Quote:
Originally Posted by VilleN
It definitely won't be worth it for the whole contract - but that is pretty much the case with all long term UFA deals.
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Yup, the question is how likely it will come back to bite us.
Kessel's retention is only now coming off TOR's books and hindered them a bit in their prime windows.
DAL - Oettinger, Heiskanen, Hintz, Robertson are a very nice young core four to build around. But they've got Benn and Seguin for 3 and 5 more years.
MIN - obviously a very different case, but Suter/Parise are biting them through the prime years of a lot of good players.
I think it's unlikely the Flames manage to contend with Johnny...the best we can hope for is probably a run like EDM just had. It's pretty hard to imagine CGY anywhere near these TBL/COL teams in the next couple years, and even the next tier of NYR/CAR/FLA/STL/etc seems unlikely. The best reason for hope is the relative weakness of the West, but it'll take a lot of luck to ever get past COL.
Sustained contention will almost certainly require guys like Wolf and Zary and a D-man to emerge as elite players, which probably means at least 3-4 years (think of how long TBL/COL took to go from great to exceptional). If we are so lucky for that to happen, then Johnny may well be a bit of an anchor by then. I'd rather have Lindholm and Mangi/Tkachuk as the older guys on long-term deals in that scenario.
I'd still try to sign him, but I don't think it's particularly dire if we don't.