Seeing all these signings of older players into their late 30s makes me think all these teams just plan to LTIR-retire these players. For example, anyone can see that tanev’s deal is way too long but it really doesn’t matter… if he starts to decline, he’ll get played less or even become a healthy scratch eventually. By that point, the player likely no longer wants to play and chooses LTIR retirement. Team gets cap relief. They got the player they wanted for 2-3 years and his cap hit is dropped for the remaining years of the deal.
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