he's UFA. The only difference is that he doesn't actually know what the other offers on the table are until the Flames refuse to offer 9M.
Pretty easy choice for MT. It's basically “Either pay me 9M, or you need to outbid the market”. Sure, he's not technically UFA at the end of this deal, but he might as well be.